To the person who stole my flogger

You took advantage of an open bag while I was busy doing my demo, bad me for not paying more attention. Good for you for spotting an oportunity.

And yes.. You scored big. That is a one of a kind, hand turned handle in oak and mahogany. The falls are 7 mm buffalo hide. A flogger like that would run you close to $400.00 (Edit: Ok.. closer to $200, I have found out, but STILL...), if you could find an artisan to make it for you.

Let me tell you how I got it... I certainly didn't commission it myself. It was given to me. By a woman who had been a player in the scene she loved for most of her life. A woman who was, at the time, too sick to play anymore. She wanted her toys to continue having the fun she was denied.

So, make sure you honor what you have taken... It has a history.. A story... And it is important that it is cherished, well used, and most importantly, it is important that it is honored.

Look up honor in the dictionary. You owe the flogger that much, you unbelievably heinous bundle of fucking scum.

Zen and the Art of Floggers.

In one of those moments that leads me to believe that the divine was talking directly to me (ME! ME!! It's all about ME!!), I just heard a lecture on the Zen construct of WABI SABI.

During this lecture, the speaker talked about the sacredness of the objects involved in the Japanese Tea Ceremony, and the differnt ways that other cultures value thier sacred objects. In Japan, there is a Shinto temple that contains 10,000 sacred objects. This temple and its objects are cherished and cared for with a kind of reverant zeal. And until recently, every 20 years, the temple and all 10,000 sacred objects in it were completely destroyed and rebuilt.

This was not meant to be a lesson in the fleetingness of life, nor an effort in to instill an idea that materialism is less than holy (although both of those ideas are rather Zen), but rather, this practice was meant to ensure that craftsmen skilled in the creation of sacred things would always be around; that traditions of art would be passed from generation to generation.

Dude, that's fucking deep.

And this came after the discussion about my stolen flogger... See why it looks like divine communication?