Poem: Molting

Molting

I am growing
My shell hurts
It hurts it hurts!
I cannot shed it
I try and try and try
I fight
I seek allies and help
I fight
One year, two years, nearly three


I'm free
My shell suddenly releases and slides off
I can feel my soft body expand
To my real size
Bigger
Joy!

Oh!
They're attacking!
Why why!
My brothers! My sisters!
My partners!
No!
Your claws hurt!
They are cutting me
Ow ow stop why!

I run
Scuttle sideways
Soft and clumsy
Scurry
Hide
In the mud

Why why?
Oh, my wounds ache
Stabbed by multiple claws
Deepest pain
In my heart
At this betrayal.


I hide
I sit
I think

It was so hard
To shed my shell
Why would they attack?

Oh!
Their shells hurt too!
Their words
They were grabbing me
To see how I'd shed my shell
They were desperate
Oh they must be in such pain!

Can I forgive them?
Do they know not what they do?

I hide
I sit
I think
I heal

My shell is strong now
I am bigger

I will go forth
And see who is trying to shed their shell
I will try to protect the newly molted.

8/16/05

growing process

Today I am posting two poems about my growing process, ouch. Nuf said. Red Paw

Poem: Demon Chainers

Demon Chainers

And you thought the hard work was over
Finding your demons
Facing them
Adopting them
Comforting them
Learning to love the parts that no one loved
That you hid as a child
Mothering your own unloved self
Fathering the parts he couldn't love
And to surface knowing that you are a child of God
And lovable
Only to be attacked
With a concerted effort
To return you to what you were before

Don't be frightened enough to give up
You are right
You are still a child of God
Lovable
In your wholeness
Talents and faults

Those who attack
Feel their demons
Clamoring at them
Clawing
When you learned to love yours
They want to be loved too
So badly
But their keepers are frightened
They are pressing their demons back into the depths
Desperate
Attack you for you have made them feel their sorrows
All unaware

Seek those who have also
Dealt with their demons
And they will welcome you
You are not crazy
To feel the euphoria
Of surfacing
But do not get carried away
And be kind to the demon chainers
Remember where you were before.

8/16/05

returning from the journey is just as hard

My last post was about feeling attacked and unexpectedly at work. I think that is a common experience during individuation, though not necessarily at work: could be friends or at home. To go through my process I had to go way inside and try to figure out who I was, who I was really married to (not who I thought I was married to) and what in my history and culture and family rules had led me to the really awful place that I was in. So, you do all that work, took me 3-5 years depending on when I count from and then I thought things were breaking through! I was changing! I understood some things! I didn't have psychomotor slowing for the first time in 2 years and what a relief!
That is when people around me reacted. I couldn't believe it at first. Here I was better, I was happy, I'd worked so hard and I was being slapped. Work and family. I think that the journey back from individuation is just as hard or harder than the journey into it. You have to go deep internally to look at your assumptions and your demons. When you come back, it triggers other peoples' demons and they hate that. We also as a culture say that everyone can change and be better than ever but our culture also hates it when someone does something different. I wrote a litter of poems trying to understand what had happened and why. The first one was Advice to Micheal, which I already posted. Next is another.
Blessings.
Red Paw

For Blue Gal: Support From My Peers

I'm posting this because of my current work atmosphere and because of Blue Gal's post from yesterday.

Support From My Peers

"Now that we know
You're getting a divorce
We really want to show
Our support of course

Surprise surprise
We tell you today
Go back home
A week off with pay

And just because
You disturb our dreams
A psych evaluation
Doesn't seem extreme

We just want to be
Sure you're doing well."
"Guess what folks
Go to hell."

8/9/05

I was 3000 miles away when my "colleagues" went to the bosses and expressed concerns that they wouldn't put in writing. Interestingly the office staff let me know they had No Problem with me. I jumped through the posted hoops but held hands with my lawyer while I did it. It generated quite a few poems and this was the first. The "colleagues" have not seen it to date because they never wanted to discuss their concerns: instead they requested that we be polite in the halls. I try, honestly. I can't help it if flames dart out of my eyes.

Red Paw

Between Trapezes

Ok, bad work day yesterday. I need to remind myself to never ever think that things can't get worse because they always can. Also that even when they're getting worse, eventually something will get better.

Between Trapezes

Two and a half years
Between trapezes

Letting go is hard
Enough
But then to hang
Wait for the next
On faith
When you can't see your way
After a while you aren't
Flying through the air
But falling

Falling
And screaming inside
Free fall
For hours
Days weeks years

In the company of angels
Letting go
Calls the angels
I dreamt of angels
Falling in a black void

And after a while
You don't want to fall anymore
And you understand
Those who end it
It takes great strength
To hold on to the idea
That it will end.

Two and a half years
And suddenly my hands are solid
Not falling
Swinging

Joy wells up
My mind is freed
From the hard work
Of falling and screaming
And I am swinging in the air
Safe

Color is back
Sensation
Sound
Music
Taste
Food melts in my mouth

Who would not be manic?

Solstice, 2005

Dream of Fours

I dreamed that my sister was going to sing the lead in an opera that my father was directing. I was jealous. I knew the part but I hadn't tried out, so I couldn't complain, but I wanted to. I thought my range might be better for it. They were going to record the opera and my sister said she didn't want to be recorded. I offered to be the voice for the recording. They accepted. I was in a room with my sister and three other women. A trickster was there and had stolen four bells from the ocean. They were bells on long ropes that should be hanging down in the ocean but they were in the bathtub instead and were endangered. The trickster was in the tub. I went in the water and had to transform myself -- the trickster was a mat and I became a towel in the water lying over him. Instantly we were transported to the bottom of the ocean. The trickster and I were now one and the bells were safe and back where they belonged. We (the trickster and I) met a monk. He was like a cartoon drawing, a mad line drawing part monk and part rabbit. He started talking about everything and led us back to the temple. There were two fires in the front room: sanctity and purity, and two more in the back: cleaning up and cooking. There were three more monks in the back, line drawn with curly lines and round bellies, very buddha like and cheerful. One was a woman; the only way I could tell was that she had a bra made of tiny triangles that covered almost non-existent breasts. They welcomed me, were tremendously open and alert and joyful. One said that I had come at a wonderful time because they were just going to eat and they almost never ate.