so true

"What lies behind us, and what lies
before us are small matters
compared to what lies within us."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

what it was to be locked into a place of isolation

Caged and doomed, boy leaves sad account of his life

in the commentary linked above is the reality of abuse 

typed one handed :)

once when i was staying at the house of a couple that had been friends of my folks and of me i knew of the loss of freedom.

for years these once neighbors who had no children took me into their lives as their own. after years of traveling on camp trips, riding dirt bikes and laughter over a camp fire the betrayal occurred.

when a child reaches her t'weens they become a bit boy crazy, thrilled at the thought of attention. it is an innocent beautiful thing. my daughter is a tween now.

i was then a tween. my parents were in some sort of crisis or another and left me with them. Lynn and Jim. they were in a very small house in Sunny Slope Az. It was a very small house and i was moved into the water heater room off of the tiny kitchen. A cot, blanket and my stereo with a few record albums (shows my age). I could stand up and touch the wall if i reached out my arms. There was a window that if i really gave it all i had holding on to the rim of it could pull myself up to where my eyes just got a glimpse of the outside.

it was all peachy, exciting to get away from the violence of my mom and dad. that was until that horrible moment locked in time when Jim tried to sexually assault me.

i was terrified!

Lynn was the only other human there.

i told her

she was dependent on him..she sided with him. I'll never know whether she believed him. all i knew was all the hurt and betrayal was taken out on me and blamed on me. this tween who was just to become a young lady. 

there was a sliding partition accordion folding door of sorts it was shut

kept shut for two weeks

food was slid in a bowl on the floor like dog food bowl would be. the rumble of the water heater would be a constant for it two took up that last little corner of the room. it would burn me if i got too close.it was music ,when i could play it very low would save me. once only the day before i was loved a part of a group now locked in exile even thinking becoming a young lady was a crime. hating that age ruined it.

Lynn and Jim were just two years before a saving grace. it was them who found me on my porch when i had been jumped and stabbed getting off the school bus.

now in one instant of Jim...or as i thought telling on Jim cost me all

i did not have my folks, did not know or even have a way to call anyone for help.

it was only two weeks  or so. but i remember the thirst...loneliness those feelings that no one would come for me.

when they did well that was more torment for i had not 'behaved' because obviously they were not happy and had changed night and day with me. i had to return to the existence with my parents. convinced that i could turn to no one. when i had it just backfired.

i would do it again rather than to keep someones sick secrete. 

when i read of this some weeks ago i cried really hard for him, for me and for all the others who know these things

this little boy was just left to die these were his words released through court documents...just heart breaking. may he teach this place lessons. may they hear them

Here, according to the court-released documents, is some of what Christian wrote about:
• "Christian often stated he was hungry or thirsty."
• "Christian wrote of why nobody liked him and how he just wanted to be liked by his family."
• "Christian stated that he wanted to die because nobody liked the way he 'acted.' "
• "Christian wrote of how many times he had to steal food or use the bathroom in his place of confinement."
• "Christian wrote of how he was 'let out' to clean or vacuum but then had to go back to his 'place' (the dog cage) immediately afterwards."
• "Christian wrote of how he had nothing to do and if he asked for something to do he was given a piece of paper and a pencil."
• "Christian wrote of how everybody else was outside playing but he was not."
The report concluded: "The writings go on and on of how isolated and sad Christian was on a daily basis."
In perhaps the most haunting sentence in the report, investigators said:
"Christian's writings detail a very sad, depressed child who often wondered when someone, anyone, was going to come check on him and give him food or liquid."

 

i don't wanta

i got too, do i have too?....
i get too

privlige can often look like that

Lessons along the way...Mission toward competence

Well now for several months with white knuckle I was set to a mission. Mission is a cornerstone of who we are and what we become.
Security
sense of self
affiliation
mission
competency (watch out for complacency)

Missions in my life were simply to survive, then to live each day in the present. Throughout recovery years it was to stand true to the determination that "I would expose them". Years to mend the body worn down my view of competency ever really becoming a possibility there. Each effort was met with an overpowering opposition.

Daily set to mission marriage and parenting have been some of my greatest missions to date. Those day in day out duties that were as we all know really never ending or often even a crescendo of plateau. Gardening was one design setting my eye upon left the place now for planting and harvest to ebb and flow as the seasons of life. Yet even in that the heat of living in the desert set with the physical challenges faced leaves mission to a "hang in there", let your expectations balance sort of coming to terms.

Years of the joy set to missions of varying types paled as the obstacles would seem insurmountably.
Oh how countless a talent turned skill has waned under the halting lack of confidence or know how to further a continuance of effect.

Mission is something that I had a determination toward yet lacked the skill set to follow through and succeed over the discouragements. These hindrances would I think have been met with a wisdom from an elder toward success.

Mission would hit a stressed out wall when the next step became an enigma.Freezing up what next became a never mind.
Next mission.
Never really living up to that potential of seeing how able talents set to skill could lead into becoming competent. It would often become a 'why bother' sort of despondence.
Knowing that we all suffer like things I chose to speak on these things this morning.

