Mad/Sad

An article came across my social media today that got me to thinking... a lot of things get me to thinking, but here is this particular train of thought...

The article was in regards to traumatic shaking. It referred to dogs after a dog fight, how they shake. I wouldn't know anything about a dog fight, but I do know about traumatic shaking. I shook uncontrollably after labor and delivery for each of my children. Perhaps it happened each time, perhaps it was just most of them, I just remember it happening several times, a lot is foggy about all that.

So, the article states that the shaking is the body's way of releasing the memory of pain that would otherwise be stored in the physical body, as opposed to the emotions. The idea of our physical body having its own memory is a fascinating concept, one that also leads to generational memory and PTSD across the ages. It would be nice to also include some positivity in all that, and I am sure it is there... somewhere... I mean, definitely it is for the labor and delivery... my children are totally worth it.

What feels less worth the trauma and shaking was a single instance of extreme stress after an encounter regarding my mother. I can't even remember the details of it, but I remember shaking so uncontrollably and thinking that the only other times I shook like this were after the harrowing hours of birth. It all made so little sense at the time, but as I muse on it now I realize something. One of my primary thoughts during labor and delivery was a religious indoctrination. The one that says that the pain of childbirth was a result of an ancestral woman eating a piece of fruit, and that some hateful, hateful god decided that all women should experience extreme and sometimes deadly painful birthing consequences as a result of this "failure in judgment." I felt so hated by this god. Something deep inside me has completely rebelled since then. I refuse to buy that hatred hook, line and sinker like so many have before me, like so many still do.

My mother and my husband's mother were also raised under this ideology.... the one that says that women deserve their pain, that women are inherently cursed to suffer, and that there is absolutely no redemption for it. Maybe, if we are good enough, our souls can manage to get into eternal heaven, maybe... but we are women after all, so don't count on it. I know that my mother and my husband's mother also have a deep sense of self-loathing in the core of their being, but it doesn't help one iota when they project that self-loathing onto me and/or my daughters. When they favor their sons, their husbands, their fathers, the whole patriarchal regime over a little girl.... it can make me shake uncontrollably.

I feel bad for them. I feel bad for the ideology and brainwashing that they endured and still endure. I appreciate that they rebelled even as much as they did, but they haven't been healed, not completely. Maybe they have moved forward on their path of healing, but they still perpetuate the madness. The only way for me to move forward, to heal this body, these genetic memories, to clear the slate for my children, all my children, is to reject the madness, to stand firm in the belief that there is a sacred feminine that is beautiful. That the deep feminine aspects of our beings are not in competition with men, we don't have to be equal to or better than or less than... they are them and we are us. They represent a sacred masculine and we represent a sacred feminine... two similar, but very different representations.

It isn't just women that suffer due to this grotesque mindset, it is also men, males, boys too. Women are the nurturers. Women are the life-bearers. Women are the sensitive beings that physically respond to the cry of an infant, quite literally! Breastfeeding mothers are likely to begin the letting down of milk when they hear an infant crying, sometimes it doesn't even need to be their own infant, a crying baby=a leaking breast! The inner child in all of us needs the wholeness of representation of the divine feminine. We need to know that our cries cause a deep nurturing reaction. We need to know the love of a father and a mother to be whole. I want to insert the word divine before father and mother, that we need a divine father and a divine mother, but that takes so many back to a religious concept... this concept of a divine father that heartlessly stands by and watches all women suffer violently while giving birth, many of these women being completely unwilling to have been impregnated in the first place.... many others giving their lives for love of child they have never seen. That is not the kind of divine father I am talking about, may he rot in the hell of all the pain of all the labors of all the women of all the ages.... this god "they" call merciful... are "they" insane?

My mother has asked me, "What have I done? What have I done that has caused you to stop loving me?" My response... "You taught me how to love conditionally. I am sorry. I am trying to learn another way, a better way, but first I have to heal the memories, the ones deep in my psyche and my DNA, the ones your mother taught you, and her mother taught her. The ones you haven't been able to heal yet. I need to do this for myself, and my daughters. There is rumor that healing can even go back in time. Let us hope so."

They also say that when you have sex the women quite often will absorb the man's DNA. She literally becomes a piece of him. So, although some of my in-laws have officially decided to not recognize me as family... a recent obituary proved that... the truth is... I am blood family, even without acknowledgment. I carry the memories of both sides of the family in me, especially since mothers also carry the DNA of their children after birth, a bit of it stays, keeping them always connected, which I suppose is how I can send healing both ways... if I can figure it out without self-destructing first.

