If a tree falls in a woods and there is no one to hear does it make a sound? Does a sound need a receiver to exist? As I struggle with self, existential existence, and pain I realize that when I express myself to another nonjudgmental being I feel I am heard and validated.
Words spoken in such a situation allows me to reach out to and through the darkness that holds me fast. In that moment I begin to move toward the light. If others need to rationalize my feelings, explain them to, or argue with me I recede further away from them, their words and explanations. It is only in their attentive willingness to hear that allows me to breathe deeply as I move toward the light.
I have always believed this to be true but I now know that it is true. The knowing comes through the repeated experiences with the acceptance of being unconditionally heard and accepted where I am.
In this awareness I become real.
Sometimes the darkness
wins
As I slip from the light
Into a deep, dark abyss
Some say this is
A dark night of soul
It’s hard to judge from
inside
I cannot see my way
Beyond where I am
It is all encompassing
Wraps closely around
Me and is All
I see, feel, breathe…
The light gets in
When I reach out
And choose to
Create more love
Within me and with
All other beings
The light enters
This dark place
Shrinks through
My care in thought
Optimism in action
A sliver of light enters
Through the crack
In this dark well of
self
Compassion and kindness
Seep in replacing
The fear and dread
This sliver encourages
The darkness recedes – a
bit
This dark night
Gives pause to me
As I rethink my way
Through this place
Knowing that this
Dark place of self
Always lingers near-by
A teacher to remembering
To not fear plumbing
The depths of
My deepest, darkest
Self ….
~PSG~ 2/3/15
Between my 11th and 12th years I was "saved" which meant that one Sunday morning at the end of church service I "went forward" to accept Christ as my savior. Recalling that moment now, over 50 years later, brings up a swarm of feelings associated with that action.
It was an emotional moment, more so for members of the congregation than for me. Why did I do this? Had I been moved by the holy spirit to make this commitment to Christ or did I do this as a result of pressure from my parents and their church friends? Even at the time I knew it was for the latter reason; I wanted those around me at church to get off my back about this, so at the "altar call" that Sunday I "went forward". I had no feeling that some unseen presence guided my decision; I merely wanted these adults to leave me alone, so I walked down the center isle at my parent's church, was welcomed by their minister, and for all intent and purpose became a card carrying Christian.
My thinking, even then at age 11 or 12, was not in line with their fundamentalist thoughts. My fundamentalist parents, who instilled in me a common sense approach to life, always encouraged me to listen to what was being said and then to evaluate what I was told, and decide accordingly. Great advice, and I understood that what their church friends and pastor were selling was something I need not buy. I found that by being "saved" these people backed off of their concerns for my soul burning in Hell; a welcomed relief that allowed me to get on with my life with only occasional concerns or interference from the church.
My parents never insisted that I have close friends with other young people in the church, so I had my "Sunday" friends that I hung around at church, and my real friends came from school. These friends all went to various churches, we all did back in the day, but they compromised a wide assortment of religious practices and beliefs. My friends came from different Protestant beliefs, Catholic, and Jewish faiths. This allowed for diversity in my experiences, my beliefs, and tolerance in my thinking. These friends were a big part of my salvation; more so than the "altar call" that Sunday morning at the end of church service.
The church we attended was a big gray stone building with many stained glass windows in the sanctuary. These windows were beautiful representations of Christian art, and sitting in this room at Sunday morning services I would escape into this awesome display of sunlight shinning through these magnificent pieces.
The words spoken from the pulpit assaulted my common sense logic, but the beauty of these windows pulled me into their rich cornucopia of color and intricate design. As the pastor's voice droned on I move away from his words and into these beautiful sunlit panels. I was transported to an ecstatic landscape where my imagination ran free, no longer inhibited by the vitriolic rantings of this man. His sermons ran on for an hour, but I was energetically nowhere to be found; I was free inside the colors, texture, and images created through my imagination and these stained glass windows.
At the end of the sermon a great pipe organ began playing whatever the closing hymn for that services was. At the sound of the first chord of the organ I was brought back to myself sitting on a hard pew in this well appointed sanctuary and to the weekly invitation to "come forward" and accept Jesus as lord and savior.
As an adult I love stained glass and I dislike organ music. In my childhood and youth the one gave me reprieve the other rudely and loudly pulled me back into a reality that I knew was not true. I have often said that my early experiences in that church taught me how to dissociate. Psychologically dissociation is a protective reaction to a traumatic or extremely fearful situation. As a child fundamentalist Christianity was both traumatic and frightening because it invaded the safety of trusting and relying on the common sense of the beliefs that I knew were correct for me.
My salvation did not come through the "altar call" I responded to; that was a clever subterfuge that kept fundamentalist thought at bay in my young life. Salvation for me came through the rich diversity I was exposed to in my non-church life. Friends, parents of friends, and teachers kept me grounded in diverse thinking and experiences in life.
I am grateful that my parents encouraged critical thinking in me. Their encouragement helped me move beyond the trap of fundamentalism in all areas of life. Salvation comes from this and it gave me the awareness that this subterfuge would hold me safely until I became an adult. That is my salvation.
