Friday, April 14
I wrote this this morning , trying to understand what is going on in my psyche. It actually produced something that helped make sense of the many issues I am juggling. “Keep the pen moving” is an instruction designed to get around the logical mind. Sometimes it works, sometimes it just produces nonsense.
“The fall” happened on Monday, April 10, when I tripped over the lintel and fell on the tile floor in my house. I hurt my chin and my left hand badly. The odd word in parentheses “babadagalgara…” was as much as I could remember of James Joyce’s sound of “the fall” at the beginning of Finnegans Wake. “Juggling pieces” was an image that came in work with my therapist Erica the next day, that I was juggling pieces of my life and not paying attention, so I tripped. Lynelle’s suggestion was from her enormous knowledge about PTSD and how it shows in what happens. Trying to understand what she said brings up a fear of being forced to conform. “The huge pressure” was something I felt as I was writing to my friends about how I needed my participation in the Grandmother Ceremony to be in a way that worked for me. One of the requirements was to make some patches representing parts of our life. Doing this, and working with the images started a process of integration. The “Grandmother Ceremony” will be described in a subsequent blog post.
I want to just keep the pen moving and see what happens. The fall (bababadalgara…) juggling pieces and tripping over the door stone. Trying to integrate process started with working on Grandmother patches. Then Lynelle’s observation that there’s some deep part of me who’s not happy with what’s happening in my unconscious. Not happy with integration? I come across a fear of being forced to conform. Actually, the huge pressure I felt about asking if I could do the patches the way I needed to, that was my introjected mother trying to force me to conform. I resisted that, and I’m telling that part that I did resist, and I will resist, and all the pieces of me welcome her into the tribe and are interested to get to know who she really is. Not who she thinks she’s “supposed to be.” I see an image of all those cards I made for all the grandchildren (of whom I was one) so Gee-Gee could put one on each pile of presents at the big Christmas gathering. A different image comes, from the glittering blue cloth we found in my studio on Wednesday. There was the remains of one of the figures I made: stuffed bag for head on pole, hanger attached to it with duct tape to hang the robe on. I also found a string fastened to a bone so it could be hung around her neck. She was the Spirit of the North. I had made Spirits for all the directions. I made a bunch more for a Samhain celebration. There are pictures of them all in one of the booklets at Neskaya. I see them now as a huge outpouring of creativity. I remember that my ex-husband was uncomfortable with what he called my “shrine making.” I thought he meant that the things I made might draw in spirits that were negative. Looking at it now, I see spirits drawn to my work who were outcast and unwanted, perhaps “negative” because they had been hurt and I feel my heart open to draw them in. Come to me you tired, poor, and heavy laden, I see your goodness. I know you have been hurt. I welcome you into this space so you can rest and heal. I see the enormous gap between the little girl who carried out her mother’s instructions to make nice, safe, name cards for the family Christmas, and the woman who created all sorts of flamboyant exotic things and environments to appear for a brief time in the sacred space of Neskaya.
Spirit of the North
Here is the sound of The Fall: bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!
and a link to the source.
I read this piece of writing to my therapist on our phone session which happened about 30 minutes after I wrote it. She really liked it, but then she knows the things I am referring to. I read it to her a second time, and some new images and material that I hadn’t seen before came up.
When I read “I welcome you into this space so you can rest and heal,” I saw Neskaya. The building has been called a “healing sanctuary,” and many people have told me they feel at home, completely accepted for who they are. I saw the Red Woman as the healing spirit of Neskaya. And I remembered when we were building it, the roof and walls were built around/on a structure of steel I-beams. The beams can be seen holding the roof from inside and outside. The steel structure was a little like a crystal form, three-dimensional with facets. It was unusual enough that we were only able to find one contractor who was willing to try it. The first time they put the beams together, the last ones didn’t fit. So they had to go back and modify the junctions so they would fit. I remember very well how I felt when the steel structure came together, I could feel it in my heart, a crystalline shape, very strong, holding energy.
Neskaya steel structure