My imagination is a lush forest, a clear blue sky, sparkling stars and sweet water. It is a land, a continent, a whole world or several worlds where I travel when I want to.
I can let myself fly through the lands and look down on emerald forests, and gleaming rivers running through the land, and endless blue seas. It is a world of beauty and grandeur, pristine and primeval in places, where thoughts grow freely and in abundance.
Imagination is a place of immense beauty but also of passion and terror and lust and desire. There are people there, of course, and people can be both sweet and cruel.
Between the green canopies of gigantic trees you may spot a woman walking, a proud and beautiful redhead, naked and with her hands tied in front of her. She is leashed to a horse where a man is riding. He is the hero and she the heroine and in this world she is his captive. She is his woman, bound and naked, and all is well.
On the coasts there are splendid cities with gleaming spires and shining pagodas where ancient and strange gods are worshipped by delightful women with glittering dark eyes. In those cities slavers and warriors sit in taverns and brag and revel, staring with desire at the servant girls hurrying between the tables, clad in almost nothing, all there for the pleasure of those brutes.
Imagination is not a place of eternal happiness. No, passion and pain fill the lives of brutes and slaves and not every woman is happy about being captured and not every man is a good man.
It is a brutal world where a woman may find herself stripped and in chains on the slaver's market before she knows it. And although she knows she belongs there, and longs to be there she has to endure the unfairness of it all.
It is a world of passion and pain as well as desire and lust and love and compassion. It is not a dead world. They are all alive. And despite the hardship and the cruelty they are all living and breathing and being alive. In their hearts they know that living is good and there is beauty in all aspects of life.
But this land is greater than that. There are modern cities too, where people live lives that look like ours, they work and commute and go to restaurants and watch telly. It is just an illusion, because those people know too, in their hearts, that this world is a good place to live, and they can live without fear. And when passion takes them, they can say yes to that which may seem cruel and unpleasant but really touches their souls.
The girl who follows the arrogant bastard to his place, having been touched and groped by him, may fear him when he takes out his whip and demands her to undress, but she never fears life. She may be terrified by the pain and the humiliation but in the end it makes her feel alive.
It is an honest world. When people love, they love with passion and truth and they trust the love they get and give. In this world you may want to hurt the one you love without ever ceasing to love. A lash with a whip may be a sign of affection and a rope around someone's wrists may indicate belonging.
But there are dark places in this world of imagination. Places that are not as easy to spot as the sun drenched vistas of endless forests and rivers. There are dark alleys and ruined castles and derelict buildings. And there are perfectly beautiful places but were cruelty lives. In those dark places strange things happen. Things that are hard to explain and understand.
To those places people go to be humiliated, shamed and hurt and they go without knowing why. They are drawn there, like moths to the fire, and they want to turn their heads but still they return.
In those dark places a whip can be wielded with the intent of hurting, really hurting and someone may take pleasure in someone else's fear or shame. A girl can be raped and abused and used and although she hates it she cannot avoid it, doesn't want to avoid it.
Imagination stretches into space, where the awe of eternity boggles your mind and the distance between the stars are so immense that the mind cannot grasp it.
But the endless vistas of space aren't empty. No, there travels ships of different shapes and sizes and empires are created and lost and passion makes people fight and love.
Scantily clad space empresses and princesses look upon the travellers with sparkling eyes where the cold eternity of space lies and men fight with swords and rayguns to do their biddings.
In the world of imagination there is also immense sweetness. The lovers lie in each others arms, looking out over the sea while the mild breeze ruffles their hair. There is true love and true passion, not hindered by jealousy and fear. In this world you can love with all your heart and all your body and know that you are alive.
Imagination is a place of contradiction, life and passion, cruelty and sweetness. It is all I want it to be but also much more. There lies my fears and my desires and things I don't want to see but are there all the same.
I cannot describe it, not fathom it. I can only glimpse it, get a fleeting vision of it. And what I can't do, is to describe it, not all of it. What I know is this: I would be nothing without it.
Janice, your imagination is a gift which you willingly share, to your readers delight.
ReplyDeleteIt is also, perhaps, humanity's greatest gift.
Imagination is the necessary ingredient in everything great or inspiring that we as a race have achieved.
I believe that our fellow animals also possess this gift, though I cannot prove it.
Love and warm hugs,
Paul.
Janice,
ReplyDeleteYou must write of the various individuals that reside in this place of wonder.
As I feast upon your well written words I find great satisfaction. Yet, strangely they always leave me hungering for more...
Thank you,
-TFP
I. love. this. so. much ...
ReplyDeleteCan't say anything more articulate right now ... but I know, I know ...
Yes, I feel it too ...
And I feel it through your writing, too, Janice ...
Instead of just writing this on a blog, you should actually write novels using your imagination. You could become rich doing so.
ReplyDeleteThe worlds you describe sounds a lot like the novels of John Norman. It sounds a lot like his Gor series of books.
