IMPERFECT Lady

Twilight Feelings.

A trail of feelings linger, like clouds behind a jet plane...in how I felt sitting between two worlds. Feelings to process or express and maybe just to let them be, as they were...and as I was.

Nature's brilliance, LOVE, past in its darkness, roles fading and focusing...and the present bright dancing with nature...and shadows lurking.

This quilt seems to speak it in Art.

 

The focus appears off...and the color combinations seems to work and yet seem at odds.  Perfect for how I felt that day...trying to pull off relaxed in nature with unnatural energies swirling. And, nature and the past fading; dying.  And yet a new chapter opening for my daughter.  It was like I was in a twilight zone...

I looked up twilight....

"when the light is half-faded, but the world is not yet totally dark, is twilight. If you are between two states, like asleep and awake..."

I like this idea, for I was between two states.  Relationships not totally dark, for their presence can arrive at any time...and not totally gone.  And, a secondary twilight between the wedding and their uncomfortable 'reunion'.

This quilt has tones of twilight.

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There is a tree on my mail route that looks like this one.  A few wispy leaves clinging on....giving it an air of stubborness.

This was very intriguing border fabric and I am surprised, but happy with the final outcome.  I still have to find a fabric to do the final binding, and finish machine quilting.  I am pleased she captured my twilight feelings.

As an Equal.

"I Am Malala" by Malala Yousafzai, shows the hard struggle for something so simple; a woman's right to education.  

What the girl couldn't understand, was why her being knowledgeable was something that threatened Armies and bad men. All she wanted was to go to school.  And, not only did they ban girls from going to school, they bombed the schools.  

She does give the background climate and the beliefs and religious and various clans and tribes; the perfect backdrop for this to take place.

This simple concept of no longer educating girls...then flows into other liberties being taken away.  Little by little they lost their rights...one right at a time....out of fear of what would happen if they refused.

It isn't so much WHAT is taken away, but that they allow it.  Allow it by going along or believing in the religious leaders.  More often the Koran was misinterpreted in order to gain control over the people.

There seems to be a common thread in what is going on her country and what I feel/sense/see in the strict religions.  The lack of personal freedom...given up out of fear.

Imagine this young girl being the voice of women in her country....saying it is not okay, that I want to be educated. 

Imagine using women as pawns to manipulate in order to gain control and power? Who else does this?

And, who is speaking for the rights of women and girls?

Her father carried this poem around in his wallet.

First they came for the communists,

and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.  by Martin-Niemöller

At one point in her story, she says...that her whole country appears to have gone mad, for no one is complaining or striking against their rights being taken away...how they silently give up.

There is a societal madness that seems to permeate and is spread by silence...upheld by fear.  Fear of NOT going along.

Where is the fear of losing power or the control of their lives....and the lives of the women and children?

In her country, male domination is completely in focus.

And, I see that in the FALC, it is similar...women are being used, just differently.

Malala said, "it is like they are trying to wipe out all evidence of women in our country" when they had to start hiding behind the burkas...

The elder women in her country have been taught to disappear, unless they are serving men.

Their lives are not their lives.

They are but a parasite living upon the backs of men.

I know that she lives on the extreme end of the scale, but there are religions where women have no voice in matters that matter.

She has no freedom to say No.

No freedom to her own body.

I see from her story the loud display of control over women.

The FALC is a quieter show...yet its visual is displayed in the large families and the downtrodden women.

Malala was lucky to be born unto her father, who treated her like a son, from the moment she was born...she was never seen as less...due to her gender.  He encouraged her to speak out and supported her...while he himself spoke out for women's rights and value.  Most important he lived it...by seeing her as an equal.

Family and Stranger

In a blog, A young girl recounted an encounter with an abusive man, a stranger she happened upon, who took his pleasure by groping her. Its impact was immediately felt deeply...her body and world changed in that moment.

(blog  - http://travelingev.com/2013/10/3-worst-experiences-2-of-3/ )

What struck me, was how she could concentrate on herself, due to it being a stranger.  Meaning, she was able to flee, to remove herself from the situation to never have to be in his space again...to speak freely and was offered help.

