An Enigmatically Terrible & Cruel Compassion

It takes an Enigmatic Angel to write about a compassion that is terrible and cruel.

Compassion has been a part of me and my life seemingly forever – and lately I’ve been thinking about how I brought my compassion with me on my BDSM journey as well.

I’ve always been very empathic. I have seen inside people’s souls in ways no one has seen. And I have loved people as I have seen into their souls, if even for a brief moment. Loved strangers in the street I passed by but once, and loved others who crossed my path countless of times.

Sometimes people have mistaken that love for something else. It is not an erotic love that I speak of, but a love pure and bright white for my fellow human beings. The compassionate love that understands and accepts.

“Love as thou wilt”.

Those were the words I read one day in Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel dark fantasy series, and how those words resonated when I read them.

Those who know me know how much I am fascinated and fond of this Kusheline Legacy. This strangely dark and tempting tale of gods and angels, with that undercurrent of pain and domination and submission in it.

And of this tale I was drawn most to a God of Love, Elua, who bid all to love as one wilt, and his darkest of Angels and Companions, Kushiel. Kushiel, the Punisher of God. The angel who delivers sinners, washes their sins away in a wave of pain and fire. The angel who delivers pain with eternal compassion and delivers complete and pure forgiveness.

Oh yes, this Kushiel was the one I was most drawn to, a strongly rebounding echo of my own dark and pain-kissed journey, my BDSM path that I have walked.

Someone asked me recently why I chose this name of Angel and every aspect of that why was what I saw in the mirror’s reflection of this Kushiel. That aspect of light and dark co-mingled with love. That terrible compassion that knows the darkest cravings hidden deepest in the spirit. That incredible sense of release that comes with that rain of pain crashing down on the flesh. I have known that blessed release from both sides of it. And I have fully savored both sides of it.

I have known that cleansing feeling of giving in completely, irrevocably to that pain administered with love and compassion. And I have tasted that heady powerful mix of delivering that pain with complete love and compassion as well.

Oh Elua. Oh Kushiel.
Love and compassion. Love and punishment.
Yes. Oh yes.

It’s funny that I haven’t talked or written much of this Kushiel Legacy, considering how much I have loved reading these tales and books over and over.

I was thinking lately about the characters in the books and thought about which of those characters I most identified with. Truth be told, there is a little of all of them in me. I have endless compassion for this original heroine of Phedre no Delauney, an anguisette, touched by the gods to experience endless pleasure in pain. What a beautiful thing. To live this pain to balance the scales for all those who have no conscience. To offer up that endless pain and pleasure as tribute.

I am no Phedre but I understand her very well. She is a part of my own nature, but then, Kushiel, who touches her blessed life, is part of me as well.

I have been thinking on all of this lately as a few submissives have crossed my path this past week. Including a former submissive who still thinks of me, it seems.

I was thinking about how this character of Phedre loves all the patrons she serves, a little. But I believe the other side of that coin is true as well. A patron dominant loves all the submissives who serve them a little as well.

Not love as simply an enjoyment of playing and sex.
But that terribly compassionate love that loves the gift of submission offered up in play.

My empathic ability and compassion have been served in an interesting and intriguing way when I have played during this dark BDSM path of mine.

Knowing and understanding the submission that has been offered up to me and giving them the gift of that release into their fantasies. That is a precious gift. I have treasured it as submissives have come and gone. As I send them on their way, with love.

People forget sometimes that love is about loving in the moment.
There is nothing possessive about that love.
That love is liberating. It is freeing a soul to express itself and walk their own path, long after the play is done.

At times I have felt my gift of compassion has been a gift and a curse.
But I have never wished I did not have or feel it.

And if I can continue to bestow that terrible compassion with tenderly cruel ministrations, ah then it is a gift indeed.

Love as thou wilt, indeed.




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