I love others stories. Biographies and autobiographies
are a favorite genre of my reading. I also enjoy fiction and feel the
authors are often writing of hidden memories, dreams, and desires as these fictional stories unfold.
For over forty years I spent my work days listening to others stories, their memories and recollections of life. There was pain and trauma in these stories but there was also hidden trickles of happiness that if uncovered and collected became little pools of joy. Realizing and uncovering these little pools leads to freedom from fear.
Throughout my life I have found memories that I avoid often contain drops of happiness that in my fear of remembering I have neglected to collect them into my conscious self. I often avoid these memories by distracting myself, pushing them away, or actively saying I don't remember, and often I don't.
My father almost died when I was nine. He and my mother traveled halfway across the country to consult with a specialist on his medical problem. I was left with my grandmothers and a great aunt. This was during the mid 1950's. I am not sure his medical problem would have killed him but in my thinking his prescribed treatment and resulting surgery almost did. It took me years to address, recall, and process this memory. When I did I realized a weight had been lifted that I had not known was there as I had carried it since my childhood. It opened me to a freedom within myself.
The journey to forgotten memories can reveal treasures along the road. Over the next hill or around a bend something of yourself may be found. An important and lost part of self is recovered and integrated into your being. You experience a completion of something you did not know you were missing. There is an expansiveness where before this view was not visible and you had no awareness that it could exist.
The fear of realizing a forgotten memory is real and a part of the psyche that we try to repress, to not remember. I always remembered the summer of 1956 when my father almost died. I recalled living with my grandmother, talking with my parents on the telephone, and returning to my home to start the new school year. I remember going to a near-by town to meet my parents' train when they returned home.
What was not a part of my memory was how I felt. I felt alone and abandoned but if I remembered that deep unconscious memory a voice whispered that I would be angry with my father, the man who nearly lost his life. So I kept the memory at bay, but the unconscious anger still plagued me. As I approached adolescence this buried anger surfaced and bubbled over into my life and my relationship with my dad.
People around my family could not understand this anger. My parents did not put it together with my fear of my father dying and my feeling that his sojourn into the world of medicine was wasted effort, time, and money, while I was left out of the decision making process. Even writing this today I feel the prickles of this anger nipping at my heels, but having remembered I work with this and in doing so I integrate it into a remembered part of me. The recalling and integration of this time in my life resolved the anger that grew from a memory that I tried not to remember. This remembering took away the weight of my loss and in doing so I was set free.
Learning that the memory of what I felt (abandonment, loss, and anger that hid my fears), I found that in my remembering that frightening time in my life (complete with how I felt), relieved me of an unnecessary burden that I was carrying. A ghost of my past was put to rest and my fear and anger were resolved.
Beneath this unremembered memory with its unresolved feelings was a deep spring of joy. Recalling, remembering, and understanding this as a part of me leaves me to completely surrender into the happiness of now without the fear of being the ungrateful daughter who abandoned her father. I only abandoned myself when I could/would not remember. The memory allows me to rewrite this experience in life; not change it but to rewrite it with love and understanding for all involved.
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| Main Street |
Growing up in a small river town there was no discernible skyline. The tallest building was six stories high. I lived on a street that was a gradual hill; I lived at the middle of this street, equal distance to the top and to the bottom. At the top this street ended at the high school I attended. At the bottom it ended in another street that if I turned right led to the park. The park sat atop a bluff that overlooked the river, and offered a spectacular view...
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| High School |
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| River View |
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It was a good place to grow up. The high school offered an excellent education and the river was my companion through good times and bad, and some how living between them offered me a safe passage into adulthood... Not an easy passage, but a safe one. The journey into becoming an adult is often dotted with difficulties, but when you realize you are safe it is much easier. At the top of the hill was a symbol for the excellent education I was provided, at the bottom was my faithful and constant friend, and in the middle was the home and family that assured my safe passage.
It was in the culture of this small town that my basic beliefs and ideas took root. From these grounded roots I grew. I have read that as parents there are two gifts we give our children, roots to grow, and wings to fly. Growing up secure helped this process along.
There were struggles. I grew up in a Christian Fundamentalist family and realized by the time I was twelve that what their church taught was not consistent with what I thought was correct. We were not allowed to dance but roller skating was allowed and the youth group sponsored many trips to a near-by town's skating rink. When I ask why the adult chaperones explained that dancing happened in darkened places but not roller skating. I pointed out that we often had "moonlight skates" when we paired off as couples...no one responded to my observation.
Many of my observations and questions were not directly addressed; the usual response was I needed to pray about it. One Sunday in Sunday school I posed the question that if Adam and Eve were the first people on earth then were we all the products of original incest, which I thought might be original sin. The class erupted with comments and questions as they echoed and re-ask my question. The teacher stood and walked to the wall where the light switch was, we were in a basement room with no windows, he flipped the switch to off and stood quietly until our voices became silent in this room. When there was no more questions or comments he flipped the switch back on and resumed class as if nothing had happened.
