MY STORY
"You've Seen My Descent,
Now Watch My Rising"
That is a quote from Rumi, a 13th-century Persian poet, and Sufi mystic. The beautiful accompanying artwork that bears the quote is by the gifted artist, Sandy Lloyd, of Clever Cousins designs whose work I discovered while on my first “normal” trip since my descent four years prior, in 2018. It really spoke to me and has become my mantra – You’ve Seen My Descent. Now Watch My Rising!
I say that literally. If you’ve been following me you might remember back pre-2018 I was publishing books, doing a podcast for over a decade, speaking at prestigious venues, living a happy and productive life with my husband of 30+ years, participating in a spiritual community, and having fun with friends at a salon called Wisdom Circles, where we delved deep and had rich nourishing conversations.
But that all ended. And not because of Covid.
I was attacked by a young woman who looked like she could have been a college student wielding a stun gun. While I didn’t suffer any lingering physical injuries from that assault, it was not until during the next few years that I began to experience and recognize the emotional and psychological scars from the assault. Unless you’ve been through it, you might not realize the damage is not immediately evident. Then my husband, Roy, fell, hit his head and suffered a traumatic brain injury. He was little more than a zombie on the couch. We then lost everything. We were forced into early retirement you might say, but it felt more like forced exile, literally atop an isolated mountain. We lost our identities, our sense of self, our incomes, the roof over our heads, the familiarity of our city, the close association with our friends. I lost my loving partner because he was no longer “all there.” Now, in my scarred state, I had to shoulder the burden of everything.
It was quite the journey of discovery, and I’ll be discussing it all in the coming weeks and months. You can also see me telling more of the story in this newsletter if you scroll down below a bit and click on the link from my storytelling gig at The Hearth. I’ll also be talking about the lemonade I made of lemons: I wrote a new book just out now, my seventh, titled Normalizing Abuse; A Commentary On The Culture of Pervasive Abuse. I'm proud to announce the wonderful Matthew Fox wrote the foreword.
My radio show, Voices of the Sacred Feminine is returning to Blog Talk. Check out the link on this newsletter and my guests for February. If you subscribe there on Blog Talk you will get reminders in your inbox each week and won't have to rely on seeing a notice from me about weekly guests and topics. I’m involved with great new friends here in Southern Oregon where my husband and I moved. I’m going to be talking about how I survived and thrived with my Toolbox for Transformation.
You watched my descent into the blackness, now watch as I rise back up into the light and return to service to the community and teaching about the Sacred Feminine whose values shaped and molded my rebirth.