What I have begin to learn
Mission
Setting small goals at first
Setting steps toward each small goal
Like risk mission is a skill that is measured in baby steps, stride being met with the exercise of seeing little things succeed.

There is a saying that I love.

The sage anticipates things that are difficult while they are easy, and does things that would become great while they are small. All difficult things in the world are sure to arise from a previous state in which they were easy, and all great things from one in which they were small. Therefore the sage, while he never does what is great, is able on that account to accomplish the greatest things."

So for me the lessons of a lack of competence have occurred when a step in that process becomes all to overwhelming...

It is then that the choice to continue to skill on the point of halting.

For example

The skills of a jeweler halted 1) lack of merchandising how to 2) not knowing how or even willing to sell my competence for a price. 3) assuming that no one else could be sold into my mission.

The skills of gardening halted 1) learning timing of harvest to table 2) consistency issue due to lack of scheduling 3) letting go because of a need to learn less physically demanding techniques. 4) giving up on ideas and methods to set in place if dependency on others left me wanting. example...waiting for my husband to hook up a drip system...I gained the hoses for free (a mission in itself)...the project stops there. 5) learning how to do it myself.

The skills of a writer halted 1) fear of the family of origin being bothered by it  2) Lack of vision 3) easier to just watch hulu or be entertained then to think 3) needing to set to effect those thoughts or points of interest. 4) setting to priority the mission of service for the greater good over the efforts to express deep thinking. 5) Allowing a thought to flow and practicing better mind focus and thought control.

Now these few examples set as well to the variety of missions that overlap and over power each other. My old balance wheel helped me with keeping areas of interest varied helped. Lists and charts called rebellion over the authority they tried to impose.

Thus a new mission rises...

Gain understanding and knowledge on how to set mission into steps toward accomplishment.

This year I was able to do just that. Setting a balance budget savings added up through little things that honed each line down. I implemented a savings that added up to a recent vacation fully funded and each day calculated into the amounts available. Food/lodging/gas/ticket charges so forth. It took well into the 4th day of the trip to relax and see that I was competent in doing so. The stress of the process was hard on me. 

Becoming more relaxed into mission skills is now a goal of mine. Understanding how that happens through little accomplishments is liberating. Seeing that 'I won't fail at it'. Overcoming the FEAR that the old wall of 'what do I do next' in the process can be climbed or walked around is also liberating.

security

sence of self

affiliation

mission

competencey

A cascade effect...

Affiliation waned when my sense of self faltered. My sense of self faltered when competency was lost due to lack of know how in reference to mission. If doubt that mission can be finished security becomes at issue.

Learning the steps to mission becomes a vital part of maturation. One that I missed out on. Teaching myself as far as I could left me short. Seeking a greater understanding and actually going on a quest to do so will send me far. 

I think of how college work the classes in steps...English 101 comes to mind. English 102 builds upon it. If it were not for the first course we would not be equipped. If we stop after the first or primary lessons we write papers as a child.

It is time to put away a childish way (101) and set out farther into growing up into the abilities (102) that are there for us to peruse. Why settle for the lack of skill gain it.

Well kids are up

Mission...loads and loads of laundry

1) make laundry soap

:)

The Forest Angel

Click image to enlarge

Some time back it was requested of me to tell you more about the Forest Angel.

Now Gods ways far exceed my understanding, but more than anything they are the ways of love. The lives we live here are only limited by the minds we close to the things that are holy. It is with some courage that this pearl will be placed before your eyes for this is a HOLY thing.

I have shared parts of my history.

To tell others of her is to expose her to scrutiny and judgment under which non could hold her. For she is of God and by God and for God. As I am. 

Recently while Dove was recovering as was I from the knee injections last Thursday the children and I  watched this movie called the 'KID'. My children and I speak of the deeper things of life daily. They know that the freedom is there for then to ask of such things without bias coloring the end of events. They also are free to share the things within them in such a way. We are willing to HEAR them, thus they give us ear as well. In the movie the 'kid comes to help the man who then discovers that he as his elder self is helping life to bear the fruits that are only divided by a time line. You would really need to watch the movie. The point is that life is a line of time that is most often only accepted as a linear list of events.

Now certainly that makes all the since in the world for folks to see days that way. From beginning to end. Even the prophets of old were rejected most often by those who thought they had it all figured out. In the end the blindness and unwillingness to open ones eyes brought great consequences even to nations.

The story of the Forest Angel is one such experience in this woman's life. My life has not been a life defined by linear terms. The effects of my years have yes created a being that is effected and restored yes in a time line of days, months years and yes even decades. 

When we had watched the film the query was if I had ever known of such things to have really happened  and in all truth I replied. Telling the children that I too have truly experience such things only in somewhat of a reverse. Telling them if they ever wanted to know I would be perfectly willing to explain if they wanted me too. The day before yesterday the kids and I had a very long 50 mile round trip to visit their Aunt in the hospital. When we were returning home on the freeway from the back seat asked the question from Dash "remember when you said I could ask about that thing that you knew like the movie 'the kid'? could you tell us?"

