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Master's Retreat 2002 Where to begin? I know I never finished my Thunder essay... these weekend events tend to be overwhelming. I suppose the notion of a "Master's Retreat", is foreign to many folks in the scene and I am sure my interpretation of the experience is a bit different then everyone else's. This is the second one for me since I attended the inaugural sessions back in 1999. Master's Retreat is a relatively small gathering of those people who identify with Dominance in some form. 15 or so, of us gathered in a Holiday Inn for a weekend of sharing and discussions. There are no demo's or classes or technique sessions. Submissive's were not permitted to attend the discussion sessions, though they did participate in other activities and prepared and served a wonderful High Leather Dinner Saturday night. The core of the organization of this forum is predominantly gay male. Head facilitator Master Dean, and Master Doug Harris owner of The Sanctuary of a Dark Angel in Atlanta, Guest facilitators Steve Sampson International Master 2000 and founder of Butchmanns Academy , Jack Rinella author of the Master's Manual, and soon to be released The Compleat Slave, MsMine who is Gay leather from a Fem side. That said, the content of the weekend is anything but singular in scope. There comes not only a richness in Leather history, but a dispelling of myths, and an inclusion of all forms of leather leadership that embrace integrity and sincerity of purpose. The set up is a good one this year. We have one floor of the Holiday Inn, so even our meeting room is on the same floor. No traipsing up and down elevators or through the lobby. At breaks I am able to head to my own room steal a quick snack check on messages and plans and grope my submissive. Being diabetic my beverage and snack needs are a bit off the main path so this proximity to my own cooler was particularly appreciated. I traveled with sunshine this trip. chocolat was most giving of herself to stay home and hold down the fort. Not an easy thing for her since she loves being in the middle of all things leather. These are the same people who host the boy's training camps, and chocolat had an eye opening experience in attending her first one last Spring. (I send anyone who is seriously working with me to these training camps) We had a pleasant drive up from Houston, about 4 hours or so and arrived early and checked in. the first event was an optional meet and greet dinner at the Hotel restaurant. Great Philly cheesesteak, marginal service. Two seats on the end of one table left when we arrive... We meet Glen and boy gary across the table from us. Turns out, sunshine knows Glens Life Partner Michael from a previous event. After a time Glen shares that he is collaring boy gary after Saturday night's High Leather dinner and offers us an invitation. We accept and I offer to photograph the event. Now I am torn about the rest of Friday night, because there is also an event being held this weekend about 45 minutes away called Lifestyles, and a collaring of some friends at 11 pm at the Sanctuary Dallas, which is about 20 minutes away from the hotel. Unfortunately our first session at Master's runs 8:30 to midnight. I know by midnight I'll be close to toast after a day of travel. I decide to keep options open and break away if I can. First order of business at Master's, Leaving your ego at the door. We all drop our titles and scene names and go around the room introducing ourselves and learning who we will spend the weekend sharing with. Often for me, remembering names isn't an easy task, so I focus on remembering names and matching them to faces... listening closely to the people and what they tell us they are about. So when my turn comes.. I just run at the mouth about who I am without any preparation. I kept it short and sweet and hopefully somewhat coherent. The humor in the room is amazing. Some of the quickest funniest people I've ever spent time with. Warm hearted jabs amongst those who know each other well, and before long we have a few running jokes that bond us all a bit more. Also some very touching moments. People speaking about dealing with loss and separation, caring when it is impossible to help someone, concerns about losing the edge it takes to be successful in Domination. The support in this circle is phenomenal. No way am I leaving this room tonight. I tend to be a talker, and here I sit with the issues of a vanilla divorce from my life partner and losing my teen's trust and faith in a recent painful round of mental health issues she is wrassling with. So many of these admission of feelings and concerns are resonating deeply inside me. Instead of babbling...I offer a few words of support and drink in the room and all it is becoming. I'm not sure I can quantify all that occurred this weekend. Certainly this wasn't a beginner's level gathering.It didn't turn into some touchy-feelly love fest or therapy session, we stay on topic through out. Dealing with other Doms in public settings, Keeping the D/s alive in long term relationships, Love and ownership, when does it work, when doesn't it? The direction of