Soul Mosaic

“Life presents you with a text, but it is your meditations upon that text which give it meaning and relevance.”

From 350 Healing Light Meditations: Daily Wisdom from Kabbalah by Rabbi Meilech Leib DuBrow (2 Tishrei)

Daring to question…

There is no question that I have a right to my pain, anger, and sorrow. As my therapist noted one day, “You come by your trauma honestly.” It was her way of saying that I need make no apologies for the PTSD I live with, or feel like a failure because I have had to struggle my whole life to catch up to others. There was a lot done to harm me.

Daria Burke, in her book Of My Own Making, said that sometimes being hailed as an abuse survivor triggers a deep ache in her. As she notes, “survival…is not synonymous with wholeness. We don’t survive whole.” And she is right.

Survival didn’t necessarily benefit us by “making us stronger,” as society likes to say. I particularly hate that trite expression. Along with, “It was part of the plan.”

A speaker, one time, trying to demonstrate the “irrevocable harm” of racism and abuse, did a very simple but powerful demonstration. He took a pristine sheet of paper and crumpled it up. Then he opened it and forcefully smoothed it out several times. Certainly, he was able to make the paper lie flat. But as to removing the creases in the paper once it was crumpled, it was impossible. That paper was never going to be pristine again. That is the damage done by hate and abuse. You will reclaim a lot, but there are things that will remain forever.

At the same time, both my therapist and I share the belief that a rich life, one filled with thriving, is not only deserved but possible. Yes, I accept that all that harm has changed me irrevocably from who I might have been had I not been abused.

But if I were to give up on trying to be the best I can be, that means I have let my father win…and I will NOT do that. I may never be all I could have been, but I want to be all I still can. I will push the envelope of my life as far as I am absolutely able to, for as long as I can. I will reclaim ALL I can, and I won’t settle for anything less. He took enough away from me. But I will yield nothing more!

Later in that same book, Daria Burke expressed a similar attitude and unwillingness to quit:

“We are not promised certain outcomes, only the endless pursuit. The deliberate, curious life is not about having all the answers, but about daring to ask the questions that shape our becoming. And then living them…The post-traumatic is not a destination; it’s a continual becoming, a relentless evolution…I chose to find strength in the broken places…the awakening of a spirit that defies the paradigm of perpetual suffering…”

She went on to relate a theory in psychology called “post-traumatic growth (PTG).” I’ll write more about it toward the end of my book. But for now, Burke wrote that the research suggests that:

“…out of the darkest moments….we can emerge not just intact, but stronger and more resilient…individuals, who, despite enduring unspeakable tragedy…arose with a newfound sense of strength and purpose….people diagnosed with PTSD could also be positively transformed by trauma…”

For myself, I liked Burke’s description of daring to ask questions and then living them, and to pursue “relentless evolution.”

Like all of this, though, there are no guarantees, and it is work. For any labor, certain tools might make a difference.

I’ll speak of the first of these next.

Note:

I am seeking financial support to complete my memoir, work with an editor, and return home for fact-checking. Your help would mean the world to me as I take this step toward healing and giving voice to my journey.

Please like, comment, and share this post to help spread the word. The link for my fundraiser is on GoFundMe. Thank you for your support.

So many times my husband would hug me, look at me with love, and tell me how precious I was.

I would recoil. That word…PRECIOUS…I could barely stand to hear it, much less consider it applicable to me.

“Precious” made me ill and afraid.

The emotions with no words, just paint

Right now, as I write this post, I have reached the place of embracing my anger and claiming my agency. It’s taken a lifetime to get here. And it is only recently that I’ve arrived at this place.

What was I like before this? And what finally got me to this point?

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The dark rage

I noted yesterday that en route to my ritual bath session, tons of thoughts were flooding my brain. Lofty, cerebral things like discernment, reflection, love, and the power of the “Divine feminine,” all things suitable for the impending spiritual moments with God. And others – the scars I have never been able to shake, like fear, anxiety, grief, and rage. And of those, lately, mostly primal rage.

In my search for the “existential meaning” of my life, as well as just plain understanding why the hell I’ve been feeling this way, I’ve been reading a lot of spiritual and mythology books. So their images, themes, and characters are blended in with all of the above thoughts.

