I am always startled at the impact that other people have on me. Growing up isolated in polygamy and seeing the whole world as a bunch of outsiders created a deep mistrust and suspicion of others in me. Last weekend I spoke at the Ketchum Community Library. The room was nearly full and as I stood at the podium gazing down at all these faces I was overcome with love. These were my fellow earth travelers, my friends unknown and versions of myself looking up at me. I felt such an intricate and intrinsic bond with every person in the room. There was an electricity that jars me out of my little world. We are so connected and we walk through life forgetting that. I felt the love that is a part of each one of us, a love so pure that it cannot be touched by external means. Every time I get the opportunity to speak in front of an audience I feel it, this magical and powerful connection. It heals me even when I don’t know that a wound exists. It transforms me, opens me, widens my capacity to feel, to see and ultimately to trust. How could I come to know myself without you?

Joseph Campbell wrote that mythology is the story of the human experience. I wonder about the mythologies of today. What stories are being born in your life, in my life? How is it that humans create the very mystery that we seek to understand? Mythologies aren’t logical or reasonable, they come from the mystical realm and are expressions of the expressionless. Form created from the formless. Here is an example of one of  my favorite myths: The story of Medusa the snake haired gorgon whose gaze could turn one to stone. Perseus is the hero that faces Medusa using a mirror to cut off her head rather than looking directly at her face. Out of the body of the severed Medusa arises Pegasus, the winged horse. I see Medusa as part of my shadow self, the snakes representing the many faces of the ego. Medusa lives in a cave and all who enter die there and become part of the fear that is associated with the darkness or the shadow within. When Perseus enters or rather my conscious self enters the dark abode of the unconscious he takes with him a mirror to reflect the gaze of Medusa. He could still look upon her in the mirror. I like the idea of reflection rather than confrontation. There is no battle of the wills. Perseus simply decapitates Medusa or severs the mind from the body. Once the two are no longer confused the gift within Medusa is a beautiful winged horse. The horse in traditional symbology represents freedom and stability. A winged horse is the embodiment of mobility and freedom as well as grounded stability. Pegasus is a dichotomy offering both sky and earth as its domains. Its white coat a symbol of purity. By entering the dark cave of our subconscious minds we can recognize and reflect our shadow selves. One can be free of the ego by severing our stories from the truth and out of the truth comes the eternal gift of freedom and security. One of the reasons mythology is so powerful and trans-formative is that it can be interpreted differently for each individual. There is no correct meaning to a mythology. It is only limited by the lack of imagination. Each person can see a different aspect of themselves in the Medusa story. In fact, the meaning of the story often changes as a person changes and has different life experiences.

Peace on earth. People want it, talk about it, write about it and believe in it. And yet we live in world of turmoil and conflict, pain and suffering and all things un-peaceful. I began to wonder about this, wanting something and having its exact opposite. Joseph Campbell wrote about the end of the world in his book “Thou art That.” Although I am paraphrasing, he says something like this: “When one finally sees God in all things it is the end of the world.” I think this statement applies to peace on earth. When one finally sees God in all things there is peace on earth. If heaven and hell are states of being then I believe that peace on earth is also a state of being. There is only one earth, the earth that I see and experience and only I can bring peace to the earth. There is no time other than now in which to know peace. If this is true, then what about all the pain and conflict on earth today? I only have two choices, I can be at peace with it  and add to the peace and love on earth or I can judge it, be angry about it and add to the suffering and chaos. I choose peace.

I recently had a speaking engagement at an abuse recovery center in Oregon. It was the first time I have spoken to an audience about my book and my healing process. I was nervous at first as I stood at the podium and looked out at all the faces looking to me. Then something extraordinary happened. All the fear dissolved and I saw a room full of beautiful faces and I was connected to each person at some divine level. I realized then, the moment was not mine but ours, it belonged to us as a whole and not to all the fragments of individuals. I said a lot of things that I didn’t know I was going to say and many other things that I simply have no recollection of saying. There was a  pulse in the room, a palpable singular energy that united us. I was honored to have been apart of that. After the hour long speech which I found was not long enough I had women coming up to me to thank me or to say hello. I felt the oddest sense of seeing myself in each one of them and I wondered if they were feeling the same way about me. I felt their souls through the exchange and I was touched very deeply by the experience. I hugged these strangers with an openness of a family member for I saw at once that they were part of my family, my human family. I am grateful for the opportunity I had to see into so many lovely faces and witness so many lovely hearts and to know that I am that.

