Contentment

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Volume 10 (2011)

  Valerie never made a single sound, just stood there motionlessly the way he had asked her to. He proceeded to undo her skirt and pull it down over her legs. She didn’t even lift her feet to step out of it. He knelt down on the floor, lifted one foot after the other, and pulled her skirt from underneath. Then he took hold of her panties and pulled them down the way he had done with her skirt, lifting her feet again to pull the panties from underneath them as well. She stood quietly before him, the first naked woman in his life, her pale skin looking almost white in the light of the bedside lamps. He looked at her for a while the way he looked at the statues, reveling in her pure femininity, admiring her shape and her curves, her quaint breasts, her barely concealed pussy between her slightly parted legs. Then he quickly undressed himself, took Valerie by the shoulders, and lowered her on to the bed. He rolled her towards the middle to make room for himself beside her. Spending quite a long time playing with her breasts, he delighted in the unique experience of touching real-life, soft, pliable breasts with his virgin hands. Valerie kept lying on the bed without moving once, without saying a word, without any suggestions or complaints. Bernard was in heaven. In all his fantasies, he had never pictured anything like this with a real woman. This was so much better than what he was able to do with his doll, and infinitely better than his encounters with the statues. This was real: real, warm, living flesh, In the Absence of Motion 107 trembling ever so slightly under his hands, responding to his touch, making him feel fuzzy and exceedingly pleased. He let go of one of the breasts and moved his freed hand down Valerie’s body until he reached her pussy with the light blond fluff. For the first time, he felt a woman’s genitals, felt the warmth and the freely flowing juices, felt the puffiness of the lips, the protruding clit. It was an incredible experience, especially since he didn’t have to worry at all about any of the things he had always fussed about. Valerie was a perfect statue, a perfect doll. She lay absolutely still, never made a sound or said a word, and just let him do whatever he wanted to do. Emboldened, he knelt beside her and spread her legs apart, then climbed on top of her and buried his by now throbbing and pulsatingly eager penis in the unbelievably wonderful, warm, soft, pliable cave.

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  Taine, who writes (on Intelligence, i. 50, 58) that often in the daytime, when fatigued and seated in a chair; it is sufficient for him to close one eye with a handkerchief when, "by degrees, the sight of the other eye becomes vague, and it closes. All external sensations are gradually effaced, or cease, at all events, to be remarked; the internal images, on the other hand, feeble and rapid during the state of complete wakefulness, become intense, distinct, colored, steady, and lasting : there is a sort of ecstasy, accompanied by a feeling of expansion and of comfort. Warned by frequent experience, I know that sleep is coming on, and that I must not disturb the rising vision; I remain passive, and in a few minutes it is complete. Architecture, landscapes, moving figures, pass slowly by, and sometimes remain, with incomparable clearness of form and fulness of being; sleep comes on, and I know no more of the real world I am in. Many times, like M. Maury, I have caused myself to be gently roused at different moments of this state, and have thus been able to mark its characters.—The intense image which seems an external object is hut a more forcible continuation of the feeble image which an instant before I recognized as internal some scrap of a forest, some house, some person which I vaguely imagined on closing my eyes, has in a minute become present to me with full bodily details, seas to change into a complete hallucination. Then, waking up on a hand touching me, I feel the figure decay, lose color and evaporate; what had appeared a substance is reduced toe shadow. ... In such a case, I have often seen, for a passing moment, the image grow pale, waste away and evaporate; sometimes, on opening the eyes, a fragment of landscape or the skirt of a dress appears still to float over the fire-irons or on the black hearth." This persistence of dream objects for a few moments after the eyes are opened seems to be no extremely rare experience. Many cases of it have been reported to me directly Compare Müller's Physiology, Baly's tr., p. 945 [136] I say the 'normal 'paths, because hallucinations are not incompatible with some paths of association being left. Some hypnotic patients will not only have hallucinations of objects suggested to them, but will amplify them and act out the situation. But the paths here seem excessively narrow, and the reductions which ought to make the hallucination incredible do not occur to the subject's mind. In general, the narrower a train of 'ideas' is, the wider the consciousness is of each. Under ordinary circumstances, the entire brain probably plays a part in draining any centre which may be ideationally active. When the drainage is reduced in any way it probably makes the active process more intense. [137] M. A. Maury gives a number: op. cit. pp. 126-8. [138] M.

• From A Way of Being (1980)

