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SimplyMichael -> MAsT Discussion Groups (8/3/2008 9:49:43 AM)
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For those who value relationships, I just want to recommend something that I have always found valuable and still learn from. Masters And slaves Together, is a national group that supports local discussion groups. I have attended ones in the San Francisco area and co-founded the one in Sacramento. Now, I am sure some of them suck because the people who run them are assholes and at least three people on CM have been horribly abused/humiliation/whatever by someone in/at/around Mast but not that I have ever heard just there is always someone.
Anyway, it is one of the only places one hears real honesty, deep sharing, and raw emotions openly discussed and shared. When I first went it was the first time I saw really functional relationships in the scene, ones I wanted to emulate. I wasn't at a place where I could yet see what made them work wasn't the rituals, or how slavish/domish the participants were but the fact that they had solid relationship skills. However, it planted the seeds that have slowly grown.
I hosted and moderated the last meeting at my house and it was packed. Some just listened but others opened up and shared some really deep stuff and I am sure everyone who attended came away richer for the experience, I know I did. Some of the stuff is still rattling around in my head as I process it.
However, someone who was there lamented the fact that many MAsT chapters get only five or six people and I thought that was horribly sad. If there is a local chapter, even one that isn't too local, search it out and attend. You will never regret it, or at least probably not as nothing is ever certain. It is one of the most rewarding things I have found in the scene.
www.mast.net (may be down for maintenance)
My local MAsT chapter
http://www.sacmast.org/
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