Skin to Skin
You lend me your softness
so that
I might remember
the gentleness
that resonates
from touch
skin to skin
and back again
A heaving
of dark days
folded in upon itself
unwinding
amongst the tangles
of
eggshell blue
Egyptian cotton
Your tenderness
spills
like liquid silk
creating rapids
along each softened ridge
to refill
my languishing
vessel
The Well Within
I always knew
the well ran deep
A seemingly bottomless pit
So dark and hollow
That for such a long time
I dared not look into…
For the vastness scared me
When I peered inside
Having never learnt
There were walls
Called boundaries
With special nooks
That lay within
To tuck away
Little reserves
of love
Just
…for
Me
Bless Me, Oh Mother, for I have Sinned
Bless me Oh Mother, for I have sinned
It has been a lifetime since my last confession
And these are my sins
Forgive me Oh Mother
For I am your child
I am heartily sorry for having offended you
By daring to ask
To be held in your arms
And in your heart
Bless me oh Goddess,
See me bow my head
As I revoke any longing for your approval
I detest all my childish neediness
For I dread the locked gates of heaven
and the pains of hell
Hear my confession, Oh mother
I have been impure of mind and body
For I have looked in my heart
And am no longer afraid
Release me Oh Mother
Watch my spirit soar !
Towards all who are good and deserving
of all my compassion
and all of my love
I firmly resolve
with the help of my inner grace
to honour my choices
to turn fear into love
and to cherish myself for who I am
Amen.
Regression Therapy ~ Uncovering my spiritual quest
One of my favourite Buddhist Proverbs, “When the student is ready, the teacher will come” materialized in my life with great clarity towards the end of 2009. Grappling still with a sense of bewilderment at the repetitive nature of the cyclical patterns of hurt and disappointment that were occuring in my life, I sought refuge one afternoon in the soothing hub of my local “Well-Being” Centre intending to seek relief from my anguish through a deep tissue massage. I walked out three hours later without the massage, but with a completely new, somewhat bewildering… but definitely invigorating outlook on the evolving journey that is my life.
During my initial consultation with Paul, the owner of the Centre, I poured out my desire to better understand the purpose behind my presence in this world in order to put an end to the patterns of grief and longing which consumed me. Paul unexpectedly yet gently proposed the idea of embarking upon regression therapy. Having previously explored other forms of transpersonal therapies I understood the concept that the subconscious, memories and ego are interconnected in a mutually influencing web of experience of the Self. I therefore felt comfortable with the objective of regression therapy. Paul’s offer was free of any financial cost but purely a gesture to help me on my course of healing. I accepted his offer with no request for further explanation regarding the process itself, as I did not want to taint my experience in any way. Yet, an element of wariness still waved its’ red flag in the corner of my mind. This is the story of how the session unfolded.
After a period of “settling in” as I lay on the massage table in a candle-lit therapy room, Paul reassuringly guided me towards the following memories:
Paul: I want you to take yourself to your earliest child hood memory
- I am standing in a cot. I am maybe 10 months of age. I am gripping the bars of the cot as I stand looking towards the closed bedroom door. It is painted a dull, eggshell shade of white. My feet are bare and I wear flannelette pants. I stare at the door. Why aren’t they coming ? I am not distressed. Just alone. (The voice of cynicism said as it watched from above “Yeah well, you’ve seem photos of yourself at this age so you have a rough idea what you looked like”.)
Paul: Now I want you to go back even further
- I am looking up into my mother’s face. I see dark brown waves of hair framing her face. I feel her arms supporting me. I am an infant…a newborn infant. I experience a sense of knowing that she is my mother. The surrounds feel clinical.(Again the skeptic piped up “How many images of a newborn child in it’s mother’s arms have you seen over the years ? You know, like in that kleenex commercial..?”)
Paul: From here I want you to return to the womb. Sense how it feels and what it looks like if you can
- I feel myself in a cramped, darkened cocoon. Dark red and blackened walls are throbbing around me. A steady pulsating drone echoes in my ears. (“Yeah, yeah…here you are imagining the inside of a womb as pictured in those pre-natal documentaries”..said Ms.You-Can’t-Fool-Me !)
Paul: Now I want you to move to the moment of conception…
- KA-ZING ! A surge I can only describe like an electrical charge pulsates through my consciousness. This is not a physical, bodily sensation and I continue to lay still in a state of complete relaxation. It is powerful. Awesome. Like nothing I have ever encountered. (The voice of doubt is silent on this one !)
