I haven’t posted much recently. I’ve just started a new job; that can be distracting to say the least. One of the experiences of starting that position is lots of orientation. There was one session that was held in a Wellness Center that had a lot of very nice amenities; the one that surprised me most was a small labyrinth in the courtyard. For those unfamiliar, labyrinths are used for walking meditation. They go back to ancient times, think of the Minotaur, and are found in many different cultures. Since I was looking for something refreshing during my lunch hour, I decided to walk it. Several interesting observations occurred as I did.

Like life, this labyrinth curved through both light and dark areas. And while on your way to the center you never are on the same path twice, you do pass next to areas you’ve passed before. When you pass those areas however, the rocks and plantings are seen from a different angle, once again changing your experience of them. The trip out “back to the world” utilizes the same pathways as the way in, but once again, everything is changed by the difference in how you view the path and the divisions between sections as well as the passage of time. How does this relate to this thing that we do? I found some interesting ideas.

No spanking will ever be the same as any other. It doesn’t matter that you try to do the same thing as the last time, that you are playing the same role with the same partner. Even the last experience will influence how you perceive this one.

There are times when the spankings will be dark and edgier. There will be times when they can be light and frothy. There are times when the light shed by the spanking adds a sharpness and clarity to the passage on which we find ourselves. There will be times when the dark spanking we are experiencing will allow us to better see the area of our life where the light-giving spankings may have occurred and what it did for us. Sometimes we can see to a different section of the walkway that was dark when we were there but because the clouds have shifted, it has now become light.

On another level, each spanking can be likened to walking the labyrinth. There is a way in to the center, it may be a role play; it may be corner time. There is always something that leads up to the spanking. As we walk that path either as a top or a bottom, there are changes that occur in our thinking and our physical reactions. What bottom hasn’t at some time, felt that nervousness, the clenching in the gut of anticipation? The hyperawareness of one’s sit-spot? Sometimes even the slickness of desire that builds at the same time? (Tops, feel free to comment here, I don’t know what you feel in the way of anticipatory preparation.) At the center is the spanking itself, just as in the labyrinth there was an open space and a large rock where I would have been able to sit. (Or someone could have been seated and pulled me across his lap!) And following the spanking is the return to the “real world”, the aftercare.

Whatever the spanking experience, just like walking a labyrinth, one does not return to the world unchanged.