Soul Mosaic

Tools for the garden

My husband reads all my posts, something I deeply appreciate. After the last couple, he noted that he could see I am “searching and gathering.” Searching, because right now I have more questions than answers, and gathering the things that I think will help me find them. As usual, he nailed it. Unlike the previous section of my life story, a more straightforward process, this is the part that is the “fumbling through darkness.” So I need all the help I can muster for it.

One particular Mother’s Day, my husband wrote a note about the “gardener I have been through life.” He observed that years ago, amid the chaos of my life in that house, I had started tending a vegetable and herb garden. I dug out the space, planted, and weeded to coax new life from the soil. And he said that, now, I am doing the same with my life.

I loved that comparison, and I agree. In writing this book, I’ve been l laboring to spawn a rebirth from the old soil of my past. A harvest of insights may emerge in their own time, but I must actively work that soil to reach them.

So, aside from right mind and attitude, what else do I need to do this? And why?

The words come last

It might seem odd that when talking about the tools to write a book, words, questions, story, and writing process are actually at the bottom of the list. Maybe that’s because before you get to the words – the communicating of answers and wisdom – there are so many “non-verbal” steps needed.

In the previous post, I spoke of the tools from Buddhism for a proper mindset for this work. I want to elaborate a bit about one of them: “Right attitude.”

The blue breaking through the storm

“I deliberately stress the word “survive” in relation to the stages of recovery. For me, personally, the greatest “Ah-HA!” of the book came in the section where Jen, walking on a beach alone, deals with the possibility that she, herself, is not broken, as she has defined herself throughout her healing practice. ‘Not broken or unbroken: rather, intact and imperfect. Wounded, sore, struggling, scared, funny, hopeful.’“

Jen Cross, from Writing Ourselves Whole

I LOVED this passage when I read it. Her description of herself: HOPEFUL….FUNNY…INTACT AND IMPERFECT….NOT BROKEN. What a powerfully refreshing new view of oneself after trauma.

So many of us view ourselves as broken, dirty, useless, and worthless because of the things that were done to us. We blame, denigrate, and loathe ourselves. And as the final icing on the cake, we see ourselves as broken. That makes it sound like there is no help, no hope, and no point in even trying. Just hang a sign that says, “Damaged beyond repair.”

Yet her statement totally changes the emotional colors of that picture! Instead of a black sky with no crack of light or any hope of a brighter horizon, her description is like those streaks of bright blue peaking out amidst the storm clouds. No, we’re not perfect. But then who is? And maybe we still have so much that is worthwhile. I just love it.

“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.

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?

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.

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?