The Sacred Wound

“She initiated me into the sacred shadow side of life, where the hidden power of darkness shines like gold.” – “Meeting the Shadow of Spirituality” by Connie Zweig
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I was born into a lineage of silent women. To this day, my mother remains a mystery to me. She shares little about her childhood, even less about her desires and secret passions. For many years we were familiar strangers. My grandmother was an even greater oddity. I cannot ever remember her smiling. Her name was “Dolores,” which is Spanish for “Pains.” And her life was that: she was the embodiment of a misguided #feminine – voiceless, enraged, and impotent.
I remember when I was a small child, my grandmother was babysitting me. The mailman knocked at the door. She was so petrified that she hid me behind a cupboard before opening the door. She cautioned me, “If anything happens to me, don’t come out of hiding.” At that age, it didn’t dawn on me to wonder what kind of life my abuela must have had back in Colombia. A life where her solitude was unsafe and unprotected. A life where even a gentle knock at the door could stir such panic.
For the last few years, I have stepped head-on into this anger, this trauma-wound, and sat with the deep discomfort of my ancestral #powerlessness and #silence. It felt like a big, deep stirring…a dark place that was eerie and overwhelming in it’s stillness: The Dark Night of my Soul. I am getting how intimately linked it is to the women in my family, our #SacredFeminine heritage and our story.
Like my mother and grandmother before me, my childhood included trauma. Trauma at the hands of a man I trusted. And this soul-tear, this incessant #Shadow has been steadily present with me since, guiding my beliefs and my realities. I realize only now that this trauma was not new to me, it was inherited from generations of abused women, quieted women.
Look – this stuff is heavy. The Shadow can be so deeply daunting and disorienting and, at times, so hopeless and confronting. I’ve had nights so heavy, I could not move from bed. Instead, I’d lie there weeping – fearing everything, especially my heart. If you are there: there is nothing wrong with you. Beloved, you are safe in this dark place. I know it can feel so scary and so real, that you want nothing more than to escape it. And I am here to tell you: you are safe. Enter this dark heart-place. Feel it and allow it to birth #compassion and #forgiveness. You are learning to #transmute this heavy, ancient energy into possibility and transformation. You are powerful enough to transform your #epigenetics, your ancestral story, beloved one. You are the beginning and the ending of something, honor and acknowledge your courage – you are doing a great job.
Understand that what you’re most ashamed of is what can most grow you. You are discovering the fruitful darkness, tread it lightly, my dear – lightly. Mary Oliver, another empowered woman like you, once wrote, “Someone I love once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.” These dark feelings aren’t meant to be numbed or escaped, they’re meant to be felt. Ask your feelings what information they’re trying to share with you. And then listen. Listen to what your ancestors couldn’t. Your heart is so much wiser than you allow it to be. #DebbieMagic