the blueprint

I do see faces...
you are not teetering on the edge...
mine are in the knots and lines of the logs that make my home.
I also see them in cars and trucks.
I will search for them in fabrics.
Some are benevolent and some are sinister...
but they are there and they watch.

My boys are fascinated by the idea of ghosts right now...
I just assure them that the spirits are guides...
so watch and listen.

I was struck by the crying in the night part that you wrote...
you wrote, maybe Mom wasn't allowed to respond...
as you have pointed out previously, she was alone for periods of time when Dad was stationed away...
Who would have forbidden her?
Did Dad have that much control, even from far away?
Perhaps she was afraid of the dark...
Perhaps she was afraid to ask what we were crying about...
Perhaps she knew already and refused to deal with it...
ignore it until it goes away and then we can bury it...deep.

I was reading Women Who Run With the Wolves last night (Clarissa Pinkola Estes), you may want to find this book and read it. I believe it is opening my eyes and brain to our journey. The author is a Jungian psychologist and a storyteller. She tells ancient wisdom stories to illuminate the trials and triumphs of women.
In this book she is leading the reader back to reclaim their Wild Woman archetype...
the part of our psyche that's been domesticated...suppressed...beaten down...
all in the name of socialization of women.
Any way last night I read about the journey to reawaken intuition...
one of women's greatest gifts and powers...
but one that we are taught early to distrust it, to ignore it.


(These can be external an/or internal forces)
The first step is to allow the Too-good mother to die...
the smothering, I will do it for you, I, as mother, am capable but you still need my help.
You can't...you shouldn't...you must be submissive.

The second step is to expose the Crude shadow...
seeing the dark and light sides of everything...
even our own past... and our own nature.

The third task is to navigate the darkness...
this is the beginning of trusting our intuition...
Just like your walk in the dark wilderness...trusting yourself and the universe.
I think this is where we are in all of this...beginning to reawaken our gifts, talents, memories, feelings and affirming each and every one of them.

The subsequent tasks are; facing the Wild Hag (or wild Goddess),  inner  nourishment, sorting out the memories and parts of the psyche, and then asking the questions...these are the keys to unlocking all of this mystery, after that the tasks are to stand up and reevaluate your life and finally to respect the shadows of our inner self (the shades of grey).

So, I asked for a blueprint of the journey and I recieved one. Thank you universe.

I don't believe that this is a linear pathway...it is simply one way to move forward.
I do believe that it is a journey that is universal to all women because we have been raised in patriarchal cultural norms.

Women are taught, from very early on that we need men to protect and provide for us.
We are not taught by our mothers to trust our instincts.
We are punished if we stray off the domestication path.
We are taught to submit, obey, respect authority...even if it is corrupt.
We, as women, are groomed to be vulnerable.
We are groomed to be victims.
We are groomed to accept abuse as 'normal'.
We were 'good girls' if we didn't complain or act out...
even when we were being hurt and treated like garbage or tools.
As you have said before, if we tell and call attention to the sexual abuse we are the ones at fault for being temptresses...too sexy...asking for it.
I was 3 years old!
There was nothing sexy or tempting about that body. It was an abuse of power and I was a puppet. B#3 was a puppet too...he was put there by others...I truely believe that.
His game of "hot dog in a bun" was not his construct...he went along with others' directions...
perhaps to make them stop hurting him, perhaps to be accepted as one of the guys...I don't know.
He groomed me for further abuse, worse abuse at the hands of others.
He was a victims as much as I was.

When women who have experienced domestic violence see what actions constitute abuse, many say something like, "I never thought of that as abuse". If they are not physically broken and bleeding it isn't abuse...who taught us to accept this?
This is such a crock of shit that we pass along to our daughters.


I have been doing some searching of studies about very young child sexual abuse...
I haven't found any ideas on the effects that it has yet...
but I did read that 30% of child sexual abuse is perpetrated by other children (under the age of 18).
Why is this happening?
Why are children abusing and objectifying other children?
Is there that much pain in this world early on that requires such a outlet?

I am coming to realize that we are not alone...our family is abnormal, dysfunctional...
but unfortunately not atypical.
My heart is very heavy...but I do see Light.

Maggie