How things are so much more complex and long suffering for those whose abusers they call 'dad'....or 'brother', 'uncle' and 'friend'.  And, to be a child...not a young adult.

I think we think, that the silence is due to the severity of the abuse or the lack thereof, when in fact it has much more to do with our relationship to the abuser...and our age and the folks who we share life with.

Abuse feels like abuse.

It doesn't change from person to person.

What is so different is who is the abuser.  

Do we know him.

Do we live with him.

How our parents know him and relate to him.

When an abuser is 'in-house' it is so much harder to tell.

It isn't that the experience isn't felt as deeply or awful...it is that the horrible man is someone we know.  Then what???

Just so interesting for me to hear her story and witness the differences...between family and stranger.

The body's wisdom.

In Steven Pressfield's book, "What we talk about when we talk about God" he writes;

"When we say that we had a draining conversation with someone, who knows what kind of exchange was going on at a subatomic level?  That person may actually been draining us. It may not be just a figure of speech."

"When we talk about how that person took a piece of us, did she really?"

"When we say that somebody sucked the life out of us, how do we know that he didn't do exactly that?

"What the modern world did in its fascination with parts and pieces is teach us that we are individual, isolated human units, talking and conversing and interacting but not much more than that. What we intuitively know, however, and what we're learning more and more from current science, is that there's way more going on between us than we first thought."

"There are different kinds of engagement and drain, and they affect us in much different ways. When a high school student walks out at the end of taking the SATs, her brain is cooked. When you finish a five-mile run or an hour-long weight-lifting session, your muscles ache and you're drenched with sweat. But, when your friend's mother dies and you go to the funeral, that's a different kind of fatigue. It drains not so much your brain or muscles as it drains your spirit. Some events exhaust us at a spirit level, in the same way that some people can crush our spirit if we let them. Learning to be present to our depths means paying attention to all interactions and the toll they exact or the life they bring to that most mysterious, elusive aspect of ourselves we call spirit."

"Remember Einstein's discovery that matter is locked-up energy, and energy is liberated matter? You exert a gravitational pull on every object around you, including people. And, they're doing the same, at the exact same time."

"When we encounter someone inspiring, it may be way more than words or actions that she gives us. Likewise, when someone makes something for us and then gives it to us and it means something to us and moves us, we feel like a part of that person is present in the gift. It's not because we are superstitious; it's because a part of him may actually be in the gift."

"When we talk about the vibes somebody gives off,

or the not-so-good feeling we're getting from someone,

or we're sure that somebody is jealous,

or harboring bitterness,

or distracted,

our bodies are doing the job that highly sophisticated radar systems do,

picking up signals and processing them in real time.

Deep, as we know, calls to deep."

"Our body language and facial expressions and changes in posture when we're interacting with each other are so vast and varied that some of them can't be consciously noticed until they're videotaped and played back in slow motion." 

"When you have that sense that someone has more to tell you but you don't know how you know that, there's a good chance that her body sent your body information faster than your mind could notice it."

"The brain alone is stunning in its endless ability to process and morph and transform in response to external stimuli. This is called neuroplasticity, and from it we learn that how we focus our attention actually shapes our brain."

"Joy is contagious,

and despair brings everybody down,

and when positive energy is present and flowing,

we all benefit."

Steven Pressfield.

I would say that mostly I am challenged in the way I listen to my body. The way I allow myself to move away from energies that feel bad.  Especially from family members whose energies feel bad in my body.

In the past, I wasn't aware...no that is a lie.  I was aware of how I felt in the presence of people, but I would not let myself respond in kind.  I would endure the energy exchange....for appreances and to be a 'good' sister or daughter.

I no longer care about the appearance on the outside, I will no longer subject my body to negative energy in order to be 'liked'.

Once I became aware of my body's language and its radar and the correctness of it...I listened, trusted and believe its messages.  I simply follow how it feels.

My body and everyone's body has this wonderful capabilities.  And, I believe, when you discount or override its systems; its dis-ease.

Your body and soul are not at one.

Discounting the body leads you far astray from your soul; your passion, your peace, your love, and joy.  

In sexual abuse, especially from a family member or friend, it takes our natural ability to move away from bad.  It turns our minds against our bodies.

