Category Archives: Calling
My calling in its many interpretations and manifestation. To be the hands of the Divine The method and the means by which I am present for others in helpful, realistic and yet magical ways.
Reflections of Resilience: Shine On You Crazy Diamond
TW: Descriptions of rape, sexual assault, child sexual assault, sexual harassment.
(This is a story of my comeback from rape, prior and subsequent experiences of sexual assault and harassment, internalized misogyny, depression, anxiety, PTSD and Catholic guilt. Read Part 1 here. )
It wasn’t until the past year or so that I started to see the night of my rape in the larger scheme of things. Patterns started to emerge that were both good and bad for me, for us as a society. The following is just a dispassionate description of those observations, loosely woven into the part of my personal story i’m willing to share with the public.
Sexual assault is far more common than we think.
In the three years I was in college (yes, gradutated a year early), I encountered many stories from women and men who had been sexually assaulted. Either taken advantage of when drunk or high or coerced and pressured into sex by a needy, jealous and demanding partner.
One night, at the end of my senior year as our sorority held one of its fireside chats (usually an attempt to clear the air about our grievances with each other), I confessed to them this story I shared here. More than a third of the sorority shared similar stories that night. I remember all of us sitting there, tears in our eyes as we recalled separate but shared histories of the humiliation of objectification and dehumanization. It had never been quantified for me like that before.
But beyond this, I started to recognize and see all the minor ways in which sexual assault has been normalized. So when we talk about rape culture, this is what we mean. The legitimization of smaller aggressions against the consent of those involved in a sexual scenario.
Tolerance and acceptance of sexual assault, harassment and objectification have been way too common in my life.
As a woman and at that a Catholic, Mexican-American woman, I had been conditioned to accept violation of boundaries on a near constant basis. I mean, when the Church condemns women to a grave sin for exercising control over their own bodies, we send a very powerful message about the sanctity of female autonomy. Or rather, the lack of it. When we control, regulate, gaze at and objectify women we create a world in which rape and sexual assault is normalized and accepted.
I learned just recently how normal it was in my life (and I mean even as a child) to put up with this kind of behavior. I use the word “inappropriate” to describe these today, but I was definitely trained through experience to treat these things as normal and expected. Because going along with it has usually been safer than calling it out–after all, I’ve been close to death a few times for daring to say no. And it’s not just the assaults or attempts or harassments that are important, it’s the cultural attitudes and expectations that made them acceptable and relieved the perpetrators of any consequence or responsibility for honoring my consent or autonomy. Here are some examples of what I mean:
- Someone close to my family sexually assaulting me at the age of 6 or 7.
- Grown men in the Army sending me naked pictures of themselves when I was as young as 13. At least two of them knew my real age.
- Also at 13 a boyfriend was stalking me, slashing my neighbor’s tires and making threats outside my window while I slept after I refused to have sex with him.
- Co-workers at my first job taking monetary bets as to who would get to fuck me first.
- A 36 year old co-worker trying to finger me when I was 15.
- A 40 year old delivery man inviting me to his house alone when I was 16.
- The biggest womanizer in school stalking me until I’d have sex with him. I lost my virginity to him at 16.
- Being pressured into having sex with a classmate as a way to be jumped into a gang at 13. I backed out at the last minute.
- Engaging in sexual activity as more of a defense mechanism than as a rational and enthusiastic choice.
- Being drugged by two men who secretly tried to record me “consenting” to sex. I eventually escaped.
- Being outed and slut shamed by a republican blog and losing my job as a result.
- Getting unsolicited dick pics whenever I’m on any dating site.
- Relentless harassment to coerce me into sending nude photos.
- Sexual prowess in male co-workers are joked about with ease; sexual interest I expressed being condemned as a stain against the organization.
- Emotional manipulation including guilt and shaming if I express limits. Usually takes the form of “not a real submissive” or “not really poly”, especially when trying to hold someone responsible for behavior that violates those limits.
- Threats of violence for refusing a drink/kiss/ride home.
- Being given a dildo as a present by my boss when I turned 17; my acceptance of that gift was used to imply consent for all sorts of touching, grabbing and propositions for years to come.
- Subjected regularly to groping when doing absolutely nothing–like ordering a drink at the bar or even standing at a bus stop.