Paul: And from this point, if you can, I want you to go back to before conception…if you can…
- With little effort I am there. I am floaty, formless….I possess no end and no beginning. I am pure energy. A bright shining light engulfs me. Oh the Bliss ! I am riding a wave of blissful Joy and Peace. A warm gentle breeze swirls around me. Suddenly a knowing washes over me that it is time to go forward…into Life. Why must I go ? Why would I want to leave here where all is pure and divine and harmonious ? I am not yet human, not yet a child, but I possess an adult-like knowledge that is warning me of a tumultuous journey ahead. I must have courage. I must accept my path. (By this time the sceptic within had left the building.)
Paul: Now I want you to return to your birth
- I feel myself struggle. Confined and constricted. I feel pain. Cramped and Twisted. A bright white light hits my eyes violently causing me to cringe and flinch and squint. This is not a pleasant arrival at all. No wonder, I didn’t want to be here. But here I was. Here I am. A heavy weight fell upon me.
When we were finished and I had some time to try and configure my now quite scattered thoughts, Paul asked me if there were any themes or messages that struck me from the experience. The first words that broke through the fuzziness still floating in my head, were Courage and Acceptance.
It took some time to come down off the thrill and wonderment of the experience itself but once my feet hit the ground, I began to ponder those two big words and their meanings. Courage….to create the life I do want to live…I choose to live , distinct from the shackles of my childhood. Yes, I can emphatically say I am on that path. And Acceptance…perhaps the acceptance that this is my journey of learning through this life time and there is no point rallying against it by asking Why Why Why ?
I also instantly made sense of an inner thought pattern that has plagued me ever since I was a very, very young child as I looked around at my parents and siblings….Who are these people ? What am I doing here ? Why was I born into this family ? I do not want to be here with them ! I do not belong here ! I do not want THIS life ! Oh yes, now it all makes so much sense !!!
Hope
Hope shimmers
Rays of golden thread
Cleverly interwoven
Between bleak greys and browns
Providing enlightenment
To the fabric of life
Sweetest Thing
Unraveling inner purpose
Requires exquisite execution
Bravely we must grasp
At
the corners
of those shiny layers
shrouding the Self
And in one delicate
motion
With a twist of Faith
Release the pull of opposites
To reveal the sweetness within
Good Night Papa Bear
“Good night Baby Bear”.
“Night Papa Bear”, I respond as the closing door takes with it the last sprays of golden light that radiate from the hall-way beyond.
As a pre-schooler of three or four years of age, this was the comforting exchange that would end my day. On this note, I would be happy to snuggle into the added comfort and warmth of my soft toy as I drifted into slumber. It was as it should be…a father comforting his child as she relaxes into the knowing that all is safe and secure in her world, with him there to protect her. This was of course, how things were before I had learned to shut my door, turn the music up and suck in my breath.
For a very short period in those early years I looked to my father as a soft, rounded, reliable figure. I recall being perched on his shoulders at a circus, his thick hands gripping my ankles reassuringly as I strain my neck to peer above the crowd. I am Safe… in the knowing he will not let me fall. I feel the pride swell in my four-year old chest as I follow him faithfully up and down the white chalk lined boundary of a soccer field, whilst he yells directions to the boys chasing the round ball within. I am Secure… in the knowing he will not lose me in the crowd. It was as it should be. This was of course, before I learned to hunch my shoulders and shrug out which ever response was expected as he carried out my mother’s business.
Numbness connects these memories of my father. A blank white wall confronts me. I stare and stare but can’t seem to find the detail. I cannot distinguish the surface from plaster, timber or brick…I have no idea if its’ finish is gloss or matt. Impressions of my father have simply become a white-wash of nothingness. Over the years, each experience of betrayal I encountered caused the illusion of my father as an ally to dissipate into a languorous puff of indifference; his role as my mother’s accomplice in the game of manipulation gradually exposed.
On so many many occasions when I needed a voice of strength and authority to stand up for what was right and fair and normal, his silence ricocheted from ear to ear, echoing in my head with voluminous discord. At other times his outbursts of rage literally shook the floor boards beneath me, and saw me scream “Stop it…Just Stop It !”, only to be ordered to my bedroom by my mother. The fear and confusion incited by my view of the limbs of a father and his sons entangled in a violent scuffle on the rumpus room floor, soon transformed to disgust and eventually contempt. As the dynamics between my four brothers disnintegrated, cruelly orchestrated by my mother, I came to despise his placid allowance of her manipulating behaviour that had turned the males in my household into virtual putty.