We no longer trust our bodies.

We no longer like our bodies.

We no longer love our bodies.

We disconnect and live a few feet away from them.

Now, unable to hear its messages.

We do this. For the message would be too frightening to a child to know they live with monsters.  Instead, we make the monsters nice and disconnect from the fear and terror that rages in the small body.

Healing to me, is to re-connect back to the body....to reality and to move with the body's wisdom.

 

Beautiful Eulogy

I bumped into a gentleman who I had seen earlier at the funeral...and he wondered who would say his eulogy and then told me had just written a blog based on something he read in the Huffington Post... "Are you living your eulogy or your resume? His blog is.... http://blogs.mtu.edu/more-with-les/

A great question. 

What I know, is just having heard a eulogy about a person with a spectacular resume, the resume was not mentioned in the eulogy.  

And it then occurred to me that you can have a great resume and a great eulogy...when you can bring your full self to your resume; where it is you doing what you love...but that it doesn't exclude family or self expression.

Life isn't so much about what you are doing, but if you can bring your full self to all that you do.  This is the secret I believe.  The secret that my buddy was able to accomplish.  

He never wore his resume.  

Nor, do I believe he lived for his eulogy.

It appeared that he just was himself...arriving into each new adventure...or greeting each person.  

He never changed who he was for his resume or to pad his eulogy.  He just lived...as himself. Being curious and trying new things as well as remaining faithful to what he loved.

I can imagine, but can't know it, is that the bigger the resume, the harder it is to maintain your humble self, and yet he accomplished this with ease.  Or I wonder, the more secure and confident you are with yourself...is it this that allows you to succeed.

What drew us all to him, was his ability to remain most faithful to himself.

He was just a regular old Joe, with a great resume and beautiful eulogy. 

Bye Buddy

I listened as he spoke, and I marveled at the gentleman he was speaking of; what a class act...and yet not so classy that he didn't relate to all walks of life. And, he wasn't too perfect, but a guy who knew how to experience life and have fun...yet keeping family in sight. A rare individual.  

A friend of his for many years spoke as his brother; buddies who have volumes of memories and tough to be the one left to speak...the one part of the whole. And, yet how grateful for all the years and memories!  

What stands out is who he left behind and the memories they carry. The lives he touched and made better, the mark upon the souls he was in close contact with and even on us who had much less contact....we all got the full impact of this man.

He was purely himself at all times.  Fully engaged...present and interested in the encounter.

The last time I saw him, he wasn't himself and yet fully himself.  His spirit was in his eyes.  His body was compromised, but not his Light.  I feel bad, I didn't visit him in the later years.

I feel that we lost a great soul and yet, I also feel that he is alive in all who he touched and he lives on.  

He lives in the moments he enjoyed the most.

Family.

Buddies.

And doing things he loved...and loving what he did...with those he loved.

He never appeared old, and yet was 88.

I sat and listened to the life review and thought what a success...he lived a life well lived and how his heart  touched so many, no matter the content of our friendships....brief, long-time, family, or like me an old friend of his son.

It caught me unaware to see his picture on his memorial. To see his beautiful smiling face....to picture him gone, forever.  He treated me kind...warmly always.

What also struck me was the difference between this beautiful man and my father.

How little contact I had with him and how he touched my heart...a corner that will never forget him.

My sympathies to all whose contact was so much more than mine...who will now find ways to carry on without his spirit...or perhaps be inspired to take over where he left off.

Bye buddy...

Out and In.

I was able to find the time, energy and desire to play with fabric today. I was given the border fabric from a very good friend and fellow quilter, and built inward. It was a bit challenging with the colors and Ladies gracing the borders....but, I like how it turned out.

She was hard to photograph....in the sun or in the shade, I couldn't get the colors to shine through, just right. But, you get the idea.

It was fun to play again, it seems like it has been months since I was free to just spend hours seeing what would come forth.  I am not sure about the umbrella, but once the hat seemed like a rain hat, then the boots....and why not an umbrella.

And, yet the sky is blue.  I wondered about this....she is covered and ready, walking the dogs, perhaps she sees clouds up ahead.

One more try on the woodshed....to see if I can pose her in a place that compliments her.  

