Blood Lines

The experience I described in ‘When One of us is Wounded, We all Bleed’, when I dreamed my husband punched his brother and then woke with blood on my hand, got my attention.  Writing from the dream helped me to discover some of the ways I have blood on my hands.  Still I felt the dream was asking more of me.

Because my wounding occurred in a church sanctuary and because I was raised Roman Catholic, my experience of blood appearing on my hand without apparent cause made me think of the stigmata. Stigmata are bodily wounds, sores or sensation occurring in the location of the crucifixion wounds of Jesus. It felt presumptuous  of me to relate my experience to the stigmata suffered by devout and selfless holy ones, still the similarity was eerie and I felt compelled to follow that thread.

Great Granddaughter

author's note:  This piece arose from a dream which was comprised solely of the words: Great Granddaughter

My granddaughter is of African descent.  Both her parents are loving Caucasian female educators.  They have invited my beloved and me to be part of her village.

May my great granddaughter be born loving and being in awe of her vagina.  May she never hear it referred to as her down there or be taught to eliminate its fragrance or be called unclean when she bleeds.

I did not enter this life through my mother’s vagina.  My mother was relieved to be offered the more sanitary surgical method.  She never peered into her own vagina.

When One of Us is Wounded We All Bleed

 author's note: The following occurred during a Women's Dream Quest at the First Congregational Church in March of this year.

In the sanctuary I dream of my husband punching his brother.  It is something he has wanted to do for a long time.  I wonder how he feels after he’s done it.  Does it give him the satisfaction he anticipated?  Does he experience remorse, guilt, sorrow?  Does violence ever result in true satisfaction or does it merely allow a breakthrough to what lies beneath it?

After writing the dream, I go into the men’s room and find blood on the sink.  Frank red blood against white porcelain.  I’m shocked and mildly disturbed. It is a small amount of blood; thinly covering less than one square inch.  I look at my own hands and am surprised to see broken skin and blood on the knuckle of my ring finger on my left hand.  The blood on the sink did not come from my hand.  The wound on my hand is too small to have produced even that much blood.  Did the wound appear while I slept?  I’m shaken to realize how thin the veil between the worlds is.  I dream of a fist connecting with a jaw and my knuckle bleeds.