Themes of darkness — places like walking through the underworld, sitting in caves of transformation, living in the Dark Night of the Soul — felt like home to me. These were all connected to a search for purpose and rebirth, a withdrawal from the regular world where one could take stock in peace. And of late, that’s just where I wanted to be, in a dark cave peering out at the world, but left alone.

My friends, the crones

I have felt just like the main characters of those stories and have preferred their company. Old crones, the ones who might eat you, slice you with their sword, or save you, depending on their mood and your attitude.

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How to write this part of the book?

I went to the Mikveh today, my recommitting to this writing project before beginning this last phase. So many things floated through my head as I drove there. Topics to cover. Trigger words. Questions. Intense emotions, especially lately, anger.

But I put all that aside for this afternoon and just went, knowing “something” would come clear. An answer of some kind would present itself.

Whether anyone else understands this kind of thing doesn’t matter. I am a person of ritual, and for me, just the act of “honoring and centering” somehow resets my psyche and my heart. For another, it might be incense and candles, music, whatever. Today, for me, it was the Mikveh pool.

As I sank below the water’s surface, I spoke the one-word prayer I carried there: Hineini...Here I am, Lord. I was opening myself up to the power of something beyond me, even as that is a scary thing. It’s that whole “Be-careful-what-you-ask-for” thing, because you just might get it. If you give God an invitation for an inch, would He or She want a mile?

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Before starting this new phase of writing, I did what I did before I started writing this book – I sought God. Some may think it’s strange. That’s okay. It is my way of preparing for and honoring a serious work.

Rituals have power for me. They are a way to clarify my mind. Ask for help. And cement my commitment. Especially for a task I feel inadequate for, and am intimidated by.

For me, a particularly meaningful ritual is to visit the nearby synagogue’s mikveh. It is a pool of natural water that you immerse in while saying prayers, or just talking with God. I do this in moments of significant events or transitions, moments of grief or healing, or, in this case, new challenges.

As I enter the water and sink below the surface, I hold one prayer in my mind — just a one-word prayer in Hebrew: Hineini. In English, it means “Here I am, God.”

I cannot think of a more powerful prayer than to say – I am here, and I will do what you wish. It is total submission to the Universe…to the will of a Higher Power. It is surrendering this work for whatever God wants it to be. And it is my acknowledgement that I cannot do this alone. I am simply the tool. So, God, speak, and I will write.

There is freedom that comes as I float in that pool. Stress eases. And as I step out, I feel like that old self is shed, and I am ready to go forward.

So as I begin this new section…Hineini.

Note:

I am seeking financial support to complete my memoir, work with an editor, and return home for fact-checking. Your help would mean the world to me as I take this step toward healing and giving voice to my journey.

Please like, comment, and share this post to help spread the word. The link for my fundraiser is on GoFundMe. Thank you for your support.

“…there is no security in not knowing things, in avoiding the ugliest truths because they can’t be faced. There is only an oppressive, creeping dread that the thing no one has told you is too terrible to imagine, and that it will haunt the rest of your life when you find out.”

― Natalie Haynes, The Children of Jocasta

Looking at that quote, I totally agree with the first sentence.

As to the rest, the only thing that will haunt me is NOT knowing. THAT is too terrible to imagine. Instead, whatever I learn will set me free.

That Undiscovered Country

Finally – the book arrives at its destination: The Undiscovered Country…the “bottom line.” I could call it a journey through the underworld, a soul journey, whatever, but the bottom line is that it is a whole new place that I have not yet explored, and my heart has made it clear — it is time.

Shakespeare referred to the Undiscovered Country in his play, “Hamlet.” Books carry that title. Even Star Trek used it for a movie.

Where Shakespeare’s Hamlet spoke of it in terms of what comes after death, and some books use it to refer to past civilizations, in Star Trek, they were toasting the future.

For me, it is the past brought forward into the present to change my future…and maybe someone else’s.

With such a weighty mission, the entries for this last section will be slower in coming. I need to think, dream, chew on things. This last part of the book will be wrestling with file folders full of questions scribbled on strips of paper from thoughts catalyzed during the writing process. So, I need to sit with each one and “listen” to what it is telling or asking me.

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