Please don’t tread upon our dreams

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

A little girl in a red velvet dress, dirty blonde curls tumbling down her back, her face open and curious as she looks so intently her mouth slightly open, looking out, out far beyond. This little girl loves dreams, loves dancing to music alone in her bedroom with to Dvorak and Symphony of the New World, who would have know she would end up there. This little girl can chatter away about all sorts of dreams and ideas for that day. The curious child that she is, is aware of so much. But some things she shouldn’t know she is too young for those images, languages, actions not even fit for adults. But the dreams that she dreams so pure and driven must be because God gave them to her. She is curious and precocious but she will cautious to you & I.

As this little girl opens up to me she astounds me, for when she was young she was formidable in her thoughts and actions. She truly believed that she could make a difference, that the world could be better and she would do it, she really would – if need be all by herself! Her dreams were of helping the waifs and strays, at school that was of encircling them and hiding them in places where bullies would not go. She set her heart upon nursing the aged, because she loved their knowledge and wisdom. But of course she was going into politics because she knew that she knew better than Maggie and her conservative government, for her socialism mattered, that people were equal. She berated bishops, she challenged the church, she was determined that all life could be better. For someone under ten she had great things to do and she wanted to do it now! Oh my, I am so proud that I was her (I am her?)

She had so many dreams. They were so driven, so strong so that when they got trampled on she was left with only her song. For many years she sang from deep places, dark places, hard places … For her soul was shut down and her voice bore the only light to that tender heart. One day the wound opened, but the song didn’t stop singing and the dreams trickled back slowly and amazingly they were not destroyed by those terrible years but were and still are hopeful of change. However, they lacked some of the passion that I think only a driven a ten year kid has, a passion only really possible to those who are under ten years can muster, when there entirety is taken up in changing the world.

I owe it dear child to you to listen attentively to the dreams you once had, that you still have. Please don’t hold back, shout them so clearly, wake me at night, I’ll write them down, I’ll listen. Your power is your narrative, your power is your passion this makes me prouder than any woman could be, for you child – you are me and I am part of you, but I believe you are the greater teacher. Teach me, for we must be reunited so we can grow and be as whole as is possible.

I love you my darling child lets protect those dreams and as best I can I will protect you, so please let us not be closed with these dreams, fearful of the possibility that they might be trampled on again. Dearest girl, we’ve proved that dreams once trampled on can be reborn, recreated, re-imagined, resurrected.

So we ask you world, are beloved friends you have given us and give us so much, as you continue to be part of our lives please listen to what we have said. We lay out our dreams under your feet because we want to share them with you, for we love you. But so many of our dreams have be squashed and been scrambled, by a few indecent people not knew nothing of there worth – the worth that they have and had. At times we will be scared to share, but of course dreams are best shared, because we might even share the same dream.

We spread at the worlds feet our dreams, please be careful they’re precious just like every child’s and once some others used power and strength and unimaginable pain to suppress the dreams that God gave us to better his world and find grace for us all, because of Love, he truly loves us so much.

So my darling child we go hand in hand – You, I and Love, Journeying on a path paved with dreams all of them with Love xxx

Tomorrow shall be my dancing day

Tomorrow shall be my dancing day;

I would my true love did so chance

To see the legend of my play,

To call my true love to my dance;

Sing, oh! my love, oh! my love, my love, my love,

This have I done for my true love.

This poem is often known only as a Christmas Carol,  however the long form of this poem which chronicles the life of Christ in the first person each verse punctuated with the words Sing, oh! my love, oh! my love, my love, This have I done for my true love.

Is tomorrow my dancing day? Is today my dancing day? Is it always my dancing?

I have loved this poem as long as I can remember. As you may know from previous posts, I call God – “Love” I ask you to view “Love” as an entity not just as a word or emotion, don’t let my label of God be the only interpretation of the entity of “Love” as can be a wild and wonderful experience.

I asked the question is tomorrow, today, always my dancing day, it is not mine but “ours” for I dance with my true Love? But I do not dance just one dance but many dances — like the many acts of the ballet.

Some days I dance the most joyous of dances … Outwardly my body expresses the glories of survival, gushing with happiness, revelling in goals reached, trials overcome, sensual in gestures of love to self and the acceptance of love of others – the great relief of love!

