Different Ways #19, Sound of Silence, Part Three
The thick dark, flow of evil, violence and despair in the world exists. Am I gonna speak of my unholy visit there? Do I want to? No, I don't want to but I need to. It is not like I'm the only person who has taken up this gauntlet. This is the dark side of humanity that exists in our lives whether we want to acknowledge it or not. As high as we can fly, we can fall. By the time gravity finds one, we are forever changed by the impact. Evil and violence exists and it preys upon silence and blind industry. We feed it by teaspoon and by backhoe. By virtue of our decisions, we keep it fed. Evil and despair is human shadow gone madly unbalanced.
During this time of my life I was vulnerable and this vulnerability generated epic amounts of fear. Fear brings a human being's vibration down and 'like' energies converge to feed, pressing a person down even farther. Disconnection and oblivion as pleasure are evil's playhouse. This was the dark night of my soul. I feel lucky it was a short summer night and it was not nested in the depth of a long winter's darkness or there may have been quite a different ending.
Thank you for listening.
Trigger warning: dissociative states.
Different Ways, Chapter 14, The Sound of Silence, pp 104-107
Music: This song Sick of the Silence by Mother, Mother carries some of the frustration I held as a 24 year old woman with a suppressed voice in the 1970's and 80's. Here it is. This is how it felt inside when the reinforcements of fear and self loathing came to corner me. We all have our shadow stories and if we are allowed to speak, sing, dance and create them safely without being shamed, we can disempower them. To censure and suppress human expression is to feed the silence which supports fear which secures evil in the world.
That's why I'm sa-la-la-la sick of the silence
(Sa-la-la-la sick of the silence)
Yeah, sa-la-la-la sick of the silence
(Sa-la-la-la sick of the silence)
Because I'm terri-la-la-la-fied of what's inside of it
(Terri-la-la-la-fied of what's inside of it)
Yeah, I get so sa-la-la-la-la-la sick of the silence
That I have to, that I have to just scream
"Sick of the Silence" Mother, Mother
Years later, the 1994 tragedy of Susan Smith, her postpartum, delirium and her notorious infanticide was not lost on me. As I continued to wrestle with how to feel safe in the world, it hurled me even deeper into realizing how close I came to going too far into a place I would not be able to return from: murdering my children so I could kill myself.
healing wounds and growing can feel frustrating when it requires doing rounds and cycles through a life repeatedly. Like in the larger arena of life regarding the issues of white supremacy, greed and war it seems we should be done with these issues. Eventually, perhaps, but until we are fully committed to cease feeding the beast that lures us into a complacency on these issues both personal and worldly, we have to keep at it. We are all participants by the virtue of being human.
Astrology would identify these repetitious cycles for me decades later as a natural surfacing of levels of things that needed healing and completion, but I didn't know this at the time, of course. I was still burdened with the memory, the shadow. I needed to learn how to forgive myself for succumbing to such terror so I could appreciate how far I had come and realize that I was now safe. Am I thankful for that experience? Yes, I am. I needed to know what coursed underneath and embrace all of my humanity so I could be authentically present in the world.
Epilogue to Chapter 14: The trajectory of a life - any life - can be revealed as a map in the telling of events. That which seems happenstance can show itself later as a critical juncture. This is why our sharing stories and cultivating authenticity are so important. If we want it, there is a bigger story we are a part of that we can know about that can help us. Is it any wonder that the confessional was such a popular and cathartic experience for many? Being out from under secrets and the shame that they require to sustain them is tremendously liberating when done safely and in confidence. After sharing, we have room inside for new things to occupy our previously fettered minds. I think this was actually my higher intention when I had my emergence. I invited a change I wasn't prepared for and there was no sending it back. It's not for me to know why but to examine how I handled it and share that information. I'm not the only one to be struck this way but I'm the only one, to my knowledge, who responded to it quite the way I did. This makes it my story and map of my path.
We are all now going through massive paradigm shifts. There may be some questioning of reality and people around us might be behaving very differently than we are used to or expect. Some will overreact it, as I did (and do odd things, as I do Blogcasting at such a late age). Some will experience broken hearts and crushing blows to their belief systems and losses of what they thought valuable. There will be more, I think, who will be easing into their mind expanding awareness of perspectives with various degrees of discomfort but not necessarily epic sweeps of life threatening insanity. I'm of the belief that we must evolve. If we believe we can, we will and be better for it.
Thank you for joining me here. The memoir Different Ways: Revealing the Feminine can be purchased through my website using a link to Village Books at AlltheDifferentWays.com. There will soon be an eBook version available with an independent retailer. The e-book on Amazon is a bit of a mess but free if you are a Kindle member.
The BlogCast that outlines my intentions for this series of readings from my book, Different Ways, Revealing the Feminine can be found here in the post, Between the Lines.