  we are fully open—first to one another, and later to the whole group; we are prepared to explore new and unknown areas of our own lives; we are truly acceptant of our own differences; we are open to the new learnings we will receive from our fresh inward journeys, all stimulated by our staff and group experiences. Thus it can be said that we now prepare ourselves, with much less emphasis on plans or materials. We value our staff process and want that to be available to the group. We have found that by being as fully ourselves as we are able— creative, diverse, contradictory, present, open, and sharing—we somehow become tuning forks, finding resonances with those qualities in all the members of the workshop community. In the relationships we form with the group and its members, the power is shared. We let ourselves “be”; we let others “be.” At our best, we have little desire to judge or manipulate the other’s thoughts or actions. When persons are approached in this way, when they are accepted as they are, we discover them to be highly creative and resourceful in examining and changing their own lives. While we do not persuade, interpret, or manipulate, we are certainly not laissez-faire in our attitude. Instead we find that we can share ourselves, our feelings, our potentialities, and our skills in active ways. We are each free to be as much of ourselves as it is possible for us to be. Part of that way of being has become ingrained: it is our desire to hear. During periods of chaos, or criticism of staff, or expression of deep feelings, we listen intently, acceptantly, occasionally voicing our understanding of what we have heard. We listen especially to the contrary voices, the soft voices, those that are expressing unpopular or unacceptable views. We make a point of responding to a person if he or she spoke openly, but no one responded. We thus tend to validate each person. We do not stop here. We as a staff are continually exploring new facets of our own experience as individuals. Recently, this has meant uncovering the learnings we are gaining from our intimate relationships in our differing lifestyles. It has meant facing openly the increasingly intuitive and psychic aspects of our lives. As we push on into these unknown inner areas, we seem better able to help each new workshop community—individually and collectively—to probe more deeply into their own worlds of shadow and mystery. In turn, each workshop has brought us learnings we did not anticipate.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  When the chaste and joyful greetings had been repeated three or four times A direct quotation from the opening lines of canto VII of Dante’s Purgatorio (‘Poscia che l’accoglienze oneste e liete/furo iterate tre e quattro volte’). The text of the Decameron contains many such examples of the insertion of familiar quotations from earlier poets, especially Dante, a practice later commended by the stylistic theorists of the Renaissance.10. Lerici A port in Lunigiana near the mouth of the River Magra, where travellers from Genoa and other ‘distant’ parts were accustomed to disembark en route to Tuscany and Emilia.Seventh Story1. Beminedab Thought to be based on the biblical Amminadab fleetingly mentioned in the Book of Numbers and in Saint Matthew’s Gospel, this fictitious name is used by other medieval writers to indicate an oriental ruler of an indeterminate epoch. The name has mildly humorous associations.2. Alatiel Like Beminedab, the name is fictitious, but it happens to be an anagram of La Lieta (‘The Happy Woman’), offering a possible clue to the way in which the story is intended to be read.3. the King of Algarve Algarve, from the Arabic al-Gharb, meaning ‘the West’, was a much more extensive region than the area of that name in modern Portugal. It corresponded roughly to northern Morocco, including a long stretch of the African Mediterranean coast, and the south-western part of the Iberian peninsula. Its wool was greatly prized in European markets. B.’s employers, the Compagnia dei Bardi, imported wool from Algarve via a trading post on the island of Majorca, where Alatiel’s sexual odyssey begins.4. neither he nor they could understand what the other party was saying A recurrent feature of Alatiel’s sexual encounters is her inability to communicate verbally with her various abductors. In an absorbing analysis of this particular novella, Guido Almansi argues that ‘Alatiel is not “a beautiful woman”. She is a superhuman figure; mythic, or at least closely related to a myth. Even her linguistic isolation can be read as an ambivalent sign… On the one hand, her complete ignorance of West European languages is convincing from a narrative standpoint, and serves to give special emphasis to the gesticulations of the characters… Yet her non-communication is also… a sign standing for Alatiel’s isolation, which is due to her superhuman features. Any mating with a mythic character must take place in silence, because there can exist no dialogue, no normative vocabulary, for the relationship between man and myth.’ (The Writer as Liar, p. 124.)5. Alexandrian fashion Presumably the Egyptian danse du ventre, which would explain the boosting of Pericone’s expectations.6. Corinth in the Pelopponese The Italian text reads ‘Chiarenza in Romania’. It was customary to refer to the whole of the Eastern Roman Empire as Romania. Chiarenza is an italianized form of Corinth.7. Saint Stiffen-in-the-Hand The Italian text reads ‘santo Cresa in Mari (‘Saint Grow-in-Hand’), an equivocal phallic metaphor of which the variant ‘san Cresa in Val Cava’ (‘Saint-Grow-in-Hollow-Vale’) turns up towards the end of the story (p.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  HAVING SOLVED HER IRS CRISIS, Anaïs expected that I should also be able to manifest my desires. Whenever I saw her she’d ask, “What about your Don Juan?” grousing that I was doing something wrong by not having seduced Don. I’d come to the opposite conclusion, though. If he and I had violated our house incest taboo, it would have destabilized our commune family, and I would have missed the best two years of my life. I would have missed having genuine friendships with men and the experience of being part of a functioning family. We had embraced the ideal of community devoid of capitalism, and it had worked. Money was never a problem; we each paid less for food and shelter than before. We had the usual roommate disagreements about decorating and cleaning, and our political discussions occasionally led to shouting, especially about sexism, but I always felt a real equality and trust with the guys. I never had a steady boyfriend during my years in the Georgina house, but I never felt lonely. It was enough to be part of this intelligent, hip family with whom I shared meals and our earnest political ideals. We kept track of each other at anti-war demonstrations, boycotted grapes and Coors beer, harbored Berkeley Free Speech orator Mario Savio after his psychotic breakdown, and threw huge holiday parties that were the hot invite among the Westside’s liberal chic. On academic breaks the five of us would pile our sleeping bags into Bob’s van, bring along some joints, and take off on camping trips to Death Valley, the Santa Barbara hot springs, and the High Sierras. We rented a cabin at Lake Arrowhead where we tried acid together, confident that we would all be safe in each other’s company. We hiked, and swam in our birthday suits, and talked deep into the night under the open sky. For a latchkey kid who’d eaten alone in front of the TV and didn’t go on vacations, these were days of heaven. Then one evening I was upstairs in the ballroom working on my doctoral dissertation, which I’d changed three times already from Renaissance tragedy to Restoration comedy to women’s diaries. Actually, I had wanted to write about Anaïs’s Diaries, but my dissertation chair had objected that she was neither important enough, nor dead. He recommended I write about all women’s diaries, from the tenth-century Japanese diarists on through to the present, so I would have enough material for a “proper” PhD dissertation.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  The house and stable were situated on a long billowy rise perhaps three hundred yards away from a good-sized creek which I soon christened Snake-Creek for snakes of all sorts and sizes simply swarmed in the brush and woodland of the banks. The big sitting-room of the ranch was decorated with revolvers and rifles of a dozen different kinds and pictures, strange to say, cut out of the illustrated papers: the floor was covered with buffalo and bear rugs and rarer skins of mink and beaver hung here and there on the wooden walls. We got to the ranch late one night and I slept in a room with Dell, he taking the bed while I rolled myself in a rug on the couch. But I slept like a top and next morning was out before sunrise to take stock so to speak. An Indian lad showed me the stable and as luck would have it Blue Devil in a loose box, all to herself and very uneasy. “What’s the matter with her?” I asked, and the Indian told me she had rubbed her ear raw where it joins the head and the flies had got on it and plagued her: I went to the house and got Peggy, the mulatto cook to fill a bucket with warm water and with this bucket and a sponge I entered the loose box: Blue Devil came for me and nipped my shoulder but as soon as I clapped the sponge with warm water on her ear, she stopped biting and we soon became friends. That same afternoon, I led her out in front of the ranch saddled and bridled, got on her and walked her off as quiet as a lamb. “She’s yours!” said Reece; “but if she ever gets your foot in her mouth, you’ll know what pain is!” It appeared that that was a little trick she had, to tug and tug at the reins till the rider let them go loose and then at once she would twist her head round, get the rider’s toes in her mouth and bite like a fiend. No one she disliked could mount her; for she fought like a man with her fore-feet; but I never had any difficulty with her and she saved my life more than once. Like most feminine creatures she responded immediately to kindness and was faithful to affection. * * * * *