At times I dance the slow Waltz of patience, being lead not leading.  My feet gently moving in patterns and formation utterly focused on the leader, Love.

Sometimes we dance the slowest of dances, I am held up by Love and draped over his form in exhaustion. Feeling unable to move, even remaining stationary aware only of the beating heart of the music. Mournful music, lamenting and grieving sounds with the only knowledge of Love around me.

Dangerously I dance alone – In wild madness, crazed, running, jumping, throwing myself around barely aware of rhythm — a rebel against the rhythm. Utterly alone and moved only by the pain I feel. Trying to blot it out – overcome by sheer insanity. And I am afraid of being near the one who stands on the edge of the dance floor waiting for me to turn back to him, feeling unable to be held in a dance that will calm me and help me find myself again with Love.

I feel like the journey of recovery is a constant dance. Dancing can be exhausting, it can be exhilarating, it can also be frightening making me so vulnerable, it be courageous when it would be easier to stand on edge of the dance floor, it can be calming and give me back my rhythm to fight another moment, another hour, another day.

For me the first verse of the poem is my invitation, to open the “Legend” and oust the painful truth. As I recall the “Legend” I trust that the holding, movement and music will ease the devastation as I am in Love’s arms. I must dance and sing the pain and the joyous victories, oh how easy that sounds and yet how difficult it is, but I must sing …

Sing, oh! my love, oh! my love, my love, my love,

This have I done for my true love.

On my journey with love, Love and I dance xxx

Easter – In the night he quietly arises with us

St. James Anglican Church, Vancouver, Canada. Easter Vigil 2011

I love the liturgy of Easter. Which begins on Holy Saturday Evening … After the Sun has set. The Easter Vigil a cacophony   as the bells were ring, awesome music is played and sung, a dramatic turning from darkness to bright and glorious light, the smells of incense mixed with flowers, not a sense left idle all of it an offering of praise to Jesus for redeeming love through his death and resurrection. For me it is utterly captivating and draws me into a place of awe and longing. However after reflecting over this last week I was rather provoked into taking on the scripture surrounding the resurrection differently. Because the scriptural encounter can be received as quiet, skeptical, fearful and grief stricken with a tentative hope which later slowly turns to great thanks but it really is sometime later. Kind of different to the wonderful assurance of resurrection we celebrate in the Catholic liturgies, none of it wrong I’m just encountering them differently.

John 20: 1-18 The Empty Tomb  

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realise that it was Jesus. 15 He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”  Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).  17 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” 18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.

 I was safe, I was cared for, I was loved — but I shared with the disciples in being quiet, skeptical, fearful, grief stricken and occasionally hopeful.  But much of the time I was not hopeful I was an in abyss of a great wound so painful, so helpless, so hopeless, so joyless I would never have thought I was safe.  But it was safety, intangible to me but grace filled by God and has led me somewhere to finally speak the truth.

Other survivors of abuse have spoken to me about the moment they are set free from their abusers it is often a time of being most confusing, deeply frightening and still filled with fear. In my experience PTSD operates in such a way that one is unable to stop the events. It feels so cruel as you re-live the events you are tormented after finally being set free. As your mind sets about re-living, re-experiencing it is re-traumatising … Emotions needing to erupt but at a cost.

I have written all week of not being alone, by having Jesus with us in solidarity of experiencing as man who like us became human and was opened up to manipulation, abandonment, betrayal and hatred.  Also in all the solidarity is our own selves needing  own our part in those things we too did to our saviour.

In the hell of PTSD I lost all hope, I wanted it all to end. I wasn’t quite sure what was worse; being within the abuse, living a monotone existence all emotions dulled, so as to keep the trauma dormant or the eruption of the memories, the feelings, thoughts and actions I took. I grieve, I rage, and sometimes I am still hopelessly sad, sometimes I am even terrified but now a little further along the road I am hopeful.  But it has been a quiet slow healing.

Resurrection, yes I believe I am on that road.  But it’s rarely a bells swinging, incense bellowing, hallelujah singing, raving party – for me it’s that gentle knowledge that each day I get up and live.  For me the slow returning to who I am or more profoundly unearthing of who I was made to be in God’s image not who I was made to be by others. It is like a seed pushing through the earth, the knowledge of beauty beyond but having to push through some pretty grimy earth first.

