What is “Seiondo”?

Over the years, some few visitors and friends have asked about the name of our household (and this site)... “Seiondo”.

Where does it come from?  What does it mean?

In this post, I’m going to introduce the concepts that went into creating it and why it was created in the first place, and share a little about its current structure.

Foundation

First off, let me confess… In my younger years, I was a man in turmoil.

I grew up in a dysfunctional household of emotional violence. My parents tended to resolve their disputes with the philosophy of “who shouts the loudest, wins”... my siblings and I could only be described as “adversarial”...

And couple that with the understanding of what living in poverty does to the psyche, you can get a basic picture of what my formative years were like.

So it should come as no surprise that, as a young man, I struggled with my identity, my confidence, my father’s anger, codependent relationships…

Throughout my 20’s and early 30’s, it could be said that I was busy “re-creating” the environment that I grew up in.

But I knew I wanted something more. I wanted to be better than that.

Over the first two decades of my adult life, I slowly learned what that meant, and the philosophy for Seiondo evolved.

Philosophy & Translation

First and foremost, Seiondo is a philosophy.

It means “the way of harmony of the spirit”, and it’s comprised of two parts:

“Seion”, which my vast online research (translation: I read the first few hits from a Google search) indicated was the name of the Japanese kanji that means “serenity or tranquility of the spirit”, and “-do”, which means “way of”, such as “bushido”... the way of the sword (also known as the code of the Samurai)

The principle philosophy of seiondo is simple to state, but challenging to live:

We believe that the purpose of life on Earth is to learn how to love unconditionally; In order to express love, you must be in harmony with yourself, your surroundings, and those with whom you share your journey.

We believe that we should live our lives as the result of deliberation and introspection, not “by accident”. We respond deliberately to the things that happen to us in our lives. To simply react is to elevate ourselves no higher than simple microbes. We choose to live deliberately, and that requires us to think about

We believe in generous communication… in active listening, or, listening with the intent to understand, not just respond.

We believe that we must learn to control and manage anger and other negative emotions..

Anger is an energy. It is a reaction to other feelings that we may or may not understand. Feelings of helplessness, frustration, violation and similar emotions, when not analyzed and responded to, generate anger.

We believe in giving generously from a place of abundance.

We believe that, for us, consensual authority exchange relationships are powerful expressions of our freedom... but that it's not for everyone. And that's okay.

And all of these bundled up into a ‘way of life’ that we practice at Seiondo, our M/s lifestyle poly household.

Household

While “Seiondo” was designed as a philosophy, it was also my desire to have a communal, Master/slave and poly household that lived this philosophy 24/7 and, as much as possible, under the same roof.

Origins

To that end, Seiondo was founded as a Household in 2011 in Denver, Colorado, based somewhat on the philosophy described above. It has evolved and resolved over time.

There were four original members; Myself (Master Koi), Master Patrick, slave xiaoyi and her husband Dominic.

Master Patrick left after about a year, and xiaoyi and Dominic after 3 years.

The current members of the Household, at the time of this writing, are Master Koi, slave sierra and slave lessli.

Conclusion

I hope this gives you a little understanding of who we are, what we're doing and why. If you have any questions about our lifestyle, household, etc, feel free to drop a comment below, or drop us a note here.