- Having my consent violated in a scene by an “elder” who never obtained my consent for a needle scene he had planned.
- Not reporting any of these because of the fear of retaliation, ruin and rejection.
- Screaming red in a dungeon and having no one intervene in our scene; this was after the DMs held me down for a tickling scene I did not consent to.
- Sacrificing my own needs and voice in order to protect the ego of the person I was with.
I just don’t have the energy to describe each and every detail but I think you get my drift. I have been raised to not just expect this behavior, but to reward it with my attention, time and politeness. And guess what? So have you.
This is about as far as I can get tonight. The rest is just too raw on the surface.
Too much shit has been stirred up lately.
Example: Playing with a new submissive boy, still dipping my toes in the water of what my own dominance might look like, he fell oddly distant and cold afterward. Stirring up those feelings of rejection, feeling exposed and like I was being judged for my size, my taste, my age, my grace, my fashion, my ignorance. That feeling, that all too familiar feeling like I was supposed to change myself to accommodate invisible expectations that he didn’t communicate, but I am supposed to somehow anticipate. I could be wrong–we haven’t discussed it, but even my equivocation of how I feel is evidence of this trend to set aside my own insight in favor of someone else’s.
Shine On You Crazy Diamond
How much of my existence has been defined as being the pretty, little doll existing solely for the pleasure and whims of others? And let’s face it, I’m not the prettiest, so it’s an existence that is easily defined as being the doll at the very bottom of the trunk that carries nostalgia, memory and this sensation of soul-full-ness. I’m kept around for memory’s sake, but used, discarded and forgotten until I’m needed again.
I have spent most of my life trying to convince myself, through the excuse of my calling, that this was the purpose of my life. I molded myself around these awful, horrible experiences, trying to become the perfect woman that could easily slide into people’s hearts unobtrusively to bring out goodness and love. It’s not to say I didn’t do that or that the goals were bad, but it was that I became an avatar of myself, a projected 3-D image of myself that was real in every way, except my own desires, needs, hopes and dreams. Those were always irrelevant to the more important business of pleasing the people I was with.
None of this is to say that the rape was my fault, that the sexual assaults and harassments I’ve endured are my fault. Those men made choices. Choices that they knew were wrong. Choices that knew were a violation of my autonomy and free will. These violations, because they bundle together super vulnerable things–like sex/nudity, self-worth, guilt and shame–they are easier to manipulate and exploit. It’s not our fault that these things are vulnerable–they are vulnerable for everyone, but we are wrongfully accused of being too open to sharing those intimate parts of self, when it was the manipulator who violated the terms of that sharing. Most of the time we are left shadow boxing with ourselves in a distorted mirror of shame and guilt, feeling utterly responsible for the fallout of choices that someone else had the audacity to make for us.
We have to remember that this mirror only reflects a particular facet of ourselves. The part locked away in time and trapped behind the glass. But diamonds, those hard as fuck little mini crystals that manifest from the pressure of the earth, have several facets to them. The ultimate in resilience, radiant with reflection and beauty. And what we see in that mirror, in that battle with ourselves, the shame and guilt that were projected onto us, that’s just one facet of who we are. But we contain so much more than that and deserve so much more than that.
So shine on you crazy diamonds.
I sit with all of these thoughts, reflections on what it took for me to become a whole and healthy person. I can’t say I’ve done it well, but the fact that I’m still here, still fighting, still making these realizations, understanding my patterns and fighting to change the perverse patterns of exploitation around…this is how I will continue to shine, the crazy, hard as fuck diamond that I am.
National Coming Out Day
It’s 9:45 pm here on October 11th. I got home late and am making an ambitious (for me) dinner of shepherd’s pie. So as I wait, I think back on another marginally bad day. It wasn’t horrible, it just was angsty. And most of the angst was mine. I was impatient, unorganized, forgetful and foggy all day. And it wasn’t until later in the workday, when I was beyond the point of salvaging it that I finally realized why I was so on edge.
Today was National Coming Out Day
For the past 10 years I’ve been flirting with various forms of outness, to varying degrees. And to the point where I’m essentially out to everyone except extended family. Even professionally to some degree it’s been know how I identify. Especially over the past year or so I’ve become far more comfortable with being out.