• From The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Volume 10 (2011)

  “There, there.” I kiss him on both cheeks before unleashing two hard strokes. His eyes screw up tightly as he tries not to whimper. The next stroke gets him right on top of his legs. He’ll feel that whenever he sits down for the next few days. Saving the best till last I step back and give him one from the shoulder. They’re harder to control but luckily it catches him right across the centre of his crimson cheeks. He yelps in pain, his hips swaying from side to side, his breathing now well out of control. “Please! Mistress! No more!” I look at his bottom, beaten deepest, darkest red, striped by the cane. He’s panting, on the verge of tears. 350 Marissa Moon “Have you been thoroughly punished, my dear?” “Yes, Mistress.” Ooh, it’s good to hear him gasping. On the verge of tears. “You may rub your bottom.” He grasps his burning cheeks and rubs furiously, his agonized face a perfect picture. “On your back, boy!” He lays himself down, grimacing as his well-beaten bottom hits the carpet. As usual it has been vacuumed to within an inch of its life by my love. I hitch up my robe to mount his face, treasuring his deep groan of satisfaction. Which soon turns to a frenzied moaning as he licks and nuzzles me front and back. Very soon I’m floating off on clouds of pure pleasure. Eventually, having gorged myself to my heart’s content, I take him into my mouth. If I could talk I might finish off with this: “Valentine died in AD 269. Which more or less commands you to wrap yourselves around your lover in a 69 position.” I pump his shaft as he gets close. I don’t swallow his hot, salty seed. But only because it’s one of the best anti-wrinkle creams Mother Nature has gifted us. I rub it around my eyes and forehead then cuddle my boy close. I wonder whether I’ll give the London Ladies the secrets of my special face pack. Maybe I'll keep it to myself. They don’t deserve it. You can’t love everybody. ... as told to Mark Ramsden. Strippers Greg Jenkins If my mouth had swung open any wider, my chin would’ve bounced off the macadam parking lot where I stood stunned and weak- kneed, teetering with my two plastic bags of groceries. The girl in the window above me was sinfully young and achingly beautiful and artlessly sensuous in her movements. (And she was moving, I noticed.) A lambent angel in the gray evening sky. She was also, I noticed, as close to being naked as any young man would’ve dared to wish for. c

• From The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Volume 10 (2011)

