Lysana McMillan's Blog (12)

I thought I should post this here to add to the collection.

Learning Love

by Lysana (FireBride) McMillan

A poem I set out to write

My topic deeply mined

For love's a constant subject

To writers thus inclined

Being an emotion

It's better felt than seen

And much of its expressions

May say less than they mean

If love is in the doing

As many choose to think

Speaking it can bring a pause

And drop it out of sync

But…

I was just looking back on my blog entries here. I kept writing about big internal revelations. This is a good thing, mind, as I can look back and see a few things more from those points of epiphany than I did at the time. Since the last one, though, the work and the walk on the path to Registration has been different. Quieter. Smaller realizations have come through. All of them important, all of them necessary. Not all learning is done in bursts of mental fireworks. If it was, we'd have no…

This article appeared in my Facebook feed this morning. I'm going to elide whatever political thoughts that could emerge (and have, to be honest) and focus on other aspects of what it has to say. Where it grabbed me the hardest relative to the Guild was the discussion of emotional labor. In other words, the support and attention…

Beeflin noted in class today that a well-trained Companion "can find a place in their hearts for everyone they encounter." I felt a resonance there with how I already love. When I applied to the Guild, I made a comment about how I've spent a fair amount of my SL time looking for love in a lot of places and sometimes finding it. That's been my basic pattern for for most of my eight years on the grid. Some have stayed around longer than others, and many of them have ended in different ways.…

With awareness must come action, or the knowledge is wasted. Knowing I am lovable, it matters more than ever that I keep close what nurtures me and set aside what hurts me. It's part of self-love to do that. Thus did I ask someone to change our relationship today to one that I can live with. I need a base-level certainty when bonds reach a certain level of intimacy. He stripped me of it. A question that needed a "no" received an "I don't know." In my experience, that's a "yes." I'm ashamed…

This feels like a very strange thing to admit. The words are being difficult with me to do so. But something is striking at one of my core self-concepts, and I only just realized this.

There is love in my life these days. A deluge of love. More than I can remember at any other point in my existence. And it's doing damage to the rock in my head that swears I'm unlovable. It's disquietingly scary to realize and admit this. And I feel a bit ashamed that I can't just revel in…

Granted, I've only been on this path for two months, but I'm starting to think about the shape it's prone to take. Not in a detailed fashion, though. This is the sort of path where the best time to see the details is after you've gone through them. But I've been having conversations with someone who started with the Guild after me, and it's bringing to mind some things. Making it more real that none of us are walking alone even though we're the only ones who can travel our exact journey. How…

• Gege Joe and I both experienced what I dubbed a charisma spike shortly after our respective fourth Encounters. Or during in my case; while at Frank's Place for dancing, someone IMed me out of the crowd there and even used the "come here often" line. He presaged a small deluge of attention which happened whether I was out by myself or not. This appears to be fading with time.
• Without getting into long detail, I am left wondering if escort services are as prone to attempt to…

That was soul-baring. So not used to my deeper intimacies being exposed to a wider audience. How thankful I am once again for the love and support of the Guild. Would've been impossible for me to do that in a less supportive space.

And in saying that, it strikes me that I have no problem with sex in a wider-access frame. The soul-baring wasn't the sex. It was the love that I know was communicated. It's not as if I haven't had sex with someone I love at that ritual before,…

• It took me close to 20 years to realize I'd fallen out of love with a career path and close to 2 years to realize I'd fallen out of love with a person. Instead of kicking myself for taking so long, I should take comfort in the fact I've improved by a factor of 10. Then I should keep working on this self-knowledge thing I keep hearing so much about.
• The classes so far have been good to amazing for me. But I mustn't limit my learning to class time. Interactions with my brothers…

Yep, one week in and I can report growing pains. A relationship I had been maintaining for the last two years in SL became a former relationship this week, and what I've experienced so far with the Guild contributed to that. We didn't break up because of the Guild per se. I applied mindfulness to an odd reaction I was having with another lover and saw clearly what had been gnawing at me. I'd stopped loving him months ago.

In a fit of ironic timing, Zen's class on Love Without…

So much in my head in so short a time. Reading notecards as if they are a novel I can't put down. Seeing so many things that sing to me. And yet...

One notecard spoke of the inner Aphrodite. I seem to have an inner Freyja instead. She is Love to be sure. She also has her warrior aspect. The ones who stay behind to fight for the ones who cannot are Hers. She also chooses from those slain on the battlefield to join Her in Folkvangr (Odin's takings go to Valhalla, and He gets the ones…