But today it was scary and triggery. It brought back memories of a workday interrupted by a call from a friend telling me that a website had posted my online journal and that it was circulating among my colleagues and the press. It brought me back to the pacing through the hallways going mad from the ringing of the phone. It brought me back to 8 months of unemployment and 10 years of trying to scrape my way back to believing that I deserved to make an earning even close to what I was making before. It brought me back to the rumors, the panic attacks during the evening news, the fear, the cowardice, the ignorance, the victimhood, and especially the punishment. It brought me back to a night where I was as close to suicide as I’ll ever get and breaking down as a last-ditch effort to ask for help before I could finish the act.
I didn’t come out on Facebook today like I had wanted to. I have family who, as well-intentioned and loving as they are, tend to call my parents over every minor quip I post. As much as I love my parents, my coming out isn’t worth them having to field phone calls from worried family members and clueless friends. The choice to come out is mine and not theirs.
So, instead, I came out on Twitter, reminding all 686 followers of who I am.
Those things are some of the easiest things to identify things about me. It’s what most people care about when they talk about coming out. But identity is such a rich and powerful blend of concepts, stories, and aspirations that simply saying I’m bisexual, polyamorous, kinky, queer, Chicana, femme, Mother, wife, lover, educator, lawyer, spiritual, and geek is just a superficial part of the story. Some of it is the sensational part of the story because ooooh—bi, poly and kinky–that’s out there. But it’s just scratching the surface.
There are other aspects of identity that go beyond the census items of nationality (American), race/ethnicity or income. There are the aspects of self that evolve over time but create the refinements of self that truly identify us closer to our core. Those aspects of ourselves are just as precious and vulnerable, worthy of being spoken as personal truths.
So tonight, I define more of who I am. Coming out as the woman I truly am at heart:
I am a public servant. I have always been drawn to government, politics, and the business of policymaking. But moire than anything I have been drawn to a life of being in service to the public in some capacity or another. Right now I provide direct services through a nonprofit,. but in the past, I’ve served in capacities that were more about the public good than my own advancement.
I am half white and half Mexican but identify as Chicana. This is very important for me to distinguish. I love both of my families, but the Mexican half of my family was the most influential in my upbringing. My dad’s family valued education but watching my Mexican grandparents’ pride when my mom earned her master’s struck a chord with me. It told me the legacy that was going to be passed to me to build upon. It is a responsibility that I take seriously. My father’s family is full of intelligence, accomplishment, and distinction–my role with them is less to carry on their legacy and more to just not fuck it up. But what I accomplish for the Mexican side of my family, like a law degree, creates a path for others to follow. I’ve already helped one family member with his law school application and LSAT prep. We rise together.
That said, I am also very privileged. Because my last name is white, my skin is light and freckled and my hair turning gray faster than my more indigenous parts of the family, I’m a dead ringer for your standard, run-of-the-mill white girl. That’s not what I feel inside and so I get somewhat defensive during conversations about race. I am so eager to relate to people that I end up ignoring my privilege, the same privilege that makes it easier for me to be heard. It has been an uphill battle for me to remember that my story isn’t more important than anyone else’s, particularly those who don’t get the benefits that come with passing for white, cis, het and able bodied.
I am bisexual and married to a man. So another privilege I carry is that I at least am always perceived as heterosexual. I’m not, of course, and that’s where some mental health issues come into play for many of us–being misidentified, ignored and rebuked within the LGBTQ community (mostly getting derision from the Ls and Gs) creates an insidious amount of hardship as we try to navigate our way through the world.
I am bisexual and I have known it since I was 12. But to the outside world, I had a fairy tale wedding and lived happily ever after. And while I love my husband dearly, part of why I love him is that he’s never had an issue with me living my life as fully as I am able. He’s always given me support and encouragement, to pursue what makes me happy–including exploring my attraction to women and non-binary/gender nonconforming folk. Ultimately this is aided immensely by being polyamorous–we negotiate the terms of our marriage and it decidedly doesn’t look at all like the heteronormative ideal. And I am happier for it.