  All night long our arms and legs remained linked and our faces were often touching. Most clearly I remember that the head of my cock spent almost the entire night right inside the vestibule of her passage. And sometimes it tried to peek further in, only to be gently prodded away. After all, we needed our sleep more than passion. But I recall for a certainty that during that night, though we did not make love again, we were as close as lovers ever can be. Ladies Go First 469 On one occasion, about an hour before dawn, I almost woke because I was getting hard, but this time she resisted even more fervently. Once again sleep trumped sex. And I also remember thinking, Oh, well, nail her in the morning, just as I fell off again. It was she who woke me that morning with the noise of aTV news program. As soon as she saw me moving, she turned it off. I had trouble focusing my eyes, but I could see that she was standing stark naked by the TV, and just as desirable as ever. [ think I was still half-dozing, while she rattled on in the background about how she had to have breakfast with another girl from her firm before they both flew back to LA together. This meant she would have to return to her room and change clothes, because she couldn’t possibly come to breakfast looking the way she had in the bar last night. I was still sleep-logged and couldn’t absorb it all. “Please don’t go,” I blurted out. “Tm not going anywhere,” she replied, coming right up to the bed. “I have no intention of going. I’m not leaving until I’ve taken you again...” She wasn’t joking at all. She stood next to me, right above me, and her voice was at its bossiést. In orte motion she jumped back into bed and landed on top of me again. Needless to say I began to wake up, but she had taken me by surprise, and there was no way I could stop her from what she was already doing. Out came her lube tube, squish went a large glob all over my face, and there it was again, looming downward towards my nose, irresistible but maybe just slightly menacing, her whole passionate center throbbing as it moved to engulf me. She had fully and truly mounted me again, and when I looked up I saw how useless any resistance would be. This time, she didn’t even ask my permission. She simply took charge of me as though I were her property. I felt a bit resentful, since this meant any hopes I had of taking her were null and void.

• From The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Volume 10 (2011)

  I felt good in these pre-dawn moments. My cock comfortably sore. My balls unloaded. My body mighty and ready to sleep at the same time. I’d get through my day and when the urge hit me again a day or two later, sometimes three, I’d go out again. I hadn’t had any drinks. I was sober. And sober, I was less aggressive. But I knew if I walked on, I would never again see this quiet beauty sitting on my steps. Maybe it was the night. I felt drunk sometimes even before I had my first drink. Maybe it was how jaded I was, hoping to prove her less than she was. If she spoke and she was stupid or vapid or just too normal, her aura would disappear. Maybe it was the way her eyes moved from whatever horizon she was looking at to my eyes. She looked at me for a long time and, not being one to lose a staring contest, I looked at her for a long time too. “Tt’s anatomical,” I said. “What is?” she said and I liked her voice. It was quiet and calm. Two words spoken, one question, but she sounded like she had all the time in the world. And she had the faintest accent, refined, almost regal. “My eyes,” I said. “I don’r need to blink. I can look at something * for hours without blinking.” “At something?” she said. “Or someone.” “And you can look for hours?” “Tf I have to.” “Well,” she said and smiled and then she blinked slowly, not because she had to but because blinking went so well with her smile. “Are you waiting for someone?” “No,” she said. “I’m simply tired. I’ve just arrived to New York City and feel quite jet-lagged. I thought Td sit for a few moments before I walked on.” “Europe?” I said. “Yes. Though you'll never guess the country.” I looked at my watch. “So it’s around two in the morning for you.” “Exactly. And I didn’t sleep well on the flight.” “I’m going to get a drink. Would you like to come along? A little alcohol might help you with your jet lag.” Without a word she stood and, just like that, took my arm, her hand around my bicep and we walked down the street. We drank. I had my usual gin on the rocks. It was summer and in summer I drank gin. She drank Sauvignon Blanc. It felt like a 78 Adam Berlin

