The Eightfold Paths of BDSM and Beyond

by Lee Harrington

  Part of that compassion is also knowing not only that something “bad” might unexpectedly happen, but something “good” or “profound” might accidentally take place. What was planned to just be a hot time between the sheets could slip into a powerful experience. That is okay. If you find yourself having experienced something like this, where no negotiation or planning happened beforehand, flip back to the negotiation and aftercare sections for concepts to help you on the flight or your current descent back to earth. Sometimes the world surprises us with an opportunity for growth and change and doesn’t give us a chance to plan it out in advance. Breathe deep and know that you are not the only one who has had this happen, and there are resources out there for you to process what you have experienced and for you to get back if you want to take the ride again.

  That compassion also involves taking it all not just with a grain of salt, but perhaps a block of salt. Sometimes it’s not as big of a deal as it first seems. Even if what you are experiencing is a big deal, it is surprising how much ability you and/or your network have to be able to take steps back away from the cliff’s edge. Hopefully the tales and tools explored throughout this text will give ideas, not of what you should do, but ideas of what you might consider in making your own decisions and plans as an adult along this journey.

  And remember, just because something wasn’t a profound sacred experience doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good scene! Sometimes what we really need from life is a fun evening, or an interesting story to tell, and that is okay, too. If different stuff happens than what was planned, perhaps there is some wisdom that can be gleaned from it. But it’s not always some sign or message from on high; sometimes people are just people and it doesn’t work out as planned. At times we just need to choose to stand up for ourselves and stop a scene that is happening. Perhaps you will learn more from ending a scene than continuing it.

  Pause and breathe—it will be okay. Not every single time will be profound. You did not “do it wrong.” In fact, you may have done it just right by gaining information and feedback for next time.

  And… it might work perfectly. Or perfectly for today. Or…

  Either way, you will be crafting YOUR journey in Sacred Kink. It will be unique, and it will be yours. There are so many ways of experiencing Sacred Kink, from reading this from an academic or inquisitive standpoint to living this work full time. None of them are better or worse. It is your journey.

  Welcome to your journey.

  Eight Tales Begin

  Stories and tales. Our lives are full of them.

  Throughout this book, as mentioned, we will be using eight erotic teaching tales to illustrate the Sacred Kink concepts that will be used in each of the Paths. If eight paths of Sacred Kink are to be explored, eight tales need to begin.

  Eight stories. Eight life moments. Eight journeys towards beauty, change, manifestation, catharsis—towards the limitless. These eight erotic adventures will create a roadmap of exploration, uncertainty, truth, hope, desire and passion. A roadmap that might give insight to your own journeys from the past, or your own journeys ahead.

  The Path of Rhythm: Dancing Into the Infinite Beat

  I close my eyes and dance. The rhythmic music pumps my body back and forth between 2,000 leather clad bodies, sweat pouring over our hides and the hides of what encases our forms. I can hear the beat of the music in my breath. I can feel it in my pulse and I dance. My boots hold me firm on the ground and my hips sway, my lips part, making love to an unseen force. I grab hold of the Boy, my Boy, in front of me. I begin drumming my hands against his leather vest, the hide under my fingertips, and he grunts in time with the music, pushes back in time with the music, trances out with me into the music… and we fly.

  The Ordeal Path: Trials of Rope and Balance

  She looks at me defiantly, but I can see her fear just on the other side of that sternness. Suspension lines locked off, I pull one foot up in the air. Her toes brush against my breasts and she is tethered to the ceiling by the ropes on the back of her chest harness and by her thigh. For the first five minutes she is fine, until the foot on the ground cramps up. By the end of 35 minutes she will be screaming. By the end of an hour she will be sobbing and broken—facing the demons she came here today to look at. I hold the space and I wait.

  The Path of Flesh: Embracing Skin and Desire

  He growls at me and I growl back. The single tail isn’t an ordeal for me, because it brings me here and now, because I need it, want it, long for it. The lash is my lover and I can feel it lick me open and bring me back from the emptiness I fill myself with to survive the day job. I am decadence reflected, I am glistening, I am hungry as the blood pours down and I beg for more. My feral lust echoes back to him with every touch of its pain and I can feel myself opening up not to him but to myself. Looking within I can see all of the reasons I am the way I am and I love myself for it. This is not a test, this is love, and I love myself in this, I love the world in this, I am the world in this.

  The Path of Ritual: Into the Ceremonies of Life

  Each morning I wake and do as my Mistress has commanded. I lay out my clothes on the bed and while still nude, prostrate myself before the image of her that lives on my altar. She is my Goddess, my inspiration, and I repeat the mantra of her name and my place in her life. I am her Slave, her thing, her property. I say all her holy names and remind myself of my place in her life as I lift the collar to my neck, lock it on, and look in the mirror next to her image. I see myself in her collar, know I am in her collar, and begin to touch myself as she commanded. I cum in her honor, as I always cum in her honor, and in that space between tension and release, I catch myself in the mirror, feel the collar, and can feel the divine in this truth.

