Howl

By: Ashley Beth

September 18 was a Weighted Day for Me. It was Heavy. It was Dynamic. In one entire day I managed to close, cross and open several boundaries in my life. Most of these boundaries were with people. Some of them were with….less forgiving entities such as moving violation escalations. I also learned of the Passing of a Woman who has been more of a Grandmother to me in so many ways that I have always felt it prudent to describe myself as just a “little Italian.”

The Woman Who Used to make White Chocolate Flower Lollipops and serve them in a very ornate, silver vase which sat on her plastered built ins in her plastered ceiling living room which always had fine woven fabric on the couches and for some reason the room always smelt of Chanel.

Grandma Nancy. She used to hold my face in her hands, one hand on each check, and coo over how much I’ve grown. “Look at these beautiful girls!” she would exclaim.

So September 18 was a day where I got a lot of things off my list, and off my chest. I dropped a lot of baggage. I realized what contributes to a person’s feelings of Security, a person’s feeling of Success or a person’s feeling of Falling. I dropped a couple things that were threatening my own security unbeknownst to me throughout my entire relationship with them. I also learned some of the behaviors I’ve fallen into patterns of committing without my express knowledge and understanding of how it would affect others around me.

I have Learned that Moving 350 Miles Away from Any Support System Leaves a Person with very few, simple, security measures. These are the kind of security measures that crumble in the face of Fear, Lust or Too Much Beer. Or Dis-inhibition. Or Greed.

People talk about the Seven Deadly Sins. We All Know Them. We All Understand Them. We’ve all seen the movie Se7en, right? What I think is less understood about the Seven Deadly Sins, at least in my mind, is how Easily and Quietly those Sins Come to Pass through our Minds, Our Behaviors and Unto Others. How easily we accept them into our lives. Why do we do this? Ought we to punish ourselves?? After all, we Know these Sins are Bad. We know Drugs are Bad. We know Leaving our Child in the Car is Bad. Yet we still do it. Is the answer to punish ourselves? Or to better understand what it is about ourselves that makes these decisions?

Because I don’t know about anyone else, but I rarely understand that I am making a bad decision at the times I do, but rather, my Priority, Energy and Attention is easily Misdirected. Which is why it sucks so bad to have a hammer come down on you for crossing a line you didn’t even see yourself crossing. You certainly didn’t make the decision to cross it. You might not have even known it was there.

I’ve learned that there is a Huge Gray Area of Silent Boundaries. Most boundaries are simple and kind enough to make a loud noise when they are broken. Breaking the surface of a porcelain dish. Tearing a toy away from a two year old. Fighting with your parents. On the Other End of the Spectrum, breaking large physical boundaries such as the Sound Barrier or the Thou Shalt Not Steal or Kill rule, tend to often produce similarly loud responses upon their breaking.

A lot of boundaries, some of the Really, Truly, Scariest ones, are Extremely Quiet. Eerily quiet. Too quiet.

The Silence of being Shunned by a group of people at a bar because you crossed a social norm they agree shouldn’t be crossed. The Silence of someone who used to Embrace you and look you in the Eyes and promise they Loved you, walking away from you with blood shot eyes, telling you they’ll drop off your stuff at some point.. The Silence of telling a patient they have to be put on a mental health medication. The Silence of Depression. The Silence of Neglect. The Silence of the Lambs as they’re watching their herd get slaughtered, one by one, down a bloody line of animals leading straight to your wobbling hooves……

I Hate the Silence of Boundary Crossing. Not because I Hate Silence. On the contrary to most beliefs, my own included, I have come to Treasure Quiet. But only when it’s genuine. When the Silence is merely a Black Hole of Emotion that will only fester inside the mind until it ever comes out, well, I tend to like to Break that Silence.  Like a stick of dynamite under a snarl of logs floating down the river to the Queen City of Norumbega. Let it Out. Let it Flow. Watch the white, blood cells and monophages and macrophages ooze out of the pus-sy wound until the red blood flows. Mmmmmm, Circulation.

As we approach a Turning Point in the Cycle of Seasons, indicating the Autumn Equinox has arrived. Mystics and Sun Worshipers see the Autumn Equinox as a time of self-reflection and the death of unhealthy traits of Life. At least as I have come to understand it. I have pasted an excerpt from the article I referenced below:

“It’s about changing the way we think, feel, and act in the small, everyday things of life. It’s about experiencing something spiritual during the mundane and even during the painful events we go through. It’s about descending into the darkness – not to embrace it, but to understand it, to fight it, and to vanquish it, leaving the light of the spiritual in its place.

The seeds of the harvest have to die for future crops to be born (a symbolic connection with seeds, wheat, and barley has been retained in many surviving equinox ceremonies). Similarly, the season of death and darkness that begins with the Autumn Equinox is reflective of a descent into inner darkness and an inner death that also leads to an inner birth.”

“The mystic walking the path must descend into the Abyss to face their own inner darkness—the evil of the egos and subconscious—to prepare for the birth of the god of light within, celebrated at the winter solstice.”

The picture below is the ending scene of a powerful, provocative film, ‘The Magdalene Sisters,’ which follows the lives of several girls who were sent against their will, by their families, to a school run by nuns who were known in their community for ‘killing’ the Mary Magdalene traits of young women in Ireland. Basically, if you were raped or knocked up and your family was too ashamed to deal with the consequences or you, then you got sent here. The women in this story suffer abuse, shame and torture, all as retribution for ‘their’ sins. They become inmateswild (12-26-14-09-06-32), essentially. Eventually most of the main characters in the story leave the convent or simply escape by running away. The character in this picture was certainly the most Rebellious and Loud of them all. (I relate to her, just a bit.) She was often singled out the most out of her group and the nuns seemed to have a special distaste for her due to her Black Irish Beauty and striking eyes. When she escaped, this woman Soared to Independence and Self-Success. One day she is riding a city bus and finds herself seated directly across two of the nuns who used to abuse her. As scared as she is to be discovered by the Nuns, it is shocking that they do not recognize her now that her hair is Up, and she is dressed as a Working Lady in Society, no longer the crazed, wild, orphan that she was seen as in the convent. I love this photo because as this character pictured gets off the bus, she realizes she cannot pass up an opportunity to show the nuns who she is. That she got away and that she’s fine and that any Well Kept Lady is merely a couple hair pins and some finger shuffling away from the Wild Creature that lives in all of us.

So I guess what I’m saying is, let the Wild Creature Out this Last Quarter of the September Moon and of the 2014 Sun Cycle. Go ahead. Let it Howl. It will all Be Winter soon.

 

 

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About Dr. Ash Tree Gonzo 42 Articles
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