• From Why We Believe: Finding Meaning in Uncertain Times

  We need to be realistic about what we can hope for, while searching for an existentially habitable space of relative stability amid a troubled ocean of uncertainty. Rovelli’s ‘vast intermediate space’ of ambiguity and uncertainty is not an unknown territory or an unexplored ocean; it has been recognised and inhabited by philosophers, theologians, artists and writers since the classical period, who have found ways of flourishing in its half-lights and coping with its ambiguities – and in doing so, demonstrated the ability of human beings to deal with a complex world. We can learn from them, and put their wisdom to good use today. Most of us know the experience of a seemingly irrepressible drive to make sense of ourselves which can send us on ‘dangerous voyages of exploration’ (Bernard Lonergan). 9 The human mind roams the intellectual landscape in search of stable and meaningful beliefs, which might offer what the American philosopher Charles S. Peirce termed ‘an ideal of life’ or a ‘thoroughly satisfactory explanation’ of things that matter to us. My argument throughout this work is that the big questions of life – such as the meaning of life, or the nature of the good – lie beyond rational or scientific proof. Like Isaiah Berlin, I am suspicious of those who claim to possess ‘incorrigible knowledge about issues of fact or principle in any sphere of human behaviour’. I’m willing to accept my limitations – indeed, the limitations of the human race – when it comes to these questions. Like Alexander Pope, I have reluctantly come to accept the limited degrees of certainty that are associated with these ‘ultimate questions’ – not because I am weak minded, but because the evidence clearly points to this conclusion. Believing is a human stance to be embraced, not a liability that is to be eradicated. ‘Faith’ is the name we give to this commitment to living in line with what we believe to be true. This does not, as I have emphasised throughout, permit us to ‘believe anything we like’. We all need to give good reasons for what we believe, accepting responsibility for our beliefs, while realising that neither proof nor certainty are possible in dealing with ‘ultimate questions’. We have to accept that others will disagree with us on these grand questions, not because they are stupid or evil, but because the questions simply cannot be answered with the precision and certainty that many would hope for. Believing and Human Nature Human beings are believing and meaning-seeking animals, with an imprinted instinct to make sense of what we experience. We can no more eliminate our propensity to believe than our tendency to be tribal – despite the difficulties this creates, not least the risk of genocide (think of Rwanda in 1994, which pitted Tutsi against Hutu), or the serious communal tensions that can arise between people groups in multicultural western cities.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  In the nick of time for me the war broke out between Chili and Peru: Chilian bonds dropped from 90 to 60: I saw Hamilton and assured him that Chili if left alone, could beat all South America: he advised me to wait and see. A little later Bolivia threw in her lot with Peru and Chilian bonds fell to 43 or 44. At once I went to Hamilton and asked him to buy Chilians for all I possessed on a margin of three or four. After much talk he did what I wished on a margin of ten: a fortnight later came the news of the first Chilian victory and Chilians jumped to 60 odd and continued to climb steadily: I sold at over 80 and thus netted from my first five hundred pounds over two thousand pounds and by Christmas was free once more to study with a mind at case. Hamilton told me that he had followed my lead a little later but had made more from a larger investment. The most important happening at Brighton I must now relate. I have already told in a pen-portrait of Carlyle published by Austin Harrison in the “English Review” some twelve years ago how I went one Sunday morning and called upon my hero, Thomas Carlyle in Chelsea. I told there, too, how on more than one Sunday I used to meet him on his morning walk along the Chelsea embankment, and how once at least he talked to me of his wife and admitted his impotence. I only gave a summary of a few talks in my portrait of him; for the traits did not call for strengthening by repetition; but here I am inclined to add a few details, for everything about Carlyle at his best, is of enduring interest! When I told him how I had been affected by reading Emerson’s speech to the students of Dartmouth College and how it had in a way forced me to give up my law-practice and go to Europe to study, he broke in excitedly: “I remember well reading that very page to my wife and saying that nothing like it for pure nobility had been heard since Schiller went silent. It had a great power with it.... And so that started you off and changed your way of life?... I don’t wonder ... it was a great Call.” After that Carlyle seemed to like me. At our final parting too, when I was going to Germany to study and he wished me “God speed and Goodspeed! on the way that lies before ye”, he spoke again of Emerson and the sorrow he had felt on parting with him, deep, deep sorrow and regret, and he added, laying his hands on my shoulders, “sorrowing most of all that they should see his face no more forever.” I remembered the passage and cried:

• From A Way of Being (1980)

  CONCLUSION I trust I have made it clear that over the years I have moved a long way from some of the beliefs with which I started: that man was essentially evil; that professionally he was best treated as an object; that help was based on expertise; that the expert could advise, manipulate, and mold the individual to produce the desired result. Let me, in contrast, try to summarize the learnings in which I currently believe and by which I would like to live. As I have indicated, I frequently fail to profit by these learnings, failing many times in small ways and occasionally in enormous blunders. I will list the learnings, not in the order in which they occurred in me but in what appears to be a more natural order. I have come to prize each emerging facet of my experience, of myself. I would like to treasure the feelings of anger and tenderness and shame and hurt and love and anxiety and giving and fear—all the positive and negative reactions that crop up. I would like to treasure the ideas that emerge—foolish, creative, bizarre, sound, trivial—all part of me. I like the behavioral impulses— appropriate, crazy, achievement-oriented, sexual, murderous. I want to accept all of these feelings, ideas, and impulses as an enriching part of me. I don’t expect to act on all of them, but when I accept them all, I can be more real; my behavior, therefore, will be much more appropriate to the immediate situation. On the basis of my experience I have found that if I can help bring about a climate marked by genuineness, prizing, and understanding, then exciting things happen. Persons and groups in such a climate move away from rigidity and toward flexibility, away from static living toward process living, away from dependence toward autonomy, away from defensiveness toward self-acceptance, away from being predictable toward an unpredictable creativity. They exhibit living proof of an actualizing tendency. When I am exposed to a growth-promoting climate, I am able to develop a deep trust in myself, in individuals, and in entire groups. I love to create such an environment, in which persons, groups, and even plants can grow. I have learned that in any significant or continuing relationship, persistent feelings had best be expressed. If they are expressed as feelings, owned by me, the result may be temporarily upsetting but ultimately far more rewarding than any attempt to deny or conceal them.