Finally, I’m coming out as a visionary within the Catholic meaning of the term. Again, from the age of 12, I believe I was called to something powerful. This calling initially spoke to me through the images and rituals of the Catholic faith–I was strong in my devotion to the Church at the time (see, I still capitalize it). But as I grew into the woman I am, I recognized that Catholicism at its core no longer fit with the calling that I was given. It was just too large for such a narrowly-defined faith structure. So, I departed from the Church. I still miss it sometimes–going to Mass and adoration, praying the rosary, the cleansing I’d feel after confession. It is like my hometown. I’ll always have a connection to it. It’s part of my story. But it’s not where I choose to live now–I have moved on. My calling is what matters most to me, not ascribing to any one issue of faith.
With all of that said, I have an update on the shepherd’s pie: I burned myself making it last night which is why this is posted late. i’m doing better today–but I guess I also need to add clumsy to the list of identities that I have.
Every event has brought me here
The past week has been a challenge for me. Triggering events from start to finish. The last time I felt like this I was on the verge of a breakdown. That breakdown was avoided by paying attention to the signs and finally heeding the advice given to me for years and years: meditate.
When I did just a 5 minute meditation everything changed. You can read all about it here (and then stay for the guided meditations). I was able to transform a breakdown into a breakthrough.
Gawd, that sounds cheesy.
The truth is I was able to exert some amount of control over my life. I allowed my heart let go of some of its fears. I felt some of the natural insecurity subside. And everything started to become so…open.
I’ve done a lot of thinking recently about the walls I’ve built up around myself. The lack of dating. The refusal to engage flirtatiously with someone. The counter-intuitive pulling away if someone accidentally gets too close. But that refusal to dream big is far beyond just relationships and potentials. It’s how I’ve chosen to see my calling. How I’ve perceived my own personal power. How I’ve advanced my own dreams. I temper everything so either I don’t disappoint anyone or so I don’t have to experience disappointment either.
In this journey over the past 6 months, I feel like that openness has expanded beyond what I’ve ever achieved before. I can see and feel so much. And in so doing I’m starting to draw people toward me again. By reclaiming my passion, I’m able to give voice to a power within that has been cocooned away healing its wounds over the past few years.
I’m not a stranger to trauma. I’ve had more than my fair share over the past few years. It’s not fair and it’s not right. But the worst of it was in 2012. While there were a few noteably amazing things that happened that year, it overall was a devastating year. It was the last time I was able
to trust anyone or anything. Because even though I passed the bar that year, I was being torn apart by grief. Grief for an abusive brother (yes, you can grieve abusive people too).
Retraumatization showed up in so many forms compounded with heavier forms of secondary trauma thrown in. It had an impact of everything–from insomnia to flashbacks, to uncontrollable crying, to an inability to have sex at all. I really couldn’t function at all after the bar exam. To the point that i even injured my knees and ankles and have trouble walking for months. My body was reflecting my inner world.
This journey to where I am right now started when I was at my lowest then. When I thought I would never feel again, a few days before my birthday I had a dream that allowed me to believe that I would recover. That my soul would come back to life. It was so visceral and so real that 4 years later I can still feel the presence and subject of that dream in my everyday life.
So, let’s call that presence “The Druid”. Let’s say this presence has been growing in my awareness since that dream. Wild and controlled. He is an image from another dream years ago. He a priest of nature and me a priestess of love. Committed partners but both with the freedom to honor the organic connection that is created between people.
So since that day 6 months ago, it’s like this Druid spirit has been growing in influence in my life. I’ve been growing more weary of making my life conform to anyone else’s standards. I’m willing to honor consciously discussed agreements for my partners, but no longer willing to hide behind the walls. The Druid spirit calls me from behind my walls. He calls me to build myself back up again.
Every event that has happened to me has been for this: to find a path to rebuild and renew myself. Every obstacle in my path has been to get me closer to my true self, to find control over my surroundings, over my destiny. Everything as been to gain insight into who I really am–without the chamelon skin and delayed wishes.
It’s felt…big…all this time. But I have been impatient for results. And after having one of the hardest weeks on the job I’ve ever had, I took some clear time for myself. And honestly it has been about savoring the sweet joy of being present in the moment. To sit on the back porch at night feeling the breeze around me. To allow the sensations of life to permeate my life on a deeper level. To be completely emotionally open and honest with Warrior. All of these have been acts of radical self-love. A level I never thought I would achieve.
The lesson here is: Fear not for your path, my friends. Listen to the whispers in your heart, follow the light offered to you. Those whisper, that light and your trust– They will lead you home.