It sounds like you are familiar with his work. If not you really need to read some of his books.
http://gorchronicles.com/modules/tinycontent/?id=1
http://www.worldofgor.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Norman
My Dear Janice --
ReplyDeleteConsider long-absent me a slice of toast, popping up!
And what a remarkable piece -- Janice's Manifesto.
As much as I enjoy your stories, yes even the longest ones -- I am especially drawn to your own self, your own voice.
I remember the Janice of the first few blogs -- always with a vision, and a voice, but training it with hard work, with feedback (accepted or rejected). And now, just look at you! The master ... of imagination.
Better and better.
Warmly,
Wystan Ephraim
Dear Janice
ReplyDeleteI know some of this landscape though everything there and every person has a part of me in them or is a part of me on some level.
It is wonderful to have a place you can always go to and I thank you for sharing it with us.
Hugs
Mina
Dear Paul, I am beginning to see it as a gift, that is something quite important for me. Thank you for your encouragement, it means the world to me. And you are right, imagination is the source for creativity, I think.
ReplyDeleteDear TFP, that is what I do. They are the people in my stories. It is very encouraging to see you say you want more. I don't think I will ever stop writing.
Dear Lea, thanks, I am glad it gets across.
Dear Jay, do you know I don't write novels? But thanks for the compliment. I am familiar with Gor and John Lange. I do have to say that he is not the only one with a bit of slavery in their imaginations. Of course there is a bit of Gor in my imagination but there is also Conan, Jane Eyre, Middle Earth, Catherine Morland, Treasure Island, Clarisse McClelland, Heart of Darkness, Star Wars...you name it. It's not one world, it is many.
Dear Wystan, you have no idea what your words mean. Manifesto is not a bad way of seeing it, although less thought through than a proper one. Master of imagination...I blush (but shouldn't that be 'mistress'?).
Dear Mina, I know you are like that too, living with a very vivid inner realm. I agree with you that it all reflects yourself.
Hugs
Janice
The world of the imagination is a real one, real in the mind of the thinker. Yours is as real to you as mine is to me.
ReplyDeleteAnd for those of us who like to feed fantasy to the inner monster in the absence of anything more concrete it is good to know that the imaginary worlds are always there, each one as distinct as its creator.
Whilst I might find some of the things in your world disturbing or distasteful, I am sure you would think the same about mine, but that is the glory of it.
It is such fun to explore, to see what lies within, and yet there remains the fear of what lurks under that rock, behind that bluff.
Just because we fear what we may find there is that a reason to shy away? No; and I'm pleased to watch you on the journey you have invited us to observe.
Dear Ollie, spot on. Everything is not beautiful and that is part of the beauty. It is sometimes both scary and humiliating to find what lurks in the mind. But it can also be beautiful and really fantastic. And yes, it is real. I live there...at least part time.
ReplyDeleteHugs
Janice
"Imagination is a place of contradiction, life and passion, cruelty and sweetness. It is all I want it to be but also much more. There lies my fears and my desires and things I don't want to see but are there all the same."
ReplyDeleteLovely, really lovely. You put the rest of us to shame, I want to eat my keyboard.
R
Dear Recidavist, thank you, those words are encouraging. But I am not so sure there is that many who thinks that.
ReplyDeleteHugs
Janice
........far more than you would ever imagine, just not so many who will admit it! Please keep imagining.
ReplyDeleteR
a slave ...
ReplyDelete... is an individual born with a slave spirit. No one can make an
individual have this spirit; nothing can be done to create this state in
an individual's being. No one trying hard or wishing for this sense of
spirit can develop it within themselves, and no Master can cause it to
occur. A slave is an extraordinary human being who is born with this slave
spirit — as much as they are born to breathe, or to have gifted talents
like design or music.
A slave is extraordinary, rare — and most often confused until they
discover their slave spirit heart. Most slaves wander through life feeling
unfulfilled — as if they have a "dark hole" in their spirit — a hole that
can be temporarily filled with an abundance of sex, work, addictive
behavior or other whole-life-consuming factors.
slaves often have a sense of the spiritual (some become clergy), but feel
this sense of spiritual awareness to be disconnected from their desire for
a Mastery/slavery relationship. A slave has a right to feel joy and pride
in their slavery and in service to a Master.
In their confusion, many slaves interpret Dominance as Mastery; SM as
completion; or fetish focus as the fulfillment of the "dark hole" in their
spirit. Many can find enough fulfillment in these areas to develop a sense
of "wholeness" (often a quiet longing exists; although for what, the slave
doesn't know).
Heart of slave can be actualized only when the spiritual journey occurs
that connects this "dark hole" in the spirit, first to the whole spirit,
and then to the universe. It is a process of a painful and trusting leap
of faith that causes this connectedness to occur — a truly spiritual
journey. Heart of slave can only be complete in service to a Master and it
is within this service that the spiritual journey occurs. slavery is not
about a "hard dick or clit experience," although hard dicks and clits
happen and are enjoyed.
slavery is the completion of a spirit in search of "connectedness" in the
universe.