• From Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity (2024)

  In general, the Didascalia seeks to remove Christian laypeople from civic life, but it is particularly ingeniously eloquent about widows staying home: ‘let a widow know that she is the altar of God’, it says, adding unctuously that ‘the altar of God indeed never wanders or runs about anywhere, but is fixed in one place.’ [17] In view of such a narrowing of options for senior women, it is rather charming to find that the earliest known epitaph anywhere for any member of the Christian Church’s hierarchy, predating anything for bishops, priests or deacons, is for a formally enrolled widow from the second-century Church in Rome: Flavia Arcas, ‘the sweetest of mothers’ according to her daughter Flavia Theophila, who financed the inscription. [18] Moreover, it has to be said that a formal place for widows, and a warm and open welcome for the financial patronage that wealthy widows might offer a Church community, were a good deal more than the rabbis were offering women in the synagogue. Judaism also continued its relentless emphasis on marriage, whereas Christianity in the

• From Why We Believe: Finding Meaning in Uncertain Times

  Like just about everything that human beings turn their hands to, this enterprise of believing can go wrong. As we have seen, beliefs can lead to discrimination, violence and prejudice. This, however, points to the need to be critical and reflective about those beliefs, and how they are enacted and embodied. We can’t change who we are – but we can try to live ethically and peacefully. Paradoxically, it is the belief that we should live in these ways that allows us to subdue and redirect our more fundamental human instincts – a point emphasised by Thomas H. Huxley in his famous 1893 lecture ‘Evolution and Ethics’. For Huxley, ethical values – which human beings create – can help suppress our more fundamental primitive tendency towards violence, rooted in a distant past. The solution to toxic beliefs is not a crude abolition of the category of ‘believing’, but the search for better forms of believing that foster good lives, individually and communally. Much research has been carried out on the way in which belief systems are correlated with flourishing and resilience, at both the individual and communal level. This research often focuses on how beliefs help individuals cope with ageing, trauma and uncertainty; in recent times, its scope has been expanded to include indigenous communities, exploring how their beliefs and practices enable them to survive, particularly in the face of colonialism and the erosion of their traditional cultures.11 A recurrent theme to emerge from this research is that existentially disengaged beliefs do not seem to encourage human flourishing or create resilience. We care about beliefs that make a difference to us. I was fascinated by the 2006 debate which led to Pluto being reclassified as a ‘dwarf planet’ by the International Astronomical Union. But did it impact on me in any meaningful way? No. It was interesting in a detached sort of way. I also believe that the atomic weight of the chemical element chlorine is 35.453 – not because I’ve checked this out myself, having outsourced this matter to the scientific community at large. But if it turned out it was 35.467, I would shrug my shoulders. It would be interesting, but not personally relevant to me, even though it might be important to theoretical chemistry. Yet other beliefs make a profound difference to how we understand ourselves, and feel about our lives. Human flourishing seems to rest on three broad pillars: truth, purpose and meaning.12 To flourish is to live according to realities that are not of our own fabrication or invention; to live a life that is significant and leads to the advancement of what is good and just; and to know that we matter in life. ‘Flourishing’ includes good mental and physical health, but is also linked with happiness, life satisfaction, meaning, purpose, character, virtue and close social relationships. People flourish when they believe and feel they are part of something greater, as when individuals and communities locate themselves within ‘Big Pictures’.

• From The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Volume 10 (2011)

  The smacks ring out, colouring his bottom a darker red. “Ow! Please! Mistress! Not so hard!” “How else will you learn?” He knows better than to argue. “Romance!” I signal the change of subject with a hefty slap across both cheeks, then gently scratching the reddened surface with my fingernails. I run my hands up and down the insides of his legs, then tease his cock and balls. Slowly and carefully I peel the panties down, freeing his stiff manhood, which is yearning to be inside me. For which ultimate pleasure he will have to wait. I am as moist as he is hard. Were I not such a scrupulous avoider of the vulgar I would say we are both “gagging for it”. “Romance is the only fetish sanctioned by society. The glue that keeps workers chained to their mortgages.” __ [ put my index finger to the base of the butt plug and wriggle it slowly, enjoying the look of pure dumb pleasure on his face. I keep up the finger fucking as I sift through my thoughts on Valentine’s Day. 348 Marissa Moon “The original Valentine was a priest who married couples in secret after the Emperor Claudius made marriage illegal. I suppose that’s one way of bringing back the romance to these mutual slavery contracts. Make it illegal.” I give him another two sets of six slaps. He’s finding it harder to stay in place. “Keep still! Or I'll cane you. And you wouldn’t want that, would you, my lad?” Decorum is restored. If one can use that word of a man kneeling to offer up his bare bottom for punishment and penetration. I stroke his warmed flesh, keeping him yearning for my touch. “Some anthropologists think two years is the limit for chemical attraction, for a union to last any longer each party must make an effort.” Two more sets of six slaps and I can hear a whinier note in his voice. Good. I’m getting through to him. “Perhaps female domination is the answer to marriages that have gone stale. “That’s female domination in the sexual sense as opposed to the usual henpecking. Women can be powerful and capricious while men can be as slutty as they like, becoming the sex slaves they were always designed to be.” I pick up the paddle and start to cook his flesh, ignoring his pitiful protests. “These cute little buns of yours are going to glow like red hot coals.” Three of the best and brightest accompany those words. I find the spot that gives the best whacking sound, although it’s still not as resonant as my hand. Keeping the whacks coming on the same spot has him moaning hard. “Please, Mistress! Ow! Please ...I can’t... OWWW!” ‘Time to give the little lamb a rest. That certainly is a most attractive shade of crimson.