All in all a complex Lady quilt....there is lots to see and wonder about!  Ladies in the border....and she is in and out....or out and in. 

When I moved away.

In watching this video on Forgiveness,by Jack Kornfield,  

It occurred to me that the old style of forgiveness is to restore things back to normal, that it doesn't mean you ever walk away or end something, but rather that things return back to 'normal'.  

And, I am seen as being angry and full of hatred, when I am choosing to protect or to eliminate further abuse and hurt towards me...by ending relationships.

I honestly don't feel angry or hatred inside of me, now.

Now, meaning since I have forgiven in the sense that I am no longer holding on to the past being different, but accepting them as who they are.  In doing so, it has allowed me to decide IF I want to be in a relationship with them.

Do I want to subject myself to being hurt again or do I not?

It has nothing to do with hatred or anger.

It does have to do with loving myself enough to protect me and act responsible for my feelings and honor and respect myself enough to want relationships where I am seen and heard.

Hatred towards them or anger towards them is not inside of me....my choices are based, NOT on them, but on me.

I tend to move away from folks who I no longer trust.

My body doesn't feel safe with folks who lie.

It is about me, not them.

I can recognize how they can project different energies about me, but inside of me, is a calm pond of peace, love and joy. And, it becomes upset and rippled with anxiety when I am not honest with myself...when I don't honor how I feel.

I make no appologies for how I feel inside when I am with folks who are not capable in honoring how I feel...who trample down my boundaries, who lie and holler and scream at how insane and mental I am.  It doesn't feel good inside, so I move away...keep my distance, ask for space.  

Remember the definition of estrangement?

"Estrange, alienate, disaffect share the sense of casings (someone) to turn away from a previously held state of affection, comradeship, or allegiance. Estrange often implies replacement of love or belonging by apathy or hostility."

What many will fail to appreciate, is that I didn't change from love to apathy or indifference, but rather I felt it and moved away.

The previous state of affection and comradeship between parent and child was destroyed when abuse entered into the picture.  It just took me 46 years to realize I needed to turn away.

Each relationship I had/held changed the same way...

The relationship changed from love to indifference or apathy.

I never felt I left affection behind...it had already disappeared.

Estrangement is not an unhealthy thing, but rather a very loving gesture within yourself; you are moving away from a relationship that changed. You are no longer pretending or trying to force or feel that which is no longer there.  You are honoring your body and feelings when love and belonging are replaced with indifference and apathy.

It isn't about hatred.

I do not hate.

I accept the past as it was. 

I believe I hated for many many years, in hating it could not be as I wanted it to be.

I hated the past when I wanted it different.

Once I accepted the past as it was, I found love.

I did not find love in indifference or apathy.  I found love when I moved away.

Called it love.

Can something be good and evil at the same time?  Is it possible that nothing is one way, but actually it can hold two diverse meanings at one time? Is one man's evil another man's love?  If so is love and evil ever changing as it is defined from man to man and woman to woman? Are the definitions the problem or is it in the perception or the eye of the beholder?

As the discussion continues and labors forward between those in the church and those outside, those who had good experiences of the church and those didn't....as well as between my family of origin and I.

Is there just one good church and then me bad mouthing it.

Is there just one good family and, again...me bad mouthing it.

Just where is the truth found?

Is it possible that the truth is the truth for one and then the truth is the truth for the other, EVEN if those truths are completely opposite?

How do we then know the difference between good and evil, right or wrong, love or abuse?

Does it lie in the definitions or in the perceptions of those defining it?

Is it possible that there is only one correct definition of love, abuse, and cult, but that each of us bring our own meaning to it by how we were taught.

Could it be that we define love by how love was shown us?

Not by its true meaning, but by our meaning.

From my experience, my file managers were completely dyslexic.

I had to look up the word "Dyslexic" to see if that makes sense.

"a general term for disorders that involve difficulty in learning to read or interpret words, letters, and other symbols, but that do not affect general intelligence."

Hmmm, not sure now if that works. From what I am reading, it is trouble with the letters more so than general intelligence.

My file managers had trouble with definitions or were very creative and made them up as they went along.

It left me with the wrong discernment of my world and the folks who I called family.