The last two lines of the hymn Dear Lord & Father of Mankind, capture for me how it was as the torrents raged about me, somewhere within it was a still small voice if calm and when it came it gave me hope to live.

Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,

O still, small voice of calm!

I am slowly growing and rising to be as my maker made me. We journey along and Love and I. As we travel we smile at one another with a knowing that all shall be well if I remain with him xxx

Good Friday – My Song is Love Unknown

My song is love unknown,
My Saviour’s love to me;
Love to the loveless shown,
That they might lovely be.
O who am I, that for my sake
My Lord should take frail flesh and die?

“Love, where are you? It is dark.  The Shadows haunt me. I am betrayed and they kill all I have in the world”           At the time I survived and the memories rose when God had finally found me a place of safety.  The nights were bad, the days were bad, the whole time it was bad.  Torrent after torrent of memories. As the memories came my body somatically remembered.  My body bruised again, it shook in terror and fear as I dissociated.  Sometimes I barely knew whether I was in the past or the present.  You were their but I could barely find you.

As the months ran by and then the years the memories arose at how they had used you against me.  That I was of evil, that they were the god’s, that I was for them alone, a reject from God.  But when they did this, they began to lose me because you were stronger and your presence stronger.  I knew you and you knew me.

But I couldn’t understand why they crucified you, when Love I know all you wanted was to love us all even my abusers.

Here might I stay and sing,
No story so divine;
Never was love, dear King!
Never was grief like Thine.
This is my Friend, in Whose sweet praise
I all my days could gladly spend.

God grieves each time we sin against one another.  He rejoices when we return to him.  He stands by us in suffering and celebrates our joys.  On Good Friday I used to feel so lonely, my Lord taken from me.  But he never went, he doesn’t go.  He sits with us as we ponder the disgust and disgrace of the cross and its strange beauty.  He sits with us because he does not judge us as we judge humanly but holds us as we return to him. An as adult I ran away every time I felt evil, I heard the words of my abusers and ran.  But as a child I seemed to stay with him, questioning these strange people who betrayed me.

He is my friend, with whom I would glad spend all the days of my life. Love never leaves but as I continue my journey I must remember not to entertain the words of others but follow Love as he says “Come unto me all ye that labour and I will give you Rest” and So I follow on with Love xxx

Maundy Thursday – A Child Betrayed

After he had said this, Jesus was troubled in spirit and testified, “Very truly I tell you, one of you is going to betray me.” John 13: 21

Once upon a time, a child did what every child should do, she trusted in someone who was meant to love her. The man forgot that this was his duty and betrayed that child. So she lost her innocence, she lost her knowledge of trust and she was given away.  Betrayal stings, it burns, it makes you feel naked. You feel as if you are completely worthless to the world because someone you trusted gave little regard for your life. I feel betrayal like a poison, it still works through me, mixing from anger to pain. What did Jesus feel? I wish I knew. He knew he had to be betrayed, but why by a friend? He ate at the same table and washed his feet. He was intimate with his betrayer. But the person who knows you well, is most likely the one who betrays you.  I can barely write about betrayal as I feel it so keenly, it is so raw.  But I can name it, for me that is a start. When I think of Jesus, innocent yet betrayed, I can think of nothing more similar that a precious little child.  I can witness to how betrayal cuts to the core and destroys so much.  Even the very trust one should have in oneself.

As the liturgies of the Tridium continue through these days we are encouraged to stay with Our Lord as the Disciples did … Watch and Pray

It was the loneliest, bitterest place and yet Love stayed with me and so we journeyed on xxx

Tenebrae and Fear in the Shadows

Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.

“What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.”

Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all! You do not realise that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”

He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. So from that day on they plotted to take his life. Therefore Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the people of Judea. Instead he withdrew to a region near the wilderness, to a village called Ephraim, where he stayed with his disciples. John 11. 45-53

Did they live in fear for they knew of a plot to destroy Jesus and his teaching? It never seems clear to me if Jesus was in fear at this point. He did however go into the hill country with his disciples, he must have been frightened. But he defiantly does show fear, complete and utter vulnerability as he contemplates what is to come in the garden at gethsemane. He doesn’t know exactly what is going to happen to him, but he knows that his life is going to be taken from him. But how it will happen, where it will happen, by whom exactly even he could not have known. My feelings as I read these parts of scripture make me feel fear and my gut says Jesus was himself human, fear is thus normal.