• From Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (2010)

  A soothing regulatory system takes over, balancing the systems that control the response to threat and hunger, so that they can take time out and allow their bodies to repair themselves. It used to be thought that this quiescence was simply the result of the more aggressive drives zoning out, but it has now been found that this physical relaxation is also accompanied in both mammals and humans by profound and positive feelings of peace, security, and well-being. 19 Produced initially by maternal soothing, these emotions are activated by such hormones as oxytocin, which induces a sense of closeness to others and plays a crucial role in the development of parental attachment. 20 When human beings entered this peaceful state of mind, they were liberated from anxiety and could, therefore, think more clearly and have fresh insights; as they acquired new skills and had more leisure, some sought to reproduce this serenity in activities, disciplines, and rituals that were found to induce it. In Semitic languages, the word for “compassion” ( rahamanut in post-biblical Hebrew and rahman in Arabic), is related etymologically to rehem/RHM (“womb”). The icon of mother and child is an archetypal expression of human love. It evokes the maternal affection that in all likelihood gave birth to our capacity for unselfish, unconditional altruism. It may well be that the experience of teaching, guiding, soothing, protecting, and nourishing their young taught men and women how to look after people other than their own kin, developing a concern that was not based on cold calculation but imbued with warmth. We humans are more radically dependent on love than any other species. Our brains have evolved to be caring and to need care—to such an extent that they are impaired if this nurture is lacking. 21 Mother love involves affective love; it has a powerful hormonal base, but it also requires dedicated, unselfish action “all day and every day.” A mother’s concern for her child pervades all her activities. Whether she feels like it or not, she has to get up to her crying infant night after night, watch him at every moment of the day, and learn to control her own exhaustion, impatience, anger, and frustration. She is tied to her child long after he has reached adulthood; indeed, on both sides, the relationship is usually terminated only at death. Maternal love can be heartbreaking as well as fulfilling; it requires stamina, fortitude, and a strong degree of selflessness. We know from our own experience that human beings do not confine their altruistic behavior to those who carry their genes. The Confucian philosopher Mencius (c. 371–c. 289 BCE) was convinced that nobody was wholly without sympathy for other people. If you saw a child poised perilously on the edge of a well, you would immediately lunge forward to save her.

• From Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (2010)

  Both the Buddha and Confucius seem to have conducted discussion in a similar manner. Confucius always developed his insights in conversation with other people, because in his view we needed this friendly interaction to achieve maturity. In Chinese script, ren had two elements: the simple ideogram of a human being and two horizontal strokes indicating human relations. Ren can, therefore, be translated as “cohumanity.” 4 But this cooperation required ren ’s “softness” and “pliability,” and Confucius would probably have appreciated the ritual of the Socratic dialogue, which demanded that participants “yield” to one another instead of holding rigidly to their own opinions. In the Analects, we see him mildly scolding his pupils, pushing them to the limit of their ability but never bullying them. Easygoing, affable, and calm, Confucius listened to them carefully and was always ready to concede their point of view. He was no sage, he would protest; his only talent was an “unwearying effort to learn and unflagging patience in teaching others.” 5 The Buddha too taught his monks to converse kindly and courteously with one another. His lay disciple King Pasenadi of Kosala was extremely impressed by the friendliness of the Buddhist community, which was in marked contrast to the royal court, where everybody was on the lookout for himself and chronically quarrelsome. When he sat with his council, he complained, he was constantly interrupted and sometimes even heckled. But when he visited the Buddha, he saw monks “living together as uncontentiously as milk with water and looking at one another with kind eyes … smiling, courteous, sincerely happy … their minds remaining as gentle as wild deer.” 6 One day he told the Buddha about a conversation with his wife in which they had both admitted that nothing was more important to them than their own selves. Instead of lecturing the king on the “unskilful” nature of egotism or launching into a discussion of anatta , he entered into Pasenadi’s position, starting from where his disciple actually was rather than where the Buddha thought he ought to be. He suggested that if the king found that there was nothing dearer to him than himself, he should reflect that everybody else felt exactly the same. Therefore, the Buddha concluded, giving Pasenadi his version of the Golden Rule, “A person who loves the self should not harm the self of others.” 7 Like Socrates, the Buddha believed that knowledge was a process of self-discovery. You did not gain insight by accepting the opinions of other people but by finding the truth within yourself. Even laypeople could achieve this. The Kalamans, a tribal people living on the northernmost fringe of the Ganges basin who were trying to find their place in the new urban civilization, sent a delegation to the Buddha.