Previous generations, if you yell at me, if you take me for granted, if you disrespect me in any way, even by playing the victim....  I must step away. I must shake it off... even if I sound like a pop song..... *chuckle.* I know you don't know any better, but I do know better, I just have a lot more to learn about it, and I can't have you continually triggering fresh shakes.... I am trying to grow a new paradigm, a loved generation. My door is not completely closed to the previous generations who have disappointed, but after each hurtful episode the obstacles in the path grow higher and your love will have to be bigger to surmount them. Next generations, I make no promises, I claim no accolades, but I am trying to know what it means to be love and I hope that counts for something.

I have struggled with the realization that I give much more of myself to my children than I give to my parents. I give more patience, more time, more money, more energy, more hope, more everything. I have been given guilt trips for that from the older generation, "Don't you know you are supposed to honor your mother and your father?" The best advice I was given regarding the guilt trip is that parents bring children into the world, those children don't ask to be brought into the world, so the parents have a responsibility toward the children, more so than the children have to the parents. Many parents have used the argument that their children "owe" them... I don't feel that way about my children. I should hope that if I ever have need of a hand to steady me as I age, that their love for me will cause them to consider it an honor, but if I have not earned that honor and respect, then it would be horrible of me to demand it. I don't think I would turn away an elderly person that asked for my help, if I truly thought they needed it, but I will not be manipulated or guilted into sacrificing for my parents what is rightfully due my children, at least rightfully due by the rules of my heart, and mind, and soul.

My enemies may gloat. My mother may garner sympathy from all her friends. My father doesn't give a damn about me... My in-laws might not have a clue what to think of me, they certainly don't favor me, fascinated?... maybe... love? not sure... would be nice.... maybe someday I'll know.

Fortunately, the steps forward that have been made, hard won perhaps, are blooming and growing and  deep and healing between the masculine manifestation I call my husband and the feminine manifestation I call myself. We are growing together. Time has refined our love, strengthened our trust, deepened our insight and sweetened our tears. Praise the gods! Whoever they are... the benevolent ones that react with nurturing when we cry....





P.S. Life is a potluck, everyone brings a dish, eat at your own risk... It might have botulism, or it might be the best thing ever, in which case you need to track down that recipe.

Cozy Cage

Little hamster
Running free
Lovely lessons
Teaching me

Every night
You'd fuss and fret
Freedom trying
Hard to get

One fine day
You did break through
The roof no longer
Sheltered you

Away you ran
Without a fear
Delighted that
The coast was clear

A little question
Rose to mind
When water there
You could not find

A wiser critter
You became
And sauntered out
For me to claim

No struggle
There was
You just waited
For us

And happy
You seem
In the cage
Of your dreams

Not every cage
is built with love
Though some the gods
Built from above

I Am a Renaissance

I write, but I don't feel like what I imagine a writer feels like.
I play the harp and I sing, but I don't feel like what I imagine a musician or singer feels like.
I am artsy. I do art. My home is covered in evidence of that, but I don't feel like what I imagine an artist feels like.

I'm not sure what it is, lack of commitment, lack of inspiration, or simply a lack of personal acknowledgment?

What makes a person assume the identity of what they do as who they are?

I am a writer.
I am an artist.
I am a musician.

I garden.
I cook.
I bake.
I sew.
I crochet.

I have had piano lessons, singing lessons, harp lessons, gardening lessons, painting lessons, Reiki lessons, Aikido lessons. I have children and I am their primary educational overseer. We utilize aromatherapy, massage therapy, and holistic health concepts. We raise goats, chickens, dogs, cats, rabbits, aquarium critters, and a hamster. We tap Maple trees, tend beehives, make soap and candles. We dry herbs for a variety of uses, and make tinctures. We make wine. I don't do these things alone, but I am involved in all of them to varying degrees.

Is it that I am just doing too many things? I certainly don't do them all every day, but everyday I am doing at least one of them.

Perhaps I am having a hard time with singular labels because I am a renaissance.

The Echo of Tree Rings

Numerous personality profiles define me as leadership material. That always baffles me. I do not see myself in the way that people tend to see leaders, not human leaders anyway. Human leaders are like tall trees. They are obvious, strong, stately, and over-shadowing, intimidating, etc. I am just prickly.