Knowing Jesus was fearful, maybe even terrified helps me draw closer to him. And so I return to what I said in my previous post that I was gifted a miracle — a knowledge that I wasn’t alone but I was still terrified. Living in fear is living constantly on alert. As if every noise, smell, movement is about to be another moment of pain. You look around you not knowing what is next. As a child you are not aware that you are in this state, possibly even as an adult too. A child told to keep a secret, shamed into silence is even more scared. What if you are the one who accidentally gives the secret away. You want it to stop it happening, you want to say something but you are afraid of the consequences, maybe your life is threatened or someone you love. Abuses are most often extremely clever, this fear will be very real.

Even with God at my hand I was scared out of mind. It is well recorded that PTSD survivors from war through to abuse live in this heightened state of alertness which is often what causes the slow grind down toward collapse, there is only so long you can live like that. But children are very resilient and often survive until adulthood before the truth is discovered. I often think that survivors are often the most “bomb proof” people as they have endured so much they can get through almost anything. Not many survivors will admit this but truly most survivors are!

On Wednesday of Holy Week we celebrates a liturgy called Tenabrae, the word means “Shadows” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenebrae

The church is in semi darkness, eight candles have been lit, Using the ancient offices of the monastics we travel through a journey of scripture and psalms. As each section is completed a candle is extinguished right up until the “Christ Candle” which is removed and the church is plunged into darkness at which point a loud noise rings out, it is shocking, it is painful to the ears. Then silence, all the sound dissolves and quietly the “Christ Candle” returns. The noise and disappearance of the candle represents the death of Jesus the quiet return of the light is a representation of the resurrection.

Shadows are something that follow you when you are being abused. Darkness is frightening, you don’t know what one thing is to the other. Is this love, is this going to be pain, is this going to be something I want, is this someone I can trust. You learn to question over and over again. But constantly trying to maintain the semblance of its all ok, because you cannot betray the truth for the truth also lies in shadows. You learn to mask your fear. I learnt not to cry or cry out, not to scream, not to try and run it made it worse and couldn’t get worse I knew I needed to make sure of that. So I turned down the volume of the experience, except I did experience it and that is why honoring the truth now is so important.

The opening psalm of Tenabrae is psalm 69 and it’s first words reflect how it feels trapped in the abuse

“Save me, O. God, for the waters have risen up to my neck. I am sinking in deep mire and there is no firm ground for my feet”

but I did cry out inside of myself and verse 15 is how I cried

“Save me from the mire; do not let me sink; let me be rescued from those who hate me and out of the deep waters”

But it felt as if know one could ever save me. Jesus cried out

“My God, my God why have you forsaken me”

Why had the world forsaken me, how did I end up in this persons game? How did no one know?

Psalm 143 also included in Tenabrae

“My enemy has sought my life; he has crushed me to the ground; he has made me live in dark places like those who are long dead”

As I recover the memories of abuse I remember the darkest moments. My body and my soul were forced into the darkest places that they took me to. I was a pawn in their games as they laughed at my small body, all disregard for a child’s preciousness I was nothing to them. But I was everything to God.

Psalm 139

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made

God did not knit me in my mothers womb to be abused but he did come as man to die and redeem us. How he loves us, it’s not a pretty thought that death was for the appeasement of our sin but its real and it makes him real.

Like Tenabrae where the scriptures and psalms call out for God to save us, I called out into the darkness and found a voice of gentleness, weeping with me. I couldn’t tell an adult I was scared for my life but God knew.

I walk along and sometimes I am still in the shadows grasping at my love in a knowledge that who I walk with died for me, he loves me so intensely. Even as the shadows haunt me I journey on with love xxx

Jesus on Palm Sunday and the Manipulated Innocent Child

Mark 11:1 (NRSV) When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Beth’phage and Beth’any, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples  and said to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, “Why are you doing this?’ just say this, “The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.’”  They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, some of the bystanders said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it. Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, ”Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

Once upon a time, I was the most precious person on the planet.  I was given all that a child ever wanted, complete adoration.  I was the apple of someone’s eye.  I was told,

“I need you, you are the only one who can make me happy”

I loved that, I was so important. My presence on the planet enabled someone else to be so happy and all children seek adoration — need adoration. I was important to someone in a way that no other could be.