I am grateful for the books. They bring me comfort, entertainment, fulfillment and often illumination and elightenment. Each book I have read reveals one person’s story or some collective story of many persons. There are books that tell the story of nation, or a culture. There are books that tell the story of the future while others remember the story of the past. I write to tell a story, to reveal a hidden compartment within me to others, but mostly to myself. When I walk into the bookstore and see the hundreds of shelves lined with books, take the escalator to the second floor and see more shelves lined with more books each one unique in it’s own right, I might feel a sense of competition or hopelessness at the prospect of anyone finding my book amongst all these thousands but instead I feel companionship, comraderie with all those authors, all the storytellers among us. I thrill in the opportunity to see into the hidden compartments of so many of my fellow human beings. It makes me wonder then at all the stories that don’t get told. The millions of people whose stories remain within them or told only orally at the dinner table. I consider the stories told through paintings, music and sculpture and I feel better knowing that there are many ways to tell a story and even more ways in which to hear it. When I enter a beautiful building or wander through an elaborate garden I see the story of person. When I fly in an airplane or sit in front of a steering wheel and think of the inventors of the past and that their stories move, I can sit in their stories and their legacy is the sound of the motor in my ear. Teenagers wear their stories on their bodies, mothers in the worry lines of their faces, husbands and providers wear the story of their life on the faded back pockets of their pants where there is a faint impression of a wallet. Some stories are told through the eyes and others through the hands. Some stories are told through food, a well cooked meal yet others through a distinctive hairdo. Everyone has a story, what is yours?

The challenge of my life of late is just being. Not being something or someone but just being. It is so easy to get caught up in identification of titles, possessions and status. I have wondered if I would feel differently about myself if I were to suddenly become paralyzed from the neck down and be totally dependant on others. I would lose all the external attachments and be left only with myself as I am, the unchanging eternal nature of my soul. How much of my identity is attached to ideas, possessions and abilities? It is a good question to ponder. I enjoy living life, of being a partner to another person, the opportunity to parent children, the pleasure of eating out with friends, of being able to move and laugh and sing. I enjoy talking and listening, taking a walk, reading books and going shopping. I like to travel and wear cute clothes and get my hair done at the salon. I love soft blankets and good movies. I even enjoy working on occasion. All of these pleasures are part of my life and I am grateful for them. But if I lost each and every one of those joys not one part of who I really am would be lost at all. My inner joy and the pleasure I take in those activities exist inside myself as an insular and intrinsic part of my nature. While it is tempting to attach myself to the many wonders that are all around me the most freeing statement I can make about myself is this-I am.

Have you ever cringed while watching someone on TV getting beaten? I have, in fact, most times I have to leave the room because the trauma of watching the abuse of another person is still with me. The scene on the TV only triggers the emotions and reactions from my own personal past. It is one of the things I have yet to come to terms with entirely. That is due to the fact that I didn’t know that watching someone else be abused, was traumatic to me. Particularly when that someone was a person that I loved and cared about. As a child, abuse in my house was like a natural disaster; it ripped through the home causing waves of terror to the witnesses and screams of pain to the victims. All one could do was stand in horror, helpless to alter the power of the violence. It never occurred to me that it could be stopped. Like an earthquake I held my breath each day that the quake did not come, knowing that it was drawing nearer with every moment. When it did come, it was as terrifying as I had feared and the aftershocks rumbled on long after the event was over. The earthquake affected everyone, not just the person caught in its path. My own healing of this kind of trauma, this second hand violence, is not complete-if healing is ever complete. I have walked both paths, the path of the victim, suffering humiliation and violence against my own mind and body, as well as the path of the witness, suffering the pangs of helplessness and self-beytrayal. Time does not heal all wounds. I am not sure time heals anything except to make the wound familiar and even comforting. Healing requires time, but without the belief and hope that something greater than the pain exists, that all that has happened has a divine reason, then time just marches on leaving the wounds unexamined, untouched and unhealed. The witness must also walk the fiery path of truth and heal the invisible wounds of the mind and heart.