community and our roles in it, Spirituality and religion, care and feeding of the submissive, boy, and slave. Even some real defining of the terms. My personal experiences were many. The first night I literally sat outside of the circle arriving a few minutes late and having been handed a chair placed outside the circle. No biggie. But I made a mental note to not arrive late again, and generally planted myself someplace where I could see everyone well from then on. As it happened that ended up being next to Jack Rinella, whom I took a liking to immediately. He is extremely well educated and wise and his East coast accent reminds me of my days growing up in New York City. While I am not gay and well past my BI-curious days I was most comfortable in the room and sitting next to Jack. Connecting to Steve Sampson was another plus. I've seen Master Steve's photo and have linked to the Butchmann's site for a number of years. But I always had this preconceived notion that Steve Sampson was a big rough nasty Leatherman. (And I am sure he can be when he choses to be), but here is a soft-spoken intelligent wise man who speaks about touching hearts and the universe having balance and purpose. It was actually Master Steve's attendance as a facilitator that prompted me to clear my calendar and make the trip up. I had missed his last visit to Houston and heard some great things about him so I didn't wish to miss a second opportunity to connect. Honestly, while I cannot hold myself out as High Leather protocol... I never miss an opportunity to learn more about it and embrace as much of it as makes sense for me in my life. Saturday sessions move into more the meat and potatoes of the sessions, Jack speaks about "authentic self" being in touch with yourself and what works for you more than fitting molds of Master-dom. We break out into smaller groups after lunch, most everyone gravitates to the family and poly room. Having lived it most of my leather life I didn't think there'd be much to learn and my interest was more towards the "Keeping D/s Alive" topic. Saturday night arrives... I am on my own.. sunshine has been traveling with the "boys" all day and is now preparing the set up for the High Leather Dinner at the dungeon. I had volunteered her service for the event. Actually all the boys and submissives were working on that event. So I had to dress myself and wrassle with those damn chaps on my own. Sat at a wonderful table of folks, food was great. Service impeccable. The collaring followed. It was a wonderful event. My understanding is that Master Steve will be posting the words on His site. I took lots of photos and was able to find an Eckerds to have them developed before the Sunday meeting. We stayed for the dungeon play until the bullwhips came out. sunshine has a nervous condition and sudden loud noises rattle her to the core, it takes days for her to recover. Of late we've been able to give her ear plugs to make loud intense environments more tolerable for her, but as I did want to get over to see Sanctuary, we took the opportunity to go up the freeway and see if any of our other friends were out and about. Sanctuary was empty. We met one of the owners Steve. sunshine had done a great job making my entire trip effortless, and I wanted to reward her with a good scene. It was nice having the place to ourselves, and pick of any play station. I love chain stations the best since it permits me to work all sides of a subject. Had a lovely scene with sunshine and as she was in my lap in the lounge area just flying.. I was able to say brief hellos with a few folks I knew from the Texas chatrooms. Most everyone was played out between the previous nights dungeon play and the day long Lifestyle event so I was a bit disappointed I didn't meet more folks and the ones I did were rather distracted and played out. Still I did catch up with a dear friend portia who spent time with us Saturday and again meeting us for dinner Sunday after Retreat ended. Sunday's Retreat started later in the morning. We went down for breakfast early and took the film over to Eckerds. The photos came out well and we were able to get them back and assembled into a small album just before the last session started. (Remember, I didn't want a bad seat.) Some amazing talk about those words we use to define ourselves and how we need language and common understandings to be clear with each other. We spoke of the future of our community, and how there are some needs to keep Het Gay and Pan sexual options alive even as many of the old pigeon holes are beginning blur and become less clear. Some awesome people and fascinating perspectives were shared. I come away with a renewed sense of myself in all of this. And as I get back to the business of working on my book... I have some wonderful new insights to myself and the notions of Lifestyle in the new millennium. While I didn't get to attend Janet Hardy's workshop on book writing, I'm hopeful that my choice to stay in Dallas for the Master's Retreat will serve just as well for me as a Dominant and as a budding Lifestyle author.   - Malo 2/02 Malo's page | Events Main page

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