Joy in a bottle
A few weeks ago I talked briefly about being in the midst of an early personal spring. Whenever I have break-throughs like this, sudden realizations of patterns and purpose, I want nothing more than to capture that feeling, bottle it, keep it safe.
I keep wanting to capture these feelings, because I don’t want to be without that joy of discovery for very long. I don’t want to fall back into old patterns of self-doubt and disappointment about my life and especially my path. It would be so much easier if I could just bottle it and hang onto it for those moments when I’m down and out, succumbing to the darkness of the overwork and drowning in the sorrow of feeling stuck.
But that defeats the point of having those emotions in the first place. The point isn’t so much to capture as it is for it to make the hard work, the suffering, the darkness all worth it. It provides more motivation to keep moving forward, to slow down the progressive bad habits that have kept us stuck in the first place.
Today I found myself longing to capture that joy again. After a long conversation with the person I consider to be my soul sister, I had such a strong sense of clarity that even Warrior talked about how inspiring it was to see it.
I kept trying to capture it, to not lose it. Especially because it’s a day off for me and I don’t want the stressors of work tomorrow to interfere with the enormous job I have ahead of me. But that worry of losing it interfered with my ability to actually feel it. It took me out of the moment of joy and into an immediate space of worry and dread.
So tonight, I’m making a conscious effort to just be present in this moment and this sensation within. Enlightenment won’t make a difference if I don’t fully embrace it when it shows up.
BellaRosa’s Spring Serenade
I have to be able to capture this feeling. Elation. Joy. Gratitude. Pleasure. Freedom. Desire. Cosmic Awareness.
It’s been so long, friends since I last felt this joyful in myself. Confident and self-assured. Devoid of doubt for my purpose or of my voice. Absent are the rules that once restricted me. My body is empty of the worry that always consumes it and holds it hostage. My mind is free of the fear that accompanies my word. My heart so strong and self-possessed.
See, a few days ago, something broke open from within. I liken it to a hatched egg, but it was more like breaking free of a cocoon after nearly 10 years. It was a catharsis that I was convinced would never come.
February 2006 was a very different time for me and a very different version of me. A foolish and overwhelmed version of me. I always thought that the events of that year were designed to take me down a peg or two. Indeed, I had grown too full of myself and didn’t have the maturity to really see the 10 steps ahead that I needed to, so very caught up in the everyday poly drama, the attention, the successes.
But now I look back on that time in my life as resetting my path, resetting my calling, breaking down the towers that I had built for myself because they were built on top of shifting sands. Everything had to crash down for me to start over again.
Starting over sucks.
An inelegant and crass way to sum up the otherwise beautiful process of transformation. But as you go through it, the pain, the doubt, the impatience all wears you down until you don’t think there’s any “you” left at all. It breaks apart your identity to its smallest parts, examining it, discarding the corrupted and hurt bits.
The most painful part is letting go of the expectations you once had for yourself, the image you once had of yourself. We become attached to that image, not because it’s great or even accurate, but because it’s safe. That image we hold of ourselves is safe and familiar. And most of all it’s easy. It’s so damn easy in fact that we never think about changing it until something, like life, threatens to take away that part of our identity.
These crises of identity can happen for any reason and at any time. And while I paid a lot of lip service to the need for us to periodically confront these facets of self. I likened it to the Tower from Tarot. You spend your life building up this tower of self, the bricks and materials made of the knowledge, wisdom, beliefs and memories we had accumulated during our lifetime. This tower houses not just us, but everything that makes us special, unique and different. But then an event, a person, a cascade effect of choices comes in and knocks it all down, like a wrecking ball. Devastation and despair ensues. Chaos reigns. To the point that when it comes up in a reading, I’ve seen experienced tarot readers get scared.
But I had always thought that if I was proactive and took the opportunity to examine the bricks and tear apart my own tower I could avoid the headache and the mess that would have otherwise caught me off guard. I was going to be smarter than everyone else!
Until it happened to me. It wasn’t just being drugged, being outed, losing my job, or gaining a lot of weight. It was the impact on my family. It was the depression. It was the heartache and doubt. I thought life couldn’t get any lower. But then my spiritual husband and I broke apart for reasons that seemed important at the time but don’t make any sense to me now. But the worst of it started 4 years ago when my oldest son ran away. The events of that year, 2012, changed my life and broke me down even further than I thought I could be. If I had cracked, broken but mostly whole bricks before, I had dust falling through my hands afterward.