  The Path of Breath: Inhaling Our Potential

  “Hold.” Their voice is sensual and still as I sit before them and they kiss my lips and then say, “Release.” Ze sucks in my air between tender lips and breathes it back to me in time. Our bodies rock back and forth into one another, me into them with each breath out, they into me as I breathe zir back in. We become a single circuit. We are a single circuit. Ze locks eyes with me again and adds noise to each breath, pumping me higher and more acutely into zir, feeling zir hunger against mine, feeling zir in me at each push of oxygen. I am high, and the world floats away.

  The Path of the Horse: Riding Into the Storm

  He called and said he needed to feel divine wrath. I will not be myself tonight. I will become the vessel to hold his pain, to give him space to atone. Black lace and silk wrap around my form, knee high boots, and a mask slips in place moments before he knocks on the door. I slip into the back seat of my own soul and watch as SHE comes forward, watch as SHE has him crawl inside, and am inspired as I know, together, SHE and I will create an evening he will never forget.

  The Path of Asceticism: The Call of Erotic Monasticism

  It never comes all at once. I find myself in the quiet places when others sleep. Universal truth slips out as I’m washing the dishes or licking his boots. Sleeping on a pallet at the end of his bed, wearing what he requires, following his rules—this is the order of things. I become his nun. I wake at the same time each day, bathe in the same way, act according to his rules—and with my mind stilled of gibberish, I find calm, and in the calm, understanding.

  The Path of Sacred Plants: Consuming Our Fate

  On my knees, my coven stands around me and the Priest opens up the tin to reveal what is inside. I close my eyes—I have the right to say no, to not go on this journey that we planned months ago, but I know that in the safety of this circle that this is what I need. I keep closing myself off, keep stopping short, and having negotiated this I am ready. Hand to mushroom to lips and I begin with bowing before each of them, thanking each of them, as the music begins and their hands slowly descend onto my body.

  Chapter 3

  The Path of Rhythm

  Dancing Into the Infinite Rhythm

  I can taste the sweat in the air. Th
e dance floor is packed as we stride into the club, leather to leather and body to body pumping into the night. My favorite DJ is spinning tonight, and everything just keeps falling into place—my lover at my side, work long out of my mind, a slight grin on my face as my Boy turns to me and asks if he can go off and say hi to his friends. What else can a loving Leather Daddy do but say yes? I’m too into the music anyway.

  With my eyes closed I drift into the pit and dance. Rhythm and bass bounce me back and forth as my hips grind out the needs of my spirit. I can feel the sound pumping through my very core, my soul pounding out the beat with every beat of the sole of my boot against the earth beneath me. When my eyes open, all I can see are green and blue flashing lights bouncing off of black leather and oiled bodies. Clones and authentic spirits alike blend into one field of truth, one palpable need, one lust, one hunger.

  Head rolls back and I hear the thread of truth between the beats. As I grab hold of the fibers of universal wisdom, hands wander, lips touch to lips, all to the rhythm that pulls the thousands of bodies around me together. I reach up and grab for leather, feeling a stronger pull than the rest, and realize I have my Boy’s vest in my hands. Amidst all of the chaos, he has found me again, I have found him again, we have found each other again.

  The flat of my hand finds his leather, his beast pelt, and I begin pounding in time with the trance around us. He grunts and moans, comes closer to me, pushes his back into my hands—the cue we developed between us that he is ready for me, ready for this journey. I let out a laugh that echoes through me, then return to the sound that is coursing through my veins, hand to black and back again. Hand to black and back again. Hand to black and back again.

  We sway. As each thud hits him he shakes. I spin him around and eye-to-eye we dance, now with each slap landing against his broad chest still holding time. I shake my head back and forth, eyes closed, and when I next open them his eyes are locked with mine and he mouths the words “I will stay, Sir” to me. As I nod and shake, he throws his own head back and howls as the sensation grows, his body shaking in unison with the mix, his body shaking in time with mine with each hit. We are one song. We are one dance. We are one stroke of infinity playing off the body of the masses and the heartbeat of the earth.

  The Path of Rhythm

  The Path of Rhythm is the drum-beat, the patterned dance, the call of one more time. Using repetitive body motion, touch, noise, or visual cues, we have the ability to create trances or trance-like states, and the Path of Rhythm is all about the wide variety of ways we find that repetition and use it.

  Different rhythms can be used to set different intentions. Fast techno trances can amp up our bodies and send us flying. Isolation chambers that echo back the sound of our own heartbeat can slow us down in a constant feedback loop of calm. By setting the state of the rhythm, we can set the stated intention for the journey the path will lead us on.

  This is often the first path kinksters accidentally encounter, when the repeat of a flogger hitting our back over and over and over again has us drown into nothingness or being spanked with the same beat leaves us connecting on a deep and primal level to our animalistic selves. This is because our brains are literally wired for pattern and rhythm. When exposed to rhythmic drum-beats, research has shown that the human body accelerates physical healing, feels less stress or fatigue, and issues such as asthma, chronic pain, migraines, hypertension and arthritis are diminished.