As I look toward this Holy Week, I have begun to contemplate the journey that Jesus endured for our salvation and the parallels of the journey that many of us experience through childhood sexual abuse. I think my point lies in the fact, we are not alone, because each terrifying, mind boggling, soul destroying moment is something God has been through physically and emotionally too.  The journey from adoration to manipulation as you are groomed, to the slow grinding down of your soul, to the ultimate betrayal, to the moment of desolation and for some the feeling that your mind and body are lost — dead to you for ever. However, does the similarity end here? Because Jesus was resurrected from all of this back to life, is it possible to rise from the ruins of your life when someone tried to destroy you by abusing you? I hope and believe it to be possible. That it is my hope of breaking free from my abusers, that small pin prick of light which for some survivors turns into blazing moments of redemption and to others it is a certain knowledge of survival, whatever it looks like breaking the bonds of this is possible.

The day that your abuser begins to manipulate you, you are never to be blamed — its hard to remember this, but it true.  You experience or think you experience what every human wants — love.  You are a vulnerable child and believe in “Once upon a time” and “Happy ever after” Children seek love as eagerly as they seek food.  A “person” comes into your life, promising and showing a love and adoration like no other.  It may be scary, most likely secret but you are hooked.

I don’t know the day that cuddles turned to something that was not cuddling but instead to an invasion of my body.  It occurred so slowly that one day I was on a pedal stool the next I was scared and trapped.

I don’t know the date that I felt this isn’t nice anymore.  But by the time I did I was so entwined in a relationship of fear and manipulation, groomed to be what my abuser needed that I was unable to end it.  For I was only a child, seeing things in black and white.  That this must be “normal” even if it was a secret.  Even though it felt wrong and would make me cry, I was meant to do this, for I was told so. I was worthy of only this and chosen for this.

Jesus knew his fate, I didn’t nor do other survivors at that time. Jesus was adored by people who within a week would crucify him.  I was adored and then metaphorically crucified. Like Jesus I knew my abusers.  My blanket of palms and rides on a colt were the moments for me of hearing “You know I love you — you are so special — you are all I need”

Naming my anger is so hard at times, but this “abuse of love” is sometimes more soul destroying than the acts of abuse themselves.  For abusing a child’s love is abusing innocence and that to me is going to be a very hard step on the journey of forgiveness.

In the midst of abuse and its aftermath it is so natural to feel alone, but I remember those moments of confusion and held on to the only thing I understood – God.

I am no better a person for having a sense of God. For some miraculous reason from as early as I can remember I had a trust in him, it truly just happened, and I give thanks everyday as it made it possible for me to have a knowledge of hope.

So, I carry on holding on tight to God for he was and still is on my journey, for he is love xxx

Adele … A woman who wins more than Grammy’s for her Vulnerability

My son might say I’m “off topic”… But I think I’m bang on!

Adele the grammy award winning artist who’s Album sales rocketed with both 19 and 21 has taken the world by storm. She is truly an amazing woman, a determind woman and a talented woman. But she isn’t your typical “popular” music artist she defies “the rules”
She writes her own songs, is active in their production, she beat her way up the ladder of talent by training well, working hard to get in the right school and Oh Yes – she has not gone on a crazy “skinny” diet, she is a vuluptous, curvy and a “bigger” woman. She certainly isn’t the industry standard and yet she cleaned out the grammy’s. She has both record breaking album sales and is inspiring so many people. She sings from her soul, its like been thrown back to the 20′ and 30′s or with Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald … Gritty, sexy, beautiful!!!

So what’s my homange to Adele all about? Perceptions! I have found it hard to find women, womanly women who inspire me both as an artist, person and optically. She fits the bill for me. she is an inspiring artist, anyone who goes vulnerable and sings from there heart gets me every-time, sometimes they aren’t even the most “amazing” musicians but who cares because getting vulnerable is so courageous and gives us an ability to live freely even though it might hurt like hell at the time. She is vulnerable vocally but also by sticking steadfastly to her “look” … I am sure she was pressured into weight loss at times but she need not lose a pound for every pound is astounding – in beauty – presentation and self awareness.