And there was no part of my identity that didn’t have to be rebuilt. Yes, I was still polyamorous, but it was a different poly that I had started with. Yes, I was still a mother, but what kind of mother would I be now? No, I was no longer Catholic, but what did my sense of faith look like now?
The question when it all falls apart, is what will I build in its place? And ordinarily I would turn to some sense of higher consciousness to access the answers I needed, but not this time. That was the brick that had been shattered and shamed, blamed and broken beyond all others. No guidance. No light. No purpose. Nothing.
I cocooned myself away from the world. Only minimally engaging with the people I like or admire.
Until Now
Here I am, free once again. Free from a few of the beliefs that inhabited the stones and bricks of my tower. Values like sacrifice at all costs. Habits like pernicious negativity. Beliefs like being replaceable in people’s lives. So much has changed. And yet it feels entirely authentic and natural.
I can’t get over the feeling that the universe conspired this break down to reveal the wise, wild, vibrant woman bursting to come forth. No longer the girl mourning the loss of her youth, but the wholly invested queen ready to rule her life. I am discovering the dominant side of my switchiness. I am embracing the duality of my attractions to women and men. I know my limits but stretch my wings to try to overcome them. I am savoring the increase in attention from younger men.I am learning more about how to relax and just be. I love the grey in my hair, the wrinkles emerging under my eyes. I can feel the world in its wholeness again.
I feel renewed.
Welcome to Spring. My spring.
A slice of psyche
This is something I wrote as an intro on an RP based site about who I really am. Thought I might share it here as well. A little slice of me:
I could say all the normal things, like the fact that I’m poly with two husbands (legal husband and I celebrate 11 years of marriage in May, poly husband and I celebrate 5 years together in May also). I also have two boys, ages 9 and 15 who are like night and day in terms of personality. I am also a lawyer, but practice my craft actually as a mediator. I’m in solo practice and it has been hard to swallow my pride and ask for help when it wasn’t taking off like I thought it might. I care deeply about many subjects and am passionate about following my spiritual path, which resonated quite easily with the Kushiel series and Naamah’s calling.
But what I enjoy sharing is that….I enjoy sharing my experience and life with others. At times I have been called aloof or hard to know, but I consider myself more accessible than that because once I feel comfortable with someone I am so open and vibrant with possibility.
I enjoy knowing the deeper parts of a person, so surface level conversations only hold my attention for so long. I enjoy getting into 3 hour conversations with someone over coffee talking politics, poly, law, family, education…anything other than finance. I geek out about books, movies, pop culture and love historical fiction and biographies. I love crossing genres and get happy when I see my favorite characters interact in my favorite worlds. I enjoy laughing but enjoy discovering purpose and messages of inspiration even more. I am a sensualist at heart but don’t do anything solely for the sale of pleasure. I demand that each and every thing I do have intense meaning ave purpose. I hate attention and spotlights, but love public speaking and connecting with a crowd particularly if it is to discuss anything that I am passionate about grocery for dangling participles–I am not passionate about that).
I am a belly dancer and it took a while before I was comfortable showing my belly since it is the part of myself that I hate the most. But once I make a decision to do something, even if it is embarrassing or shows my flaws and vulnerabilities to the world, I do it proudly. As a friend recently told me, I don’t do anything unless I know I am willing to go all in. I enjoy the gray areas of life, but don’t do anything half- assed. I am often seen as a skilled seductress, but only because I know how to remind someone how much they deserve to be loved for who they really are. Yet, I am genuinely shocked each time someone has declared their love for me.
I am attracted to all sorts of people and don’t use gender as part of my screening process. Each time I think I have a type, someone comes around to prove me wrong. I am attracted most to people who are witty and able to make me laugh without making it seen like a contest. I am attracted to people who express themselves with both elegance and humility. I love the risk-takers and adventurers even if I’m not always ready to join them. I love the stabilizers and steady lovers because they bring balance to my wild child whimsical fantasies. I love people who have chosen to be parents and who can hold a child’s rapt attention with a little bit of everyday magic and wonder. I like people who cook for me and are pleasantly surprised when i cook something well for them. I invest in people who likewise are willing to invest in me. I create a room in my heart for each person I meet, but few will ever get to see inside my internal boudoir. That space is reserved for only the most sacred of lovers and most honored of family.