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| Childhood Church |
As an adult I realized that these responses to questions were an indication that my parents' belief system was not one that I could adopt. This teacher's reply was to plunge our class into darkness until we became compliant with what he thought. I continued to question and make waves through adolescents and the church elders responded by frequently praying for me but never adequately addressing or answering my questions. From this I learned to become a critical thinker and to always question authority. My parents didn't approve of these questions or my thinking but they never attempted to change my thoughts. They provided me with a sense of security in being true to myself. Their religious beliefs provided me fertile ground in which to sprout my seeds of thought that grew into my beliefs. This added to the excellent education I received trough my high school.
The fall I left for college effectively ended my time with organized religions of any type. My years in a fundamentalist environment taught me what beliefs I did not want in my life, and ultimately how Roger and I would raise our children. We encouraged our sons to question, think for themselves, and to ultimately learn how to form their own thoughts and opinions.
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| River City |
A city along the Mississippi River was an interesting place to grow up. It once boasted that it had as many churches as bars, but I always thought this an outrageous boast. By my count the number of bars far out numbered the churches. I did come to understand that this boast was an attempt for the church community, especially the fundamentalist community, to defend against what it perceived as the "darkness" of these bars, like the darkness of dancing. It always amazed me that when the Sunday school teacher of my youth was questioned about what he was teaching he plunged the classroom into darkness until his class ceased their questions. Ah, "darkness" is an interesting concept and metaphor when applied to beliefs. Perhaps it was the darkened room that propelled me forward in my search for truth. By plunging his class into darkness helped me seek the light of truth, and for this I am grateful.
As I have matured into adulthood I realize that all of these experiences were for my edification and growth through life. My home sitting half between the river and the high school became a symbol for the balance of the natural world and formal education. I learned valuable lessons from both. These lessons allowed me to understand that a balance between books and intuition needs to be achieved as I move through life, and to walk the razor's edge between knowledge and wisdom. I was most fortunate to have been constantly the object of the church's prayers, to have experiences with darkness which allowed me to find the light in truth, to discern my way through the teachings that were presented as truth while being plunged into darkness, and to escape this environment unscathed and intact.
My growing up in this small town under the watchful eye of my family, the community, along with the intrusion of their religious system, helped me learn to set boundaries in my journey to finding me, and that has lead to self realization; a most welcome outcome in life.
A literal or symbolic journey across this bridge takes me
back to a place where stories, storytelling, and writing my stories began for me Where is this place for you? When you discover the bridge to your neglected
garden of self you will find the place of your instinctual, creative being.
A tip over this bridge in my mind takes me to this place inside me. I am visual so looking at the picture above can lead me inward to my creative self. Because I visualize easily I can make this trip without needing to physically go there. It is a place within my psyche. Having a visual in my imagination speeds this journey to self. Writing allows me to know where I am in each moment and opens the door to where I am going.
The neglected garden of self is the place that has kept and sheltered that soft, vulnerable place within that requires gentle nurturing to bloom into life. You might think back to your childhood; was there someone or some place that you went to for comfort, love, and support? For me it was the river that was just a few blocks from my home. Writing is an act that opens me to my deep vulnerability. It allows me to reach inward as I also reach outward and in doing both I experience the most exquisite relationships of my life.
I become my most vulnerable in this practice, even more vulnerable than in relationship with those I love and care about. In this practice as I enter this garden of self I begin to experience the beauty of me.
A stillness arises that permeates every fiber of me. I am in the presence of mystery, and because I name it mystery it is something that I do not know or understand. I let go of assumptions and stand in this neglected garden with only my honest questions. My honest questions and lack of assumptions allow me admission to this place. In the stillness within I plumb my depth for the gleanings of my writings.
In this place I must stay still and do not struggle with producing these gleanings. I allow them to gently float to the surface of my conscious mind and then put words on the page before me. Sometimes they come in a logical fashion, sometimes they don't. I am responsible for recording these gleanings when they pop up. Later I will make sense of them, but oft times how they arrive is in perfect order.
This writing emerged as I sat in my garden of self:
Ravens give wings to your stories; listen to the voices
of your ancestors telling you that the world is changing and your fears are but
dry leaves beneath a tree awaiting the winds of change to rearrange them into a
new day.
My thoughts were of birds in the sky and how my writings need wings to soar free. As I sat still the above words fleshed out and took form, first in my imagination as I visualized birds in flight, then in my thoughts as I put words to my vision, and then to my body as I sought an image to fit the vision and the words.
Discovering this place of quietude within me is how I begin to write. Being open to the images, words, and phrases that surface allows me to construct my abstract ideas into forms that I can then share with others. For me it is a sacred journey.
Take the time to discover your creative place, become still of thoughts and actions, and allow images to come up and then write them down; this is how you begin to write. Find this place, realize where you can enter it, and let it grow into a place of retreat and safety where you generate your creative ideas and reclaim the Garden Of Self....
