Kneeling in Spirit [ePUB]

by Raven Kaldera

In erotic stories, consensual submissives and slaves are usually beautiful, perfect-bodied people who can endure any physical hardship while balancing a tray of drinks in one hand. But what about real life, where many of us in dominant/submissive or master/slave relationships cope with imperfect bodies and real-life challenges? Kneeling In Spirit explores the brave stories of disabled people in service and surrender, and the inventive masters and mistresses who love them.

Genres: BDSM, Sexuality, Nonfiction

84 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 2, 2013

About the author

A female-to-male transgendered activist and shaman, Raven Kaldera is a pagan priest, intersex transgender activist, parent, astrologer, musician and homesteader. Kaldera is also the author of "Hermaphrodeities: The Transgender Spirituality Workbook" from XLibris Press. The founder and leader of the Pagan Kingdom of Asphodel and the Asphodel Pagan Choir, Kaldera has been a neo-pagan since the age of 14, when he was converted by a "fam-trad" teen on a date. Since then, he's been through half a dozen traditions, including Gardnerian, Dianic, granola paganism, Umbanda, Heithnir, and the Peasant Tradition. He is currently happily married to artist and eco-experimentalist Bella Kaldera, with whom he co-founded the Institute for Heritage Skills.

Reviews

[Nicole Field · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goodness, I needed to read this book. I picked it up mainly because of the title, and because I have difficulty in kneeling for long periods of time given the weakness of my ankles and their tendency to dislocate.

There were specifically two sections in this book that viewed that particular issue among submissives who had various disabilities, but what I wasn't expecting was the heartrending stories from the point of view of various submissives and, towards the end of the collection, also dominants.

The first essay got me straight in the feels immediately, written from the point of view of a submissive with fibromyalgia who has also found a lot of use in a strategy he calls the Concept of Investment, which he then went into detail about in the hope it might help other readers.

I absolutely fell in love with the story from an ex-U.S. military service Leatherman with PTSD and already I know I'll be reading that again.

"M/s with MS" was a cleverly titled essay in this collection that also went into what it looks like to have a degenerative disease and shows how that journey isn't just about the submissive, but went into detail about how it is the dominant's ongoing journey as well. This is a path they walk together.

I then felt really seen by the next essay that spoke about being gender diverse, the first one of its kind in this collection, having limited sight, and also being party to being your own worst enemy when viewing yourself. I wouldn't know anything about any of those things...

Of the essays from the point of view of the dominant, the one that really stuck with me long after the reading was done was one that was sharing a story about a submissive who has now passed away, but wanting that story to be heard and read.

There were just so many feelings in this collection, and both short and long essays that are likely to appeal to people in the lifestyle.

[Louis Clairvoile · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kneeling In Spirit: Disabled Submissives, edited by Raven Kaldera, is a book that moves to the edges—where body and desire no longer follow familiar patterns but stumble, reinvent themselves, endure. It speaks of those who, in a scene so often obsessed with the image of perfect bodies, dare to tell a different truth: of pain, limitation, the daily struggle with a body that refuses—and yet still obeys, in other ways.

My response to this book is not academic, not distant. I live with a submissive partner whose body carries pain, fatigue, and limitation. Our rituals have changed; the familiar gestures—kneeling, enduring, bending—are no longer always possible. What once seemed essential has had to be redrawn. In these pages, I found voices that echo my own experience: the search for protocols small enough to be sustainable, yet meaningful enough to bind. The reminder that obedience can speak louder than service, and that love must sometimes find its fire in new places.

The testimonies here are not of weakness, but of another kind of strength: submissives who cannot kneel, but kneel in spirit; who cannot always serve with hands or labor, yet offer obedience as the deeper currency of devotion. Some stories are almost unbearably intimate—catheters, incontinence, enemas—things that might be read as shame but are reframed as care, control, even erotic truth. Necessity becomes ceremony; humiliation transforms into play; illness is folded into the bond itself.

Kaldera writes as a Dominant who knows that risk assessment is not theory but daily practice: when to push, when to protect, when to trust the submissive’s own judgment, and when to hold her limits more firmly than she can herself. Out of this tension arises a new ethic of power exchange—an ethic of attentiveness, radical honesty, and shared knowledge.

Some passages wound, because they reveal the cruelty of abandonment—submissives discarded as “broken” when illness appeared. Yet others show the creativity that keeps the bond alive: waiting for him to take the first bite, wearing the clothes he chooses, finding in the smallest gestures the deepest affirmation. Again and again, the book insists: service matters, but obedience matters more.

For me, Kneeling In Spirit is not simply a collection of stories. It is a mirror. It reminds me that our bond does not depend on the flawless body, but on the willingness to yield—even, and especially, where the body falters.

[Shaun Putaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inspiring

I found this to be an excellent and insightful piece on dealing with physical challenges as a "s" type in D/s or M/s relationships. It was inspirational to hear the stories of others, from both sides of the slash, and how they have adapted their power exchange relationships to the abilities of themselves and their partners.