I am comfortable delving into the vulnerable spaces of others with kindness and respect, but often can be hard on myself for any mistakes. I am easily embarrassed when I feel like I didn’t do something well and that tends to be a primary motivation: don’t make a fool of yourself, Bella. Most people don’t see it in me, but my vulnerability is often my greatest strength. I don’t mind baring my scars, my flaws and my hurts so others feel comfortable enough to do the same. But very few people ever see the truth of who I am…the wholeness of myself that I am so eager to accept in others. I willingly share my light with others; I don’t lose anything in that exchange. I walk through another’s darkness without fear and soothe the wounds I find along the way.
I take care to always remained dignified in almost any situation and I will only let loose with the closest of friends or lovers. I hate to be be embarrassed or in a situation where I feel I will come off as anything but what I want to project into the world. It often ends up that I am never as drunk/high/goofy/free as my friends are. I use the opportunity to take care of them and make sure they are well fed and transported safely home. I aim to be elegant in everything I do, everything I wear…but natural as well. I am a Colorado girl at heart and like to play in the snowflakes falling in my hair as easily as splashing into a mountain stream on a hot summer’s day. I aim each day to recognize the divinity in others and honor each person with compassion and kindness; i dont always succeed. I am forgiving of everyone except myself and work to create peace in my life. I hope one day to have touched another’s life and changed their world for the better, but too often i suspect my actions are too quiet or misdirected to have the impact i would like. Someday….someday i will make a difference and let the positive ripples of my soul touch and transform everything in it’s path with radiant and positive energy.
And while I sometimes dwell in my doubts, I do know who I am and embrace a life well lived.
A Manifesto for the Age of Soul-Starved
Tonight, I watched a portion of the State if the Union address. I was inspired, particularly at the end where the President called upon the courageous acts of valor and the tragic ends found by so many children and families. I was so moved that i cried. I cried for those hearts and this country. Where did we go so wrong?
Afterward was the inevitable mocking of our President by pundits and armchair activists alike. The accusations that Obama is stepping outside his authority (he’s not). but the ones that really got to me were the many, many messages i saw on Facebook that again, push for more guns, more ammo, more ways with which to “protect” ourselves. It’s not just the message that is discouraging, it is the rage with which it is delivered. Read the rest of this entry
Call of the Darkness
I am a forest, and a night of dark trees; but he who is not afraid of my darkness, will find banks full of roses under my cypresses.
–Friedrich Nietzsche
I have always responded to the call of darkness. The lure. The fact that so many others are frightened of it pushes me deeper into the woods, into the caves of humanity to witness and share in the deeper parts of the psyche. But not just to witness, to stand guard, to lend strength, to share and participate and give the wounds salve until they heal. It’s not the draw of the macabre. It is the draw of desire and spirit. Pure and hallowed to delve deeper than the normal person would.
I serve the darker edges of humanity but specifically the wounds we carry. Wounds…be they physical, psychic or emotional tend to cause us the greatest amount of fear in our lives. And we guard our deepest, darkest fears more than anything in the world. Sure, you think about people who seem to wear their woundedness on their sleeve…almost boasting that they’ve suffered through life and are here to prove to humanity their strength. But what I’ve found is that they don’t put the greatest wounds on display…only the ones that they can wear without harm, without exposing the deeper ones that lay underneath. Those….those they guard fiercely and fight anyone who tries to disturb them.
The only superpower I really have is I am the person people trust with the greatest of their wounds. Their sorrows, their intense pain, their embarrassments, their sense of not-good-enough…these fears of divine dis-love that they try to keep secret from the rest of the world. They tell no one. Not their spouses. Not their lovers. Not their parents. But they tell me.
They tell me or rather….they show me. They creep slowly through the recesses of their psyche, the part they are barely aware of normally. The instinctual and immediate part of themselves that they can’t access unless someone trespasses against that territory. They invite me in. Grasping my hand for strength,clutching at the light that I bring with me for fear. Fear of the monsters laying in wait to overcome them and take control. Maybe if I’m there the monsters won’t attack. Won’t hurt them. Won’t try to take over their world.