Then I realized, in nature the tall trees are the leaders toward doom, not the leaders of healing, though they do offer much healing. A forest full of tall trees beckons loggers and wildfires. A tall tree is old and many of them die on their own without the hand of man. An old tree is impressive, because they don't all get that old. On the other hand, if you plow a field and then let it sit fallow you will get common weeds, lots and lots of common weeds, brambles mostly, raspberries, blackberries, hawthorns, blackthorns, nettles, burdocks, etc. They won't all be prickly, you will also get things like poison ivy! If walking through that field in two years, or so, don't wear short pants! You might not even be able to walk through that field without some sort of cutting implement. Those are the real leaders, the mothers of the forest. They will sort out the properties of the soil and encourage the growth of the appropriate weeds for the balance that is required for the little saplings. They will protect the little saplings from a variety of threats. They will offer gifts to anyone thinking of plowing that field again, gifts of berries and medicinal herbs. Granted, there are few these days that understand the value of those gifts, but that does not make them any less valuable. The value of a field that sits fallow for a few years is so great that Nature herself will burn down an ancient forest so that the underbrush can be reborn.  If all those little prickly leaders get their way they will one day be overshadowed by the giants of the forests.

I am in awe of tall trees, especially the ones that are in ancient forests. I am not a tall tree. I am a prickly little mother leader.... the kind that every tall tree has way, way back in its family story. Maybe some day I will be overshadowed, perhaps by a tall tree with little squirrels in its branches, the forest planters, they promote the leaders of the next generation, as do the birds, and the bees, and the flowers, and all the trees... such interconnectedness.

A Pendulum and Tarot Exercise

I was a bit unfocused today, which is nothing new, but on days when there aren't any pertinent calendar events then that feeling of being particularly unfocused usually leads me down a mystical sort of path. It took a little while to establish the energetic interaction that felt beckoning. The tarot cards and the pendulum, a fresh green pillar candle, some mint for smudging, a bit of Reiki to start off, and the course was beginning to develop some definition.

My path is currently meandering through the neighborhoods of Self-Discovery and Self-Initiation. My teachers are primarily books, articles and promptings. I do consider myself very fortunate when I occasionally encounter a flesh and blood mentor with respectable experience. I always learn something that feels quite valuable, though I try not to give away my own power, that is, the power of intuition. If something doesn't feel right, I just want to discreetly shelve it. I have also learned that there are a lot of conflicting views about most things, so adopting my own perspectives is strongly about what resonates well with me.

What I found myself doing today was not something that I read anywhere or was taught from any person, but it felt wonderful and energetically led. I lit a green pillar candle. I smudged my cards with mint and laid them all out, face down in tidy rows. Then I positioned the pendulum over the first card in the corner to my right and observed the activity of the pendulum, or lack thereof. The pendulum's motion was the first communication, the second communication was the clairaudient words, such as, if the pendulum was swinging in reverse the clairaudient words might be, "This is something that you are in the process of letting go." Or, if the pendulum was swinging forward the clairaudient communication might say, "This is a lesson that you are learning." If the pendulum was swinging wildly forward the clairaudient words might be, "This is a lesson that you have learned well." All these instances and more were part of the reading today. After the pendulum showed its activity, and after a clairaudient communication about its particular meaning for me regarding the card, the card was then turned over and reflected upon. All of these things were journaled and occasionally an additional comment was dictated. I got a little over three rows in when the pendulum no longer showed any activity over cards, and the clairaudient communication was. "That is all for now. Reflect." Not all of the cards in the first three rows had pendulum activity. There were a few that were still. That was communicated as, "Not currently applicable to your path."

Grow and Live

Why don't they love me?

The question's been posed.

Why do they carelessly pluck a rose?

Why do they chop down a mighty tree?

Why do they all wander aimlessly?

It's not about you,

Dear One with the thought.

It's not about you, 

though you're worried and fraught.

Not really, at all,

though you stumble and fall.

Not really, you see,

just grow, like the tree.

Some trees manage to rise from a seed.

They blossom and fruit
meeting many a need.

They sway in the storms.

They sing in the wind.

They do it all once, 

and then do it again.

Some have lived and then died

no one knowing they're there,

but for woodland creatures

like rabbits and bears.

The squirrels would have known, 

perhaps planted, they did, 

the tree in the forest

that lived and lived.