When I was abused particularly sexually, my body lost a little of itself each time. I felt/feel owned. Equally I feel trapped in a body neither woman nor child … It sometimes feels sexless … But bubbling under the surface is a woman willing to find her womanhood (not quite sure how – yet!) But women in touch with there womanhood inspire me to invest in myself the slow discovery of my womanhood.

Clearly I don’t know Adele’s story and maybe underneath she carries deep insecurities I wouldn’t want to try and guess her mind but the outward appearance she presents shows a great deal of confidence. I hope her story is one of happiness and contentment.

A very touching part for me is Adele’s inspiration to young women/teenagers, of whom I teach voice. They are so vulnerable in their time of self discovery. Pressures about appearance, talent, social pressures to “fit in” and even what they should be thinking! Adele gives some freedom to girls because she is different and juxtaposed by still being quite everyday in many ways. Each time the girls I teach chat with me about her music, voice, beauty I give thanks that a prominent women inspires these girls musically, ethically and physically.

I wish I’d have had an “idol” at 15 someone to look up to … I think back and no one really comes to mind. Maybe I wasn’t in a place to see it.

But each time I see and hear Adele. I heave a sigh of relief and give thanks for her beauty and gifts.

As I travel I listen to others, hear there joys in music and art, showing different ways of being in these bodies inspiring me to be present in mine allowing me to feel each footfall with love xxx

This is my Body – These Toxic Objects are NOT invited

I must make this clear – I wrote this a few weeks ago, at the time I felt too vulnerable to post it, but now the worst has past & I want to share this. The body has an uncanny ability to expel and react to the emotional inner world, in this case a prolonged “panic” event left me incapacitated for four days but in a strange way I am grateful that my body taught the mind to say ENOUGH … The body will only take it so long before it says “No More” 

My whole body aches, It has been strangled for days. My being crushed by emotions but now they ravage not just my mind but now my bodyl. The pain radiates outwards from my tender solar plexus then seeping out like toxic waste it wraps around me like a cobra crushing my ribs and back. I am barely able to breathe – suffocating from the inside out. Something – Someone doesn’t want to leave me. But my body is violently reacting and screaming

“I am not hosting this toxic foreign object anymore”

I can barely comprehend reality – Each moment a fight to keep in the present. I will survive this, By God I will! I’m not sure how? But I will.

Why now? Why does my reacted like this now? I got angry this week and I named “them” in the anger, I am incandcent with rage. And then “they” returned to haunt my dreams again “they” had been more absent of late yet now with deep vengeance “they” return. But “they” have come uninvited and I am even more angry now spitting angry. “They’ve” pinned me to my bed in pain once more. I have missed my beloved work – I could barely move to the washroom let alone the transit. Another day drugged up to manage the pain not wholly present to my kids or my husband. “They” have tried to take another day of my life – And yet the more they intrude in my thoughts the more I want to break the umbilical cord which they attached to me and through which they force-fed me lies and hatred. Imposed world’s and idea’s that never existed, only placed in my mind to silence and destroy me – But “they” have not destroyed me, “they’ve” come damn close but “they’ve” not destroyed me I’m still here. And now my mind is angry and it is severing ‘them” from my body and soul.  It is taking time, more time than I can bare but I will salvage my life, myself, my child.

Dearest faithful body which “they” tortured and then “they” taught me to damage you.  Yet you have stayed loyal to me and now you’re saying NO very firmly. You precious body want to run free, feel the ground  under your feet as you run. Feel the touch of another without fearing it. Feel laughter so hard in the belly. Feel tears and grief. Feel warmth in holding a hand. Feeling free to be loved without the fear of another blow physically or sexually or mentally.  Oh my dear blessed body that was given by God to my mother to grow in her womb. Which she then loving held to her breast, to be nourished with food, love, dreams, joy, sadness, hope, happiness, contentment LIFE.  Beloved body that was then gifted with supporting the life of my children in our womb. My poor, brave and dishonoured body – I love you. I am going to try to do so better and more.  I know I fail at times but you deserve this love – I deserve this love – We deserve this love – So I will try!

What of my child? My beautiful child, her tiny body beaten and tortured she needs me more than ever – Oh Child I need you more than ever.  Child I love you! I want to hold you, soothe your body and tell you it is safe. It really is safe, we are now surrounded by love.

The last week of my journey has been physically and emotionally agonising but I struggle on with love …  as he holds me close and upright as each step I take is painful but inching forward – With Love xxx

Ash Wednesday: To Fast in Faith or in Self-Hate?