There seems to be a wide gap between what is going on in reality and then what others see.

I used to live in this surreal world, where it didn't touch reality...where my mind transposed definitions to create a kinder world.

It didn't make the world kinder, but it had me Believing it was.

I am not certain I can explain or articulate what happens to an abused child's mind.

How its definitions get all messed up.  How it sees things but calls them incorrectly...and if untreated or unaware, they go through life NOT knowing the difference.

Allowing them to believe that which they call love is love, when it actually abuse.

It is like definition dyslexia...not letter and symbol dyslexia.

You can't see correctly what is right in front of you....you define your world backwards.

Where love doesn't mean freedom, respect, trust, etc....but it means controlled, disrespected and untrusting.  

Love and abuse are completely flipped around.

I know this will sound insane and completely nuts, but there is no other way to explain how so called intelligent folks are able to NoT see.

They see, but their definitions are wrong.

They were taught that the feelings of love, felt like neglect, disrespect, shallow, selfish, self absorbed...etc.

How would a person know they were wrong, if the only love they ever known was abuse?  Wouldn't abuse not stand out?  

Is it possible that if abuse was called love, that they don't know what love is?

I think I thought, they knew both...but I forgot to remember I didn't know love until I was 46 years old.  I knew my own definition of love that I was taught as a child, but it and what I know today are not even close cousins. They are the complete opposites.

Love's opposite was/is indifference.

I had to look up "Indifference".

"lack of interest in or concern about something"

My definition of love from my childhood was indifference.

From what I know of how my parents treated me, this is completely true.  I felt their indifference and called it love.

Who we truly are.

Here is an excerpt from the book, "What we talk about when we talk about God." by Rob Bell

"I was twenty-five years old, just starting out as a pastor, and one evening after I'd given a sermon, a man named George walked up to me and told me that I needed to go to an AA meeting.  I was totally caught off guard and muttered something about how I wasn't aware that I was an alcoholic.  He said that it didn't matter, that everything I needed to know about being a pastor I would learn if I went, and that when it came to my turn to share in the meeting I should simply say, "Hi, I'm Rob and I pass." 

"So, I went, and it changed my life."

"As the people when around the room and told their stories, the gears in my mind turned as fast as they could, trying to figure out and name what it was about the meeting that was so different from any other gathering I'd ever been in."

"Slowly it dawned on me what it was: I was in a bullshit-free zone."

"In the first meeting I went to, people were talking about the first of the twelver recovery steps, which deals with admitting your powerlessness."

"Admitting demands Honesty."

"Admitting demands a ruthless assessment of your condition."

"Admitting is what happens when you've hit the wall, 

 when you have no energy left to pretend,

when you're done playing games, 

when you no longer care what other people think,

when you've come to the end of yourself,

when you're ready to embrace the truth that you need help, and that on your own you're in serious trouble because you've made a mess of things."

"As I sat there, it was as if I could see, really see, for the first time, just how much time and energy and effort we expend making sure that everybody knows how strong, smart, quick, competent, capable, together, and good we are. (I imagine you could add your own words to the list.)"

"It's hard to see just how much that posturing consumes us until you're in a room where it's absent - a room where people aren't doing any of that because they are giving their energies to admitting."

"Our need to control how others see us is like a God we've been bowing down to for so long we don't even realize it  But in an AA meeting, no one has the energy left for that sort of thing. You come face to face with yourself as you truly are."

"And now here's the twist,

the mystery,

the unexpected truth about admitting that takes us back to the counter-intuitive power of gospel: 

When you come to the end of yourself, you are at that exact moment in the kind of place where you can fully experience the God who is for you."  Steven Pressfield

I have great respect for the folks who are at the end of themselves, who live their lives in the bullshit-free zone!

It is rare and brilliant when you see them in all their glory...uncapping their whole lives, leaving nothing out.

Often it seems like I live in the bullshit-free zone and collide with those who are repelled by it.  It leaves us standing in a weird space. Where they can't believe my story and I can't believe theirs.  Where their bullshit doesn't fit into my world...it just doesn't make sense, doesn't fit the definition, doesn't compute or relate.

How easy the world would be if we all were to face who we truly are.