Breaking the Abuse Cycle

Freeing the Wounded Patriarch

For those of you following along, you have been generously made aware, through my deeply personal shares, that I have been navigating body and mobility challenges as I rebuild the temple. I mention this as I am in a constant conversation with the collective. What is moving through me is also moving through somewhere else. Thank you for staying present and flexible as I write from the moment to moment experience of being…

~A few weeks ago I became the temporary mama of a 2.5 year old, mostly untrained, loving, playful, wild, stubborn, hyper Husky girl.

I am not her ideal person. Neither is her 75 year old owner who doesn’t walk her. A housebound dog was the only reason I took the gig. I am challenged to take care of a dog in the way it needs with where I am in my journey, unless it is an old buggy eyed chihuahua. I assumed she ran outside on her lead, and somehow that was enough. Well, that isn’t the picture I stepped into.

She has been loved, but not given the tools her spirit and body need in order for her to thrive in her community. She does not run herself on her lead in the same old boring spot day after day; no dog does that without a stimulus. Humans can barely motivate themselves to walk a few extra steps a day.

There was tremendous resistance in me when I said yes to this. It was not the kind that speaks to a clear NO. It was a spinning heat in my lower belly. A mix of dread, grief and homecoming that told me that something I needed to see was ready to be met. The opportunity presented itself in a way that I could not ignore.

There have been a handful of times, in this short few weeks, that I have wanted to hurt this little one- punish her, take my frustrations out on her, and this sick sense of pleasure I feel in her not getting her needs met, when her spirit shrinks back. I wanted to beat her within an inch of her life when she, with all her little Husky might, pulled on me and I twisted my hurt knee.

I threw rocks and swore at the Ancestors instead.

Rage coursed through me from a place inside that, before this incident, I could not fully breathe into. An elder, I was in a Solstice ceremony with at the time, just smiled and said:

“looks like that pup has given you a gift”.

Ooooh feelings. I would never harm her intentionally. She is a handful, and the exact medicine I need. She is a bright mirror with her strong spirit not able to move in her body the way it desperately wants to because of me.

My heart had sweet dreams of joyful play, deep connection, healing through and with her. Why else do we come together? Collisions of human, beast, Earth beings of all kinds, shattering one another’s hearts opens if we are lucky.

~Parenting in the traditional sense was not in the stars for me- literally my astrology says “nope, she needs her life force for other things.” I have often wondered if I would have been an abusive parent and that is why I wasn’t a kiddo mama in the traditional sense.

Maybe?

Of course not!

My own child and a someone else’s dog are different (says the war machine) Yet, we often take out our frustrations on those closest to our hearts, so I don’t really know.

I wrestled with the shame of these feelings. The grip on my heart, the horror that this lived within me. A part of me knew. It was the part that called this little being into my life. It was there when I was a child. I had this darkness in me, a strong desire to hurt other little girls. It confused and isolated my heart.

Those feeling got long buried until now. I let them take me for a ride inside my body. I watched, I took deep breaths and surrendered to the storm.

What do these feelings remind me of? Oh!

How my father {mostly} treated me from birth until I left his house at 16. But I’ve stared that story in the face from every angle (with my mind)…

I am fully feeling, heart centered, star gazing, Earth whispering, lover of life. I am conscious of what I am conscious of, which feels like too much sometimes, and here were these impulses with the strength of a deep sea Octopus the size of the Ocean.

Without my healing journey and initiations below my belt, the patterned impulse would have strong armed me into allowing the twisted up hurt to dictate my response to this little being.

I could feel the grip of the double bind in the abuser. The wounded parent who is supposed to love, deep down wants to love, has only love at their own core, who is also hurting their child. The shame loop de loops building more muscle in the arms of the Octopus. The choice to love and the choice to abuse both produce pain.

In order to see the child fly, to sing, to dance, to give their little spirit what it needs, the wounded patterning/parenting must confront the gripping pain of the past, and all of the barriers that it put around the heart. The personality and much of the protection has to shatter. This is near impossible without strong spiritual and psychological interventions.

The mirror of the unconditional love of a child is too much light- it is dynamite opening Pandora’s box of pain. It threatens to shatter the ego.

This trapped energy was living in and affecting my body.

On contacting this subconscious complex, the well of compassion overflowed and blasted through another door long locked in my deep heart. I felt the abuser’s pain from a higher perch than the personality- his and mine. I was no longer attached to the pain, I was attuned to its function. None of it was personal.

I prayed for that hurt that has traveled through time, that has poisoned the patriarch whose innate function is to stand proud and hold the staff of Divine Protector for all of life. Instead our entire system of “freedom” functions 100% on inflicting pain and punishment for protection.

On the other side of the door was my father’s lineage and his highest God self. The truth of his soul shown through to me. His talents, his wisdom and all of the desires for loving me in the way he wanted awoke in my DNA. He told me to set him down so I could be lifted up.

I was shown the gifts we carry- that I carry, that I am.

I was taken through the mosaic of what has made me, what re-makes me now, what is possible in the creation and recreation of Life

I am the soundscape of infinitesimal light that has formed every bit a matter born of the Primordial Womb.

I am beyond being any man’s daughter. Every man is beyond the pain imprinted upon the children.

And I am nothing without my Father.

I am more than this one frayed edge of a tattered story that wandered away from its Narrator.

I am every limitless potential~

the unknown and empty calling the forever formless desire into form.

The story has changed. The abuse cycle has stopped through me.

Even though I have never intentionally hurt another being, it was imprinted upon me and could only be reawakened into consciousness, and purged from my body, through the perfect catalyst. In this case- a golden eyed, furry, four legged, little girl.

This experience is what most people hope to achieve with psychedelics. ;)

Or, a strong living prayer.

When I let go and let God, I get exactly what I need for the journey all the way home- which brings everyone whose story has lived in me closer to home. It is these moments that awaken me, once again, to the mystery and mastery of Karma.

The Divine is turning the Wheel of Life through me, not against me, not punishing me, but re-balancing a right relationship to Love in my being.

This is what we might call true forgiveness. This forgiveness can only happen through the remembrance of what we ALL are.

This material plane is a collection of many multi level experiences ready to be felt from a perch of compassion, curiosity and neutrality so they can be released back into the void- to birth a new story from the mouths of new awareness.

And the cycle goes~
new patterns emerge
colors never before seen
beauty bordering on obscene
let Life take the lead
and you will be gifted
-not with what your wants want, but-
with what your heart needs  

I was wondering what this past Father’s day/Solstice portal had to teach me.

In this potent time, this hundreds of years time, where the wounded patriarch is taking its pain out on Life, punishing, restricting, fighting against the heart of humanity, desecrating the flesh of the Earth, doing to others what was done unto…

It might, just might be because there is a Light so strong, so twinkly eyed and bright, that in its face the wound is fighting for its life because it still hangs its faith upon a broken story about Love.

Blessed Be, Shira

P.S

I have reopened my calendar for Holistic Spiritual Mentoring sessions. Follow the thread home…