Interestingly, acceptance of my father’s role as silent conspirator settled easily within me as a young child. I did not struggle against it. Generally, I did not question it, though at times I did ponder how he could adjust to the world beyond our front door …the real world…as an employee and colleague in a high profile company. That he did exit the house every morning to maintain a seemingly well functioning professional persona, made his betrayal of his children even more unforgivable. Yet his incongruous existence did not consume me. I simply grew to see him as a pathetic figure who had succumbed to a life riddled with false premises espoused by an emotionally corrupt woman, that even an eight year old could detect.
When I was around the age of ten or eleven, I witnessed a scenario that cemented my understanding of him as a conscious conspirator in the madness that was our family life. I recall a commotion one evening that lead me to quietly inch open my bedroom door, just enough to provide a view to the top of the hallway. I saw my father standing with his hand on the door knob, a brown leather suitcase at his feet. “I’ve had enough. I’m leaving”, I heard him say. Good I thought Go Go…She deserves it. My mother was on the floor, hysterically grabbing at his legs. Maybe if he leaves, the bars of control that trap us in this existence will melt away freeing us from the poisonous happenings within. Yet I see him pick up the suitcase and retreat back into the front room. Weak I thought, shaking my head in disgust. Yes that’s him…Weak.
Thank You Life !
Gratitude burns
Through every cell
As
I stand here
In awe
of
all the Good
and of all the Abundance
that flows
Lovingly
From the Universe
into God’s vessel
that
is
My
Heart
I am not a pin cushion
I am not a pin cushion
Though I’m soft
and pretty
Yes
A malleable pacifist
I may be…
My core is not filled
with stuffing
For you to sink
your blunt end
Into
Thanks to Sara Fryd for the inspiration from her poem,
An Only Daughter, published in What if…only one child remained ?
This Heaven That I’m Making ~ My Visions, My Dreams
Join me on my journey towards creating the life I was born to lead !
1. Click on Menu (in the bottom left hand corner of the screen above) and then click Autoplay Presentation.
2.Next click the Play button on the bar below to hear Sarah McLachlan ~ One Dream.
Hear My Cry !
Thud …Thud
The pavement says
Love …Love
Echoes
in my head
An anchor pulls
From deep below
Mother Earth
Sends a stabilising
Flow
Thud …Thud
The pavement says
Love …Love
Echoes
in my head
Arms outreached
To the ethereal sky
I surrender
Hear me cry !
Thud …Thud
The pavement says
Love, dear love
Echoes
in my head
…You have Spirit on your side !
Soul Purpose
Oh Soul so tender
How you flinch at my touch !
A purplish glow
Replaces the Light
Revealing the bruises
Inflicted by
Life
Why choose this suffering?
Divine creator
of chaos
I cry…
And I plead
Take me back to the beginning !
Oh how I yearn to know!
I am willing
Heart wide open
Listening
Waiting
For enlightenment
to unfold…
My Friends – My Spiritual Kin !
This morning I woke with an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the support of my friends which doubled when I read some beautiful comments on my blog. I’ve been inspired to re-post this piece on friendship that I wrote a while back.
To all my new Blog Land friends – Thank you ! You will never know the impact you are having on my journey towards greater self-awareness and self-love.
My friends are my spiritual-kin. This is not a new revelation but after spending recent days communicating with some of my most treasured friends, I have been awakened to the sum of their influence upon who I see when I look inside myself. For although true friends are often described as mirrors, reflective of our hopes and dreams about who we really desire to be, who emphatically applaud and encourage us on our way, they must also bear witness to who we really are. It is because we cherish the uniqueness of their experiences and their learnings so profoundly, that we can accept their gentle critique of the sometimes flawed nature of our thinking. A friendship that stimulates self-knowing by not always supporting our ego-centricity but that challenges our self-concepts and identifies our insecurities, can be an arousing breath of fresh air to the soul.
In this world we are often consumed by the roles we play, whether as someone’s mother or partner, in our professional life, or in fulfilment of our cultural identity or status. True and honest friendships ignite greater awareness of our inner identity. These friendships provide a sense of freedom…a release from the role-playing and a peeling back of the layers that mask the essence of who we are.
Distinct from family relationships which can stifle us by promoting conformity to the group, obedience and expectation, true friendships act like a loving injection of unflappable courage. They promote individuality and self-love, and always will encourage us to leap towards the most fulfilling path. For just as we want to achieve our best for ourselves, our true friends…our spiritual kin, desire the same for us without competitive zeal or secret condemnation.
Thank you my friends !
Colleen DuBois ~ Reflections of Me 
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