She looked out of place standing alone among the men in their suits or black leather jackets. Everyone was introducing themselves and shaking hands. There were a few other women but they had come with someone. This woman was elderly, alone and looked a little bit lost. She timidly asked the woman tending the sign-in table if this was the correct meeting. Yes, it was, she was in the right place. Yet, her eyes were wide with a kind of innocent fear. Her clothes were mismatched; blue sweat pants, black flats and several sweaters layered over one another. Her red-colored hair frayed about her head in all directions. I was curious about her. Why was she here? How did she feel? We were all waiting for the facilitator of the meeting to arrive. We milled about the lobby exchanging small talk and making introductions. But the little red-haired woman seemed to know no one. When the facilitator arrived he began saying his formal hellos and shaking hands as he made his way across the room. I stood in the back observing. He was larger than life, dynamic and almost always with an entourage of people wanting to speak to him or ask him a question. He wore a steel gray suit and had the air of someone used to being in public, used to the naked eye of world upon him. I expected him to ignore the little old woman, to pass by the unimportant on his way to the podium, the soap box upon which he would occupy. But he did not pass her by. He turned when he saw her and strode across the room to shake her hand. The scene in front of me was unlike any I had previously witnessed. There he was, his six foot frame bent to meet the old woman at eye level. He rested a sturdy hand upon her shoulder.

“Is that an angel pin on your sweater?” he asked.

“Why yes it is,” she said proudly.

“I like it.” He was sincere.

The room was still buzzing with chatter, but for me, the big man in the gray suit and the little old lady were the only two people in the room.

“I think your angel is upside down. Can I fix it for you?” he queried.

“Of course.” She smiled at him and puffed her chest out a bit so he could adjust the tiny silver angel into its upright position. I watched him carefully turn the angel’s wings and once it was righted he  patted her shoulder tenderly.

“There,” he said still bent eagerly toward her. “Much better. I am so glad you could make it tonight.”

He walked away from the little woman with nary a thought of his actions. I realized suddenly that I was weeping when a tear rolled off my face and onto my folded arm.  There was nothing that man could say or do that would have impressed itself into my being greater than what he had already done. I found me a seat and listened to the two hour presentation. His booming voice and energetic words were stimulating and the meeting was productive. But the lesson he taught me with his actions, in those few moments when no one was looking, was a gift greater by far than any word coming out his mouth, or any idea imparted from the intelligence of his mind. It was a small thing made large by the gentle recognition of one human soul to another.

I saw love when I entered the funeral home. It was arrayed in red roses and ferns, it was dressed up in a mini tuxedo. I saw love when it packed the pews and spilled out into the lobby. I saw love in the beautiful music coming from the grand piano and the voices over the microphone. I saw love in the arms that wrapped around the grieving mother and in the hands that patted the child’s father on the shoulder. There was love in the hushed tones that expressed condolences and in the tender glances of care. Love drove miles and stopped in a cemetery; a great field of many bones. There it gathered into hundreds of individual faces looking at the deep hole that would hold the tiny box for eternity. Love stood silent with the wind blowing skirts and tousling hair. Love carried the little white coffin to its final resting place. Love said good-bye. Love let the little boy go to his home in heaven on his mother’s tears. Love lives while all else dies.

I was abused as a child: physically, sexually, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. I knew even as a child that some of the things happening to me and my siblings were wrong. What I didn’t know was how to draw a line between corporal punishment and abuse. As an adult I came to understand the scope of the abuse, the trauma and scarring that resulted from repeated beating, belittling, humiliation, starvation and neglect. These are the more common aspects of abuse but what is often overlooked and is one of the most desperately painful types of abuse is witnessing the abuse of another and feeling helpless to prevent or stop it. Being forced to witness abuse has haunted my life in ways that no other experience has or could. There is also the abuse against the self. I perpetrated acts of violence against myself including induced loss of consciousness, self mutilation and violent or suicidal fantasies. But what stands above them all were the many acts of self betrayal. I did not defend or protect myself from my abuser and in many cases participated by submission and obedience to my own abuse. Paralyzed by fear I accepted the contempt, hatred and scorn as my lot in life. I succumbed to the self loathing and inner judgement that proclaimed me a curse on the earth. I fell prey to the utter dehumanization and deprivation of my soul. I had withered, suffocated and was dying on the inside. Time alone could not heal these wounds. Only when I began to forgive myself for these acts of self betrayal and sins of omission did my heart begin to mend. Ultimately it is not what others do to us that has the greatest destructive power but what we do to ourselves. When I stopped abusing myself, I would not, could not allow others to abuse me.