More With.

If you don’t know, you need to know. There is a magnificent human, LadySpeech Sankofa aka QuiAnna Ray, and you absolutely need to pick up what she’s laying down. She often shares on Facebook, and does weekly reading and affirmation shares. One afternoon in October, I tuned in for QuiAnna Ray’s Monday reading. On this particular day, she drew a card that was labeled “THE SLAVE” so this of course perked my ears up…this ain’t yo average tarot deck!

As I was listening, truly feeling seen as she integrated the reality of power exchange relationships into her interpretation of the card, she spoke to how critical it was that we not see submission as a weakening or as a loss of our power. Then she said something that absolutely electrified and grounded me in the same moment:

Surrender does not mean you become ‘less than.’

Surrender means you become ‘more with.’

Lady Speech Sankofa

My heart leapt up. This. This was a pure distillation of the path I have been walking for these five years.

My ower and I have recently celebrated five years together. In these five years it feels as though we have lived at least enough for three times that measure. SO much travel, so many adventures, so much growth. My decades of longing for submission has been tried and tested and I have engaged with my desire for surrender in ways that I could never have anticipated.

One of the most challenging aspects of my submission to the particular human to whom I submit is the measureless sensation of subsuming. The first year or so, I felt as if my own life stream was flowing endlessly into his. The erasure of self, the movement towards becoming pure manifestation of his will into reality…these were goals I’d set forth to achieve decades ago, when I knelt before the first dominant I consciously longed to serve. And I dove deeply into that abyss…and I hated who I became. I felt weakened. Dispossessed. Dissolved. My self-esteem, never really very coherent, somehow degraded into an even more friable shell, incapable of protecting me from the inevitable emotional damage that follows a loss of Self. It took me years to recover. Years, and a rollercoaster ride of self-loathing as manifested by serious alcoholism, and the eventual recovery from that pain. Sobriety, reclamation of self, work work work…stumbles and victories and, finally, a total submission to my own reality and taking life on life’s terms. By the time I walked into the home of the man who would immediately become my master and soon become my husband, I was surefooted in my ability to function as my own strong individual, and confident that, while I absolutely wanted to be embraced in an m/s dynamic, I did not need this to feel fulfilled as a human. I was not, ever again, going to be fully dependant on anyone else to find joy in my life.

And yet, within a year, I started to have doubts. His needs encompassed my day-to-day so completely, I found myself losing sight of the “Me” I’d (re)discovered in my sobriety. To call him “high-maintenance” would be a savage understatement. Not only did I not have time to think about my various careers – as a writer, as an actor, as a lecturer – I didn’t see how my life as previously lived could align with his, with all the international travel were doing, with all of the work I had to do to make it happen. And forget about performing in theater! We were never in one place long enough for me to commit to a rehearsal period, let alone the full run of a show! AND if I DID pick up the occasional speaking gig, my focus at the convention would be on his overwhelming desire to connect and play with other kinksters, so much of my attention was on manifesting these opportunities for him. A heavy workload for someone accustomed to only having to take care and clean up after themselves.

And then, about a year into our relationship, in a discussion about my recovery, I mentioned that I had done some storytelling around my sobriety and the very surreal turn life had taken as I was in rehab. How my addiction had appeared as a violent and mean-tempered Hyena, screaming its need for oblivion through intoxication.

I gave him the link to my appearance on NPR’s “Snap Judgement,” and he sat in his home office listening to it. He returned some minutes later, tears in his eyes, and said “I will write music for this.” I was stunned. “What do you mean?” “I will write the music, you will tell the story of you and the Hyena.”

Well.

I wrote the story. Expanded on it. Gave him the words and he pulled the music from wherever he obtains his inspiration. We pitched it, and started hearing “Yes.” First from the Wien Modern festival, then the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival…then home in New York City in the Time Spans Festival. We performed in Austria again, this time in Graz, and in Amsterdam, as part of the Holland Festival. The producers of the Holland Festival, pleased by the piece, are interested in booking the inevitable sequel to “HYENA….” because of course there must be a completion of the arc of the story! The coming season of 2019 will see us perform the show in Germany and Russia….and Ganesha knows where else. Our collaborative efforts blossom from here. After this piece follows two more, a triptych that will tell the tales of my journey from the darkness of alcoholic despair to the stunning turnaround where this story is told on the stages of the world. We have created the space for me to write the libretti for 2 different operas he wishes to score…it is just a matter of time until these are brought to life onstage.

This past year also saw the worldwide release, on the documentary circuit, of “The Artist and the Pervert,” a film about our lives and our art. It has won an award and will soon have a theatrical release in Germany. I would never have thought that I’d be so candid about the life of myself and my owner, but here it is. Together, our life and love is a story that demands to be told.

I am. More. With. I am more together with him than I could ever have anticipated before I and he became Us. Greater than the sum of the parts. A dynamic fusion that generates a being unstoppable in our energy and power.

THIS is why I submit. THIS is what I hope everyone who gives themselves over into these dynamics can achieve. THIS is the message I carry.

Does your submission lift you up? Does your submission give you access to the limitless power of love? Are you seen? Celebrated? Fulfilled? What are you getting, slave, as you kneel? How is your soul loved and polished to a blinging, incandescent effulgent shine that gives light to your owner? If not…is this dynamic what you need?

You are NOT “less than” your owner as a living being.

You are NOT “less than” your owner in terms of worth as a human.

You are NOT “less than” your owner in terms of value in the dynamic.

We are all capable of being magnificent on our own, so your submission sure as shit better make you All That AND a 3-piece chicken box.

Mollena Lee Williams-Haas

And if you choose to engage in consensual submission, if you consent to give yourself over to the will of another, my prayer for you in this new year is that the person who holds your heart sees you fully, sees how to help you become more with, and celebrates the fierceness of your submissive soul.