“And when you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by men but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you”                                                                                      Matthew 6: 16-18

If you had have handed me this text to me three years ago I’d have been so happy that I had justification for my desire to starve, God wanted me too and of course no-one knew, right? … Well, I thought no-one knew even though I was somewhat skinny after being somewhat overweight, Oh yes and there was the tiny little incident of fainting during Mass on Ash Wednesday. Yes, I was the archetypical example of the hypocrite.  I wore the disfigurement even if I didn’t want to admit it.  As ever I look back on those dark days and how the disease of the eating disorder distorted my faith.  At times I physically weep remembering and still occasionally seeing/allowing my precious faith being hijacked.   I acted to fast not just on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday for the vanity of the disease, not because the discipline of going without food was a spiritual exercise.  The rumblings and hunger pains not reminding me of my Lords suffering. Instead I “fed” off the sickening high inflicted by starvation which allowed me to hate myself more and more, and of course in the process hate my precious Lord more and more — who had made me in his own image.

As someone who is recovered to some extend and also still recovering (ED’s tend to have a habit of hanging about like bad smells even when you are not active in the behaviours) I still try to be hyper vigilant to my actions.  I recently made the choice to become a vegetarian, I have wanted to for sometime for ethical and physical reasons (I find meat hard to digest) however I couldn’t fully trust myself not to be doing this to damage or undermined my recovery.  I decided that I would try to trust myself (a big responsibility) and thus far I feel good. I am relishing the cooking it involves and the discipline it requires.  Discipline in the past has been about restriction however at the moment I am enjoying the fact that the discipline is about having to prepare all my meals ahead of time and love the food (Hating food when you cook it makes it taste SO bad, ask my husband, when I was in the grip of the disease I was the most atrocious cook, after being a pretty good one)  The fridge now has to be full of not “good” food but food that is “nourishing” apparently small amounts of chocolate are nourishing :0)  It truly is a privilege to call myself a vegetarian and I pray that the healthy thoughts and nourishment I am giving myself will continue on and on.

So what of fasting?  Well, to start with, it isn’t always about food, the origin of the word is To Hold Firm. It reminds me of words like Steadfast - Holding something with great care - Giving Strength … My concept of fasting from food and those words are incongruent at this moment in time I know my mind does not see abstinace from food as Holding something with Care or approriartely Giving myself strength and most definately not something I am Holding Firm without distorting it to make me think I am “better” because I can hold firm stubbornly.

But To Hold Something Firm is something I can relate too.  I am searching like crazy to find My Child and when I can go there when she’s close all I want is to hold her so close and rock her in my arms like I rock my daughter, smoothing her hair, feeling the warmth of her body against mine, to keep reminding her we are safe and loved   and tell her:

Oh my dearest child — lets not be afraid we have a world to explore not in fear but in joy.

I don’t discount fasting from food, I think it must be a great and beautiful discipline when done healthily and in God’s name (In this naming of God I count my Brothers and Sisters of other faiths who also fast to have a spiritual renewal and closeness to God)  For me today is  Ash Wednesday the beginning of the Holy season of Lent, a solemn time of 6 weeks for Christians, where we give more thought and intention to our deep relationship with  God and how we can redeem ourselves to him through his death and thus renew our lives in him as he died and broke free from death to rise again. (we should be in this relationship of renewal all the days of our lives as Christians but this is an intentional time where we come together (hopefully) and share in this together) And on this day many Christians will fast.  As the years have gone by abstinence from something has instead been adopted by some parts of the Church.

Many people Give up something for Lent. A very wise priest from my childhood once said it is important to Take up also.  So, what shall I Give up? It would feel hollow to say self hate because I know that it isn’t going to disappear (if only!) But instead I could try and love myself a little more, give myself compassion when I feel I am worthy of only hate (I think I will need an abundance of Grace for this) What will I Take up? I will take up my Child, I will try and hold her or at least sit with her and keep telling her she is safe and oh so very, very loved, not only loved by me but by so many others.  That she was most repulsively lied to when she was told she was unloveable and evil.  Even if she and I get that far, we’re a step closer to running free and being free.

So, I Journey on with Love on a full belly and a heart trying to Hold Firm to someone who deserves love xxx