October 31st is another anniversary for me...Nov 1, All Saints Day in the Catholic calendar, was the day I got the phone call that Hannah Grahams parents recently received. Remains had been found in the woods of WV that they suspected were my daughter, Andy. I often bless that hunter who literally tripped over her bones. To have closure is a precious gift. Though that was 23 years ago, the similarities between Andys abduction and murder (as well as the other VPI student whose body was found only 6 miles from Hannahs) have brought it all flooding back. My prayers go out to those parents. Coming back from such a trauma takes a lot of inner work...and Grace. Id like to share with you what I wrote after receiving a large dose of Grace last year. My gratitude to the Divine, Gideon, and Andy is great. REDEMPTION (May 2013) It has been 22 years since Andy died. Four years longer than her life with us. So many emotions have filled those 22 years. So many lessons, understandings, and slowly but surely, growth. Recently, a series of circumstances has arisen to culminate today in a healing of majestic proportions. I feel that shackles have fallen away, the prison door is open, and I am walking in that crystalline light and beauty which comes with illumination. Two months ago I moved my stallion to a new facility. This place is situated on the other side of the river in a different state—both in the geographic sense of the word and the “quality of a person’s circumstances or conditions”. Though the daily drive is over one hour in each direction and the board strained my finances, I felt it was well worth the open and beautiful vistas, the safe environment, and the excellent working conditions for both horses and humans. Straight away, however, a complication arose. I couldn’t take advantage of all this bounty because my stallion found all this open space and the proximity of many more mares very stimulating. It didn’t help that it was March and the beginning of the natural breeding season. He normally settles into his quiet and cooperative self within days of a move—not this time. Two months later he is still expressing the essence of his strength and masculinity through trumpeting calls, rearing, and an elevated display of his power. At the same time, I experienced a disc injury that put me in a heightened sense of vulnerability and fragility. Gideon has long been in a self-appointed protector role with me; we do this for each other. As I am now 65, I have come to depend on him more than ever to be aware of my safety in our joint endeavors. Suddenly he was no longer able to maintain this balance of our relationship, or to meet my expectations of his behavior. I felt myself slipping into victim mode, and gradually became aware of the return of an old familiar pattern of victimization, resentment, and anger. Yuck. Despite all my knowledge and experience, I was stuck in this soup. And right in there with me was my career. Even though I could sense open doors of opportunity all around me, I couldn’t seem to get to them no matter how much inner and outer work I did. I’ve been in this state before…I know that when no open path is discernible, the best course is to rely on faith and trust. Oh, and patience—always patience as I wait for the life lessons to be revealed. Sigh. The anger grew. The soup began to come to a slow boil, and Gideon, Master emotional healer that he is, showed me that the core issue was rage. I was leading him outside on this day, and his challenging scream and rear was met by me with fury. Part of me watched with horror as I uncharacteristically yanked hard on the chain across his nose, and whacked his chest with the whip while I backed him a long distance. When we stopped, he looked at me not with judgment or remorse, but with that Look—the one that says, “Are you paying attention?” I was literally shaking through my whole body. My vision was tunneled, and there was roaring in my ears. I could hardly not pay attention! Yet I was too caught up in intense emotion to have thought. I immediately put Gideon back in his stall. I sat in the truck outside the barn and let the tears fall and the shaking move through and out from my body. On the long drive home I was able to be more receptive to what was working its way up through my being: Rage. Rage at all the times a person in my life who was in a position of authority or from whom I expected protection suddenly turned on me and used their greater power/strength against me in a physically and/or emotionally abusive way. I was back to feeling powerless and I didn’t like it at all. I was at a loss to know how to behave, respond…even to feel. In actuality I was being consumed by feelings— but I had no ability to articulate them even to myself because this issue went all the way back to such a young age that I had no language. There was a difference this time, however. Along with all the old familiar inner restriction/angst, this time there was strength. Strength in the conviction of NO MORE. Strength that I had gained from all the intervening experiences and years of working on myself. Right here in this moment driving my truck, I took my stand against this lifelong pattern. With all the determination of my three year old self, inside my heart and mind I stamped my foot and said NO to a return of resentment and victimhood. This new feeling reminded me of when I knew with no lingering doubt that I had to leave my marriage—like then, I absolutely refused to feel this way anymore. In the weeks that followed, I took steps. For safety’s sake, I stopped trying to ride Gideon. I released any expectations I had had for riding at all this Spring. I declared my Intention and asked for Divine help in working through and releasing this pattern of being a powerless victim and the resulting rage that had been locked away deep inside throughout my life. And help came. It arrived in the form of books, movies, songs, people, circumstances, events, sayings posted on Facebook—all of which crystallized at the moment when I had the aha that Andy’s death was the center point around which all these other traumas were circling. From that time forward things sped up. Guidance and opportunities for learning came pouring in, and I committed to staying open, receptive, and grateful no matter how uncomfortable I felt. I discovered that the ever present emotional companions of my life: fear, doubt, and worry, were becoming more distant. I acknowledged and took time to enjoy the much calmer waters of my feelings. And then in the space of a few days, I was led to look for something in a box long packed away and I found tucked within various unrelated items my favorite photograph of Andy at three. A picture that I had thought lost. After that, Netflix kept offering me selections that were aimed directly at my healing. A book became uncovered that I hadn’t quite finished, and those pages left unread for years were the final layering that gave me the strength to ask Andy and all my Guides to show me what to do to truly heal this trauma. The answer came right away. I arose from my meditation chair and went to the hallway that leads from my bedroom to the kitchen. At this time of day, the hallway was quite dark; the kitchen flooded with brilliant sunlight. In looking back, I realized that I was enacting the direct experience of a saying I had hung last year on that very wall: “Faith: When one door closes, another opens. It is the dark hallways that scare us.” As I stood there, in my mind’s eye the darkened figure of a man came to me: Andy’s killer (who was never found). He was standing on the mat just inside the front door that opens into the kitchen, backlit with the sunshine streaming in through the door’s glass. I was frozen to my spot. I did not know how to proceed. I felt only an awaiting…a surrender of mind…a resting in my true essence. Once again I asked for Help. It arrived in a gentle brilliant flash that washed through my whole being. And in that instant I knew exactly what to do. Although I knew intellectually that Andy’s death was Karma, that God has a larger plan, and that her death was beyond my understanding, in my heart and guts I subconsciously raged against her loss. I was angry with Andy for leaving me, the killer for torturing and murdering her, and myself for whatever actions might have made me a part of her death. In that flash, I was given Understanding on a nonverbal, indisputable level. Events in our lives are not random…I know this. Everything that occurs shapes our lives. We are constantly given opportunities to make choices and decisions that support either our growth or our “stuckness”. This man and his actions were the catalyst that drove me through the next 22 years to become who I am today. In that moment, I was able to feel and receive the spiritual Gifts from Andy’s death: I have come to know Andy’s Love even more deeply, know that she is constantly present, become intimate with Faith and Trust, and learn ever deeper levels of patience and compassion for both myself and others. I now understand on a far deeper level something I’ve heard my spiritual teacher say: “Your worst times are also the best”. Profound Peace quietly filled me. I was now able to walk into the kitchen with reverence, face the doorway where the mental image of the man waited, bow to him with folded palms, and sincerely thank him for being my Teacher. It was not euphoria that I felt as he faded away. It was a simple rightness…a feel of greater harmony and connection. And surrounding it all a deep profound sense of gratitude for all that had occurred since Gideon made all this so clear. Forgiveness, I realized, is not about condoning in any sense. It is the release of blame…and the bondage in which I had held myself.
Posted on: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 15:50:33 +0000
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