http://microstoryaweek.blogspot.com/.
STEVE ISAAK HAS VARIOUS WRITERS: GARY RUSSELL, NICK NICHOLSON, STEVE AND MYSELF SUBMITTING SHORT 500 WORD STORIES…OR COLLECTIONS OF THESE.
MY “METAMORPHOSIS’ FLASHER SERIES IS BEING RUN BY STEVE ON MICROSTORYAWEEK.
THE WRITERS ARE EXCELLENT AND THE READING IS GOOD!
LADY NYO
Four years ago I discovered shibari. In Japan, it means the tying of something, usually packages, but an earlier meaning is “the tying of the heart’. It has a long history in Japan and was used to secure prisoners. In the West, it refers to the practice of rope bondage, and the word shibari has become common for this practice.
Shibari is a powerful practice. It can be abused and misused. In my experience I came to understand that shibari was a many-layered issue. I have written about Shibari, in “The Shibari Series” in my first book, “A Seasoning of Lust”, and also numerous essays on my blog. Some can be found with a Google search on Shibari.
“The Punishment” was a poem written from that time.
Different opinions abound on rope bondage. There is the issue of control and power, but this entry is not the place to discuss that topic. I have had different experiences with shibari, but one thing I do believe: the intent or the expectations of either the binder or the person bound are trumped by what I call “the power of the ropes”. To the Japanese, in the religion of Shinto, everything has a spirit. It is called Kami.
From a writing on Shinto religion:
“Kami is the sacred or mystical element in almost anything. It is in everything and is found everywhere, and is what makes an object itself rather than something else. The word means that which is hidden.
Kami have a specific life-giving, harmonizing power, called musubi, and a truthful will, called makoto (also translated as sincerity).”
I don’t believe in much mystical stuff, but I do believe in kami, especially as it pertains to the practice of shibari.
I have experienced them.
Lady Nyo
–
THE PUNISHMENT (Shibari Series)
–
While binding me for his pleasure
I uttered displeasing words,
And with a level glance
He considered his options.
–
Too soon he knew
What punishment to apply!
Grabbing my hair
Twisting it in his hand
He pulled me to my feet
And opening the shoji
Pulled me out into
The spring’s snowy morn.
–
Telling me to kneel,
This time I obeyed,
shivering in fear.
Drawing an early cherry blossom from his sleeve
(a gift that was to be mine)
He threw it in the snow.
It was his pleasure for me to feel
The sharpness of morning
Until the soft snow had covered the blossom.
–
I, who a month ago would have not cared
What I said,
Now trembled with humiliation
Feeling more than the cold air.
–
When sentiment grows deep and the heart is overflowing
One submits and becomes a slave to love.
–
I knelt in the snow,
my nakedness and tears
Showing my shame to the courtyard.
A crow in the cherry tree
Laughed without mercy.
–
Fearing I would die
The blossom now covered with snow,
He came and
Picked me up in his arms-
Carried me to the warm brazier,
Tucked me deep amongst his robes
And sang a soft song of the foolish maiden
Who would die for the last word.
–
Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2008, 2011
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