And even now as I write this, I’m flooded with the memories of when this has happened. When I’ve seen all of someone, even the big, bad monster they thought they were holding at bay. The anger, the greed, the resentment, the frustration, the hurt, the deception…I’ve seen so much of it. And it is beautiful. It is beautiful because each person’s big, bad monster is an accumulation of humanity. It is a creation of our selves…and it is a part of ourselves. It is the part of ourselves that we’ve discarded, hoping that it will never return. Hoping that it will never find a way back into the light.
And I am overwhelmed with emotion because these people I have encountered have trusted me with it. With something so precious, so grotesque and fearsome…something that resembles them far more than they want to know.
Because at the end of that journey, I show them. I bring a light to the mirror and stand them next to their monster figure and show them…this is you….and I love you both. I love the monster and who you’ve tried to become in order to hide it. I love you both.
It is almost too much for them to bear. To feel that something so ugly within themselves can be loved and cherished. “Aren’t you afraid?” they inevitably ask me. How can I possibly be afraid? I can’t pretend to love someone without loving the fullness of who they are. And by embracing the beast I can now finally love the full person. Does the beast lash out? Yes. But only because it has been relegated to the darkness for so long it can no longer recognize how it feels to have light surround it and hold it safe.
But more than anything, I embrace the fullness of someone. Their light and dark…and I show that it is possible to melt the divide between light and dark within our own lives. That by embracing your own darkness and treating it with kindness and love that we heal the fears that placed it in the darkness to begin with…and that itself is love. True, abiding love for our own self.
This kind of healing isn’t a wound to be worn on the shoulder as evidence of your own bravery, to prove that you’ve suffered…it is one that glows from within and is embodied in your full presence and countenance. It is not a braggart’s courage,but a wounded soul who is now radiant with the joy of life. Nothing more needs to be said. No words are needed.
In an instant I can tell the difference between those who have walked through their darkness and embraced what they have found….and those who are still hiding it, protecting it and projecting the lesser wounds as their evidence of their “confidence”. I can tell…and the more one brags about their wounds, their victimization, their suffering, the more those words are just really big, giant “Keep OUT!” signs to loved ones and others that they will do everything in their power to keep their secret monsters safe and in the dark. They don’t trust themselves, they don’t trust their partners and they surely will never trust a professional to lead them to true healing. I don’t bother with them. They will continue to live a false life soaked in duality, an alchemy that falls flat and leaves them sour and needy.
No…I praise those who have done “the heavy lifting” and I await them at their next crossroads…when a new dark corner threatens to swallow them whole. I stand alone and wait for them to see me and invite me in when either everyone else has abandoned them or are too shallow to see the transformation, the little death, that must occur for them to heal and move forward.
And I am rewarded…like in the quote above…with roses and riches. Such beauty and such abundance of soul. I alone have been entrusted with their stories for I saw their darkness and did not run away or avoid it…I stood by them and loved them to the very end.
So….much….beauty
Solar Return
Today is my birthday. Birthdays aren’t normally about celebrations for me…or at least my own aren’t. It would take too long to explain how my birthday ritual came to be…or how it grew into what it was last night/this morning. But I take advantage of my seasonal affect disorder (SAD) to willingly enter into a dark night of the soul each and every year just before my birthday. I reflect on the past year, atone for my mistakes and open myself to divine presence in order to set the goals and path for the coming year. It is a ritual that developed naturally over the years and now is a yearly vigil I choose to keep.
This year was harder than most. I turned 35 today and I have had myself convinced since the age of 7 that I would not ever make it past 35. So if that intuition is to be believed then I’ve set up a situation where I’ve put a great deal of pressure on myself to make this year and hence this birthday really count.
So I decided I would actually walk people through the ritual from start to finish and share a few of the guiding messages I received.
December 15, 2012 1:40 am
(terribly sorry for the small pictures. I uploaded this from my ipad and didn’t think they’d turn out this small–Maybe I’ll edit with larger photos)
Tonight is not a short ritual. Tonight I feel the power pour through me, tonight I shall bless myself with each element: earth, air, fire, water.
Earth: crystals and sacred sand from Chimayo. Herbs: mint, balm & Irish moss
Air: incense
Water: water in a pitcher, holy water from Medjugorje and wine (although just as much earth there)
Fire: candles of every variety
Tonight I start from chaos:
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