I did so...and spoke

When as a child terrible things happened one was particularity gruesome and violent.Asking them if they remember the movie Chronicles of Narnia and the stone table?, they affirmed so. As a child harm came to me on a stone table. Very bad things occurred and one was so terrible that I could no longer stay in my body or soul and I became pure spirit. It was when during this event that they killed a rabbit above me that an Angel took me away in Spirit and Mind into the forest where I played with the other rabbits. They trusted me, the rabbits and felt safe near me as I knelt. She the Forest Angel stood there as a sentential watching over me this child of mercy and favor. It was as if her love was a winged clutch around us there watching over us and stopping the truth of those images of what was occurring to the body, my body. The body of a child violated and being raped. 

Now lately the kids have used the language of/or word 'rape' in ignorance. Actually earlier in the day I confronted their ignorance with a clear explanation of what it meant to rape or be raped. They must know the words they use. The use of it in their speech was so dangerous a notion that they must understand it's intensity.

The Forest Angel kept my Spirit and Mind from the destruction occurring to my Body. Destruction that to this day effects my health. Then I told them of the thing that most amazed me about the Forest Angel. 

She was me all grown into a young woman, come to protect me as a child.

It was only years later into and after the hardest parts of my recovery from torture and abuse that I was shown with such holiness this fact. I could not understand it. No man or woman taught it to me . It was an innate knowledge. 

A Holy thing.

I am the her, the Forest Angel and have ever longed to return to the forest. It is a huge part of who I am. I have been called the piper to the children. A gift has been upon me that children feel safe near me. I have all my years had a gift with the wild creatures that they would come to me. Out in the parks wild birds would land on me. Ducks would rest beside me with their clutch of ducklings under their wing. Hummingbirds will come to me within inches and speak with me. Just the other day at the zoo Dove stood amazed as I taught her to be still. We were watching the otters. They were speaking with me right there in front of my child while we were surrounded by hordes of visitors. Dove saw her, me the Forest Angel. Not many do any more. That part of who I am has been housed and sheltered from the onslaught of harsh reality though temporal. It has caused her, me to withdraw from time and place. It is what leaves me unhappy, changed from what many of you knew of me years hence.

She is I am still her, but I am lost. 

Religion, assertion of judgments or fear there of has left me wanting for a different time. A different place where kindness ruled and folks were again humble. We all just don't really KNOW the mind of God. How could any of us think that we have Him all figured out.

Darkness travels to expel the light, to extinguish it. This flicker this flame that I am...under a bushel still yet remains.

Perhaps in this telling of the Forest Angel it might be placed, my light, a little brighter to shine out some of the darkness. It does within my little family. Beyond that she remains...now guarded years later by me the old sage.

an·gel  (njl)n.

1. A typically benevolent celestial being that acts as an intermediary between heaven and earth, especially in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Zoroastrianism.

2. A representation of such a being, especially in Christianity, conventionally in the image of a human figure with a halo and wings.

3. angels Christianity The last of the nine orders of angels in medieval angelology. From the highest to the lowest in rank, the orders are: seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominations or dominions, virtues, powers, principalities, archangels, and angels.

4. A guardian spirit or guiding influence.

5.

a. A kind and lovable person.

b. One who manifests goodness, purity, and selflessness.

Building Character when overwhelmed

Long time no see here

This has been a very overwhelming time for me.
Many major changes in my life due to a illness that changes the very way of life.
I was diagnosed with CVID common veritable immune disorder. I have had an IV port placed in my chest to have infusions of gamma globulin every 4 weeks. It is a six hour process. I have an awesome nurse.

She has come to greatly respect the nuance of the human body when it comes to being a torture survivor. At first my body wanted nothing to do with her needles IV's entering my veins. She would get the vein, then the valve would shut down. many months this meant 5 sticks to start the infusions. The stress was getting to all of us. That is why the surgery for a port implant was necessary.

My sister Midge who was the one who came forward 3 years into my recovery also saved my life in her dying. This has been a journey. Her death was what raised a flag to a doctor that God alone had provided.
It took some doing to get my being around the reality of what a gift I was given. I may not of lived much longer had this continues to be misdiagnosed. I spent a life time of "it shouldn't" by doctors who had no clue as to this rare disorder. Our allergist 'happened'  :) to intern at a university that studied Primary Immune Disorders. One in 50,000 people. Folks in my generation were never tested. Babies are now so if the have failure to thrive. I am very vulnerable to bacteria do to a subclass of the disorder.

My life had come to a time when I have to slow down. It is a real change as I turn 50 with a monthly schedule that will run low the more stress or work I do. So I have been learning to pace myself. I will not kid you depression has been a ghost on my shoulder. The PTSD came into play as well causing me to have to increase my stress medications.  Now all things are pretty much regulated.

My emotions have run the gamete. Now the dust is settling. My heart although filled with gratitude is also sad. It is a strange thing to have this port in my chest. Three little nubs mark the center of it for needle location. So I feel a bit strange with it. My skin is thin so it is really obvious. Using a bra that holds my assets up helps.
My health has really improved my immune system is being restored after being completely depleted.

I have pulled away over the last several months just overwhelmed. I'll come on home into who I am. I'll overcome as I always have. This time it was just a bit much.