October, 2006
Time to wax a little political for a moment. November is coming up fast. If you don't vote, you can't make your voice heard. A lot of people say it's futile, that the system is rigged or their votes don't count. (I used to work for a magazine publisher who actually told me that he liked it when voter turnout was low. To him that meant the status quo would be maintained. For him, though, the status quo was pro-business, pro-war, pro-wealthy. Not the kind of status I want to remain quo.) There are so many issues that hang in the balance this November and I can't overstate how important I believe these elections will be for our country. My personal belief is that we need progressive leadership that will put us on a better course than we've been on for the past six years, back in line with our Constitution and the rule of law. I have no idea what your personal beliefs are but I urge you to do your civic duty and vote.
End of political wax.
*****
I've been slowly but surely reconnecting with people I've lost touch with over the years. In a similar vein, I've been reconnecting with myself slowly but surely. I've been exploring skills that I haven't used in many, many years – including video editing and radio broadcasting. I have new technologies to master (or at the very least gain some kind of competence with) but with each new project, I reconnect with artistic roots that sink very deeply into my heart and soul. In a way, this site has been a place marker for those roots and has kept me from completely forgetting who I am and what I'm capable of. The photography I've shot of my own rope work, the rope dances I've created with both tops and bottoms, the writing I've done here, have all been gentle reminders of my desire to create and share. I am certainly not the end-all-and-be-all of bondage or writing or photography or the other arts I pursue but I'm happy pursuing them. That's sufficient in and of itself. And that encourages me to do more, get better and dig deeper. And that, in turn, makes me happier still. Nice cycle if you can get on it...
*****
A word about time: a lot of time can go by between the time I do a shoot and the time I post that shoot as a gallery. It's 2006 and this update has shoots from 2004 and 2005. I'm generally posting in chronological order but by person I shoot with. Generally. Trust me, it all follows a kind of progression, tracking my rope connections and relationships through time. Seeing the two galleries I posted this time, photographed a year apart – and uploaded a year past that – gives me an interesting perspective on the relationships I have with Yin and Emma and how our lives have all changed since shooting those pictures. In a way I'm archiving parts of my life and my evolution as a person here. A terrifying yet thrilling endeavor.
Namaste,
