The author begins by discussing passion as a vital element for directing the ritual. Not passion as in sexual desire, but the passion of the writer or the artist, namely strong emotion coming from the very core of you.
(Passion) is the building up of emotion--it is passion that gives power to magickal workings. Since magick is concerned with the Will directing emotion, it is important for the Witch to get in touch with the emotions that serve as the raw power of her Craft and to be able to focus on those particular emotions that pertain to the Working at hand.
For those of you who may not know, "magic" (spell it with a "k" if you must!) in this case is defined, roughly, as causing a change in the physical world to make it correspond to your will. In simpler terms, it means changing the world to your liking.
Keeping that fact in mind, we could easily rewrite the above for spanking purposes:
(Passion) is the building up of emotion--it is passion that gives power to a scene. Since a strong scene depends on controlling and directing emotion, it is important for both Top and bottom to get in touch with the emotions that serve as the raw power of their scene and to be able to focus on those particular emotions that pertain to the scene at hand.
In order to do this, the author recommends relying on the techniques used by actors to bring up such emotions. I spent two years in the drama club at my high school. I can tell you from experience that these techniques do work very well, regardless of the reason you need to call up and harness emotion.
One of the best she recommends is "being in the moment":
The next acting technique useful to Witches to build power is to be completely in the moment. This means that you have focused your concentration so well on what you are doing that the scene is very, very real to you, and the emotion rises naturally as it would in a mundane setting. This is the best way as it is the truest, but getting to that point of focus requires a great deal of emotional self-trust.
Or, again, rewritten for spanking:
The next acting technique useful for people to build the necessary emotion for a scene is to be completely in the moment. This means that you have focused your concentration so well on what you are doing that the scene is very, very real to you, and the emotion rises naturally as it would in a vanilla setting. This is the best way as it is the truest, but getting to that point of focus requires a great deal of emotional self-trust.
When I do this, the rest of the world tends to vanish. It has been joked that they could hold the Rose Parade, the Super Bowl and the Second Coming in my living room simultaneously during a scene and I would never notice. When I am in full stride my entire reality narrows down to the other person in my scene and what we are doing. Nothing exists but spot on his bottom where the crop is about to land, the knot I am tying at that second, his panting breath as I lean over to check his position.
For those of you who have wondered, this is why it is usually some time after before I chronicle a session. Done properly, a scene takes place in a type of dream state. You are not unaware, you are hyper aware, but like in dreams, the awareness is coming from the non-lingual part of your brain. It is not until some time after that the logical part takes over and sums it all up nicely into words.
Because so much of what is experienced in scene is so hard to communicate in words, the technique best for kinky purposes is the one word dialog:
(edited for kinky purposes)
The pair are to use this one word to create a conversation. They sit facing each other and decide who will start.
The individual who is to say the word first, considers the word, and then says only that word in such a way as to convey a specific meaning with it.
The partner listens carefully, trying to ascertain what is being said to him or her, and then answers using the one word to answer. The pair continues in this way using only the word they have been given to communicate with each other.
Once the exercise has been done, they should be take time to talk to each other about the experience. They should talk about what they were thinking they wanted to say and what it was like to be only able to say it with one word.
Also, what was it like to try to understand what the other person said? Were they able to understand? What feelings came up during this? How powerful were those feelings.
This is an extremely taxing exercise and usually only three rounds of it is done in any one session. Taxing as it is, it creates an incredible intensity of communication, and the communication ends up taking a wide range of expression.
The article recommends having a 3rd person to act as a director, but I don't personally see a need for that. This technique is fascinating, and very helpful for understanding the subtleties of communication.
However it is done, the key is still to infuse as much controlled emotion as possible into the scene and to then build that emotion into a climax and release it. This is the very heart of ritual, regardless of the type of ritual performed.
Ms. Betty
* Click at your own risk. If you find the discussion of Pagan beliefs offensive, this is not the article for you.
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