• From Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (2010)

  The British poet William Wordsworth (1770–1850) wrote of iconic moments like this, which become a resource for us over the years: There are in our existence spots of time, That with distinct pre-eminence retain A renovating virtue, whence, depressed By false opinion and contentious thought, Or aught of heavier or more deadly weight, In trivial occupations, and the round Of ordinary intercourse, our minds Are nourished and invisibly repaired. 1 My point is that we can all create “spots of time” for others, and that many of these will be the “little, nameless, unremembered, acts of kindness and of love” that, Wordsworth claimed in another poem, form “that best portion of a good man’s life.” 2 As you embark on this step, try to think of “spots of time” in your own life, moments when somebody went out of his or her way to help you. You should also consider the effects of the unkind remarks that have been a corrosive presence in your mind over the years. They were all probably “nameless, unremembered,” and insignificant to the people who uttered them, but they have the power to fester and assume an importance that the speaker probably never intended. We need to become aware that our impulsive words and actions have consequences that we could never have foreseen. So if you want to be a force for good in the world, you should apply the insights you gain in the practice of mindfulness to your daily dealings with others, shielding them from your destructive tendencies and trying to lighten their lives with acts of friendship. We are not doomed to an existence of selfishness, because we have the ability, with disciplined, repetitive action, to construct new habits of thought, feeling, and behavior. If every time we are tempted to say something vile about an annoying sibling, a colleague, an ex-husband, or a country with whom we are at war, we reflexively ask ourselves “How would I like this said about me and mine?” and refrain, we will achieve ekstasis, a momentary “stepping outside” the egotistically confined self. If, as Confucius advised, we did this “all day and every day,” we would be in a state of continuous ekstasis, which is not an exotic trance but the permanent selflessness of a Buddha or a sage. Skeptics argue that the Golden Rule just doesn’t work, but they do not seem to have tried to implement it in a wholehearted and consistent way. It is not a notional doctrine that you either agree with or make yourself believe.

• From Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (2010)

  Be patient with yourself during this meditation; do not become irritated if you are distracted or discouraged if you seem to make no progress. Do not feel guilty if you are unable to overcome your feelings of aversion. Practiced over time, this meditation can make a compassionate groove in your mind. It should become part of your daily practice throughout the remaining steps. It should be a relaxed, ruminative process. It need not—indeed, should not—take hours of your time. But if practiced faithfully, it will help you develop two new tools: a capacity for inwardness and the ability to think of others in the same way as you think of yourself. Only practice makes perfect, just as it takes years for a dancer to turn a perfect pirouette. As you conclude the meditation, make a resolution that today you will translate these good thoughts into a small, concrete practical act of friendship or compassion to one of your three people, if you have the chance. If you do not see them, reach out to somebody else who needs a helping hand or a friendly word. THE FIFTH STEPMindfulnessAs we practice the Immeasurables, we are bound to become aware of the selfishness that impedes our compassionate outreach, balks at the thought of extending friendship to an enemy, and rebels against the idea that “I” am neither unique nor exempt from life’s ills. The purpose of mindfulness, one of the practices that brought the Buddha to enlightenment, is to help us to detach ourselves from the ego by observing the way our minds work. You might find it helpful to learn more about the neurological makeup of the brain and the way that meditation can enhance your sense of peace and interior well-being, so a few relevant books are listed in the Suggestions for Further Reading. But this is not essential. Practice is more important than theory, and you will find that it is possible to work on your mental processes just as you work out in the gym to enhance your physical fitness.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  Even though the tracker has become keenly attuned to the animal he is tracking, he must also remain aware of all other stimuli (information) in his environment, both internal and external. He may be being tracked or at least watched by other hungry or curious animals. His safety depends on remaining present by employing the felt sense. In this way his finely tuned senses can pick up the slightest sound or movement. Internally, he may be warned of danger by an intangible sense that something isn’t quite right. Smells are rich, colors bright and vibrant. Everything is bursting with life. In this state of awareness it is possible to find beauty in what otherwise might be perceived as mundan e- a twig, a caterpillar, a drop of dew on a leaf. While the tracker is attuned to this flow he feels a deep sense of well-being. He is ready to respond, alert yet relaxed. Optimally functioning “orienting responses” give the tracker confidence and a sense of security about his ability to successfully identify and meet any challenge he encounters. For wild animals, these instinctual responses mean surviva l- offering the capability for attunement and oneness with the environment that will keep them alive. For humans, far more is available through the utilization of these animal responses. They enhance our capacity for connection and enjoyment, bringing aliveness and vitality. When we are healthy and untraumatized, these instinctual responses add sensuality, variety, and a sense of wonder to our lives. The Orienting Response The hadosaur continued to eat, just a few feet from him. Grant looked at the two elongated airholes on top of the flat upper bill. Apparently, the dinosaur couldn’t smell Grant. And even though the left eye was looking right at him, for some reason the hadosaur didn’t react to him. He remembered how the tyrannosaur had failed to see him, the previous night. He decided on an experiment. He coughed. Instantly the hadosaur froze, the big head suddenly still, the jaws no longer chewing. Only the eye moved, looking for the source of the sound. Then after a moment, when there seemed to be no danger, the animal resumed chewing. — Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park Imagine you are strolling leisurely in an open meadow, and a shadow suddenly moves in the periphery of your vision. How do you respond? Instinctively, your previous motions stop. You may crouch slightly in a flexed posture, and your heart rate will change as your autonomic nervous system is activated. After this momentary “arrest” response, your eyes open wide. Without willing it, your head turns in the direction of the shadow in an attempt to locate and identify it. Sense your muscles. What are they doing?