  This is because the human brain moves from Beta waves (focused concentration and activity) to Alpha waves (calm and relaxed), producing feelings of euphoria and wellbeing when experiencing the same base rhythm for an extended period of time. By changing our state of mind, have the ability to change our bodies’ experience of itself. This is how the placebo effect works: if we are convinced it is getting healthier, oftentimes we will in fact get healthier. If our brain waves change from active living to the type of state we experience when “finally taking that deserved vacation,” we can come back rejuvenated just as if we took a week or two off.

  Alpha waves, or relaxing the system, are not the only way exposure to rhythm can literally change our minds. Rhythms carry different frequencies (measured in Hertz) and each frequency has the ability to ramp up our systems, or cool them down, and purposefully engaging in different rhythms allows us to experience different points of view or parts of our journey through life.

  Traditional Tools

  Traditional Tools are anything whose use can be traced back in literature, tales and oral tradition for an extended period of time, to reach altered states of consciousness or engage in sacred workings of some sort. In the case of Path of Rhythm, these are tools that have a specific pattern, cadence, pulse or uniformity to them that have been shown to lead to altered states. All of these traditional tools can be combined, with some creativity, into kink scenes or journeys. They can also be used on their own, outside of kink.

  Drumming

  Whether being the drummer with a goat-skin under your fingertips, or the listener swaying in time with the tune created, drumming is one of the oldest tools for shamanic and trance practices worldwide. Drumming is not limited to frame-drums. Beating hands against thighs, hitting rocks against rocks, clapping hands together, or using clackers are also common tools for creating a pattern to follow. The drum has been referred to in some shamanic practices as the way to connect to the world tree, providing a vehicle to climb into heaven or descend into the underworld. Drums are legal, safe, and effective tools of altered states and have one of the longest histories as a tool for altered states.

  Dancing

  Whether highly structured and learned, acquired through cultural osmosis, or felt in the body and done intuitively, the wide variety of dancing traditions are the backbone of the Path of Rhythm. In every culture there is some form of body movement done in time with music. There is a logical reason for the banning of dance in strict regimes: dancing can lead to the opening up of minds and spirits alike. Whether done alone with the lights turned down or in a wild circle around a bonfire, dancing with its repeated patterns of hand motions, foot motions, or body turns and twists can lead to out of body experiences when the physical form knows exactly what the next step is, the next leap or turn.

  Rhythmic motions are another version of this concept. Hips sway. Bodies move in time. Hands open and shut. Feet stamp. Heads shake. For those for whom dancing does not call, the simple act of rocking back and forth can be used to induce an altered state of consciousness.

  Rhythmic Noises

  The sound of the surf; focusing on the beat of the human heart; the sound of regular passing traffic…anything with a repeating, regular pattern can be used as a tool for setting the metronome of our being, for connecting to the pattern of our lives. This can also include more complex forms of rhythmic noise, such as listening to any music that has a repeating structure to it, or letting the words fall away from poetry and listening to the meter and tempo within it.

  Self-Flagellation

  Though it has become rare in the past few decades within the Catholic Church, the concept of using a lash, knotted cords, or flogger as a tool for self-punishment remains in use in the Philippines and Latin America. Though this is a self-induced ordeal as a form of discipline or punishment for sins (real or feared), the repetitive motion of lash to skin and back done over and over again can cause visions and feelings of release even if little actual harm is done to the body. Thus, some monastic orders and lay Catholic groups such as Opus Dei still engage in mild forms of self-flagellation. Though self-harm is forbidden in Islam, there are Shi’a Muslims who engage in self- whipping and other rhythmic pain rituals such as beating their chest with their hands or spikes, cutting themselves with razors or hitting themselves with chains all in time to their heartbeat or some other rhythm when participating in the Zanjeer Zani ritual mourning the death of Hussain during Muharram.

  Mind Machines

  Known also as Light and Sound Machines, psycho-walkmans and Auditor
y Visual Stimulation (AVS) Devices, these machines use flashing lights and/or rhythmic sound to change the brainwave frequency of the user. Most units consist of a pair of headphones, strobe light glasses or goggles, and some sort of control unit. More modern versions can connect to the internet to assist with programming sessions for trance-work, relaxation, bio-feedback or affecting the neural oscillations and brain waves of the human mind.

  Marching to Cadence

  Military cadences are call and response songs that use no instruments and are done in time with marching for long distances or during drills. Originally developed as sea shanties and worker songs, the combination of easy songs with a call and response that keeps people working at a specific pace are as ancient as long-lasting work in our culture. Setting a beat and rhythm allows the person doing the calling to change the speed of a large group of people at one time, whilst maintaining control, order, and formation. In addition to the practical purposes of moving in time with one another, the combination of cadence, sea shanties or workers songs along with rhythmic work or marching has been shown to allow time to fly quicker and for people to forget about how hard the work is, both classic applications of altered states of consciousness. Outside of these songs being tools for altered states, they have also been used over the years to pass on oral histories and cultural messages, sometimes in subtle or obscured ways, such as the slave songs of the south in the United States.