Friday, May 18, 2012

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.

I came to this retreat with writing that came from a dream which consisted simply of two words – Great Granddaughter.  I probably wouldn’t have explored that dream if it hadn’t come when I was dreaming with others, if I didn’t go immediately into a dream circle. 

This dream came to me while dreaming in a group in a sanctuary.  The dream image crossed between the worlds to waking reality.  Clearly the dreaming spirits want me to tend this dream carefully.

I have blood on my hands.  I cause injury.  Everyday when I drive my car, when I buy products made from petroleum, when I live the lifestyle to which I believe I’m entitled I harm my mother and other beings who call her home.  I point out that I live more lightly than many.  I point my bloody finger at others who are greedier than I.  I say the corporations are the evil ones.  Still the blood is on my hand.

 When I criticize, judge or blame, I cause injury.  Sometimes I say it is only myself I harm, but I when am wounded, we all bleed.  My gift is the creative power of the word.  Because of the skill I’ve been given, responsibility for using it carefully is great.  Truth without love can be harmful.  Words used as weapons draw blood.

This injury was inflicted in a sanctuary.  It was discovered in the men’s room.  It appeared on the finger where my wedding ring resides.  My wounding and one that affects everyone on the planet comes from the violence between women and men.  How much of that conflict originates in religion?  On this weekend a group of women have been given sanctuary in a patriarchal church where divinity is worshiped primarily in the masculine form.  This weekend women dance, pray, sing and dream in the sanctuary to the heartbeat of the goddess.  It is our heartbeat that pulses the blood through our body and out through open wounds.  The mother’s heart beats for all of us, her sons and her daughters, the many legged, the four legged, the two legged, the finned, the winged, the leafed, flowered, seeded and barked ones, the air, the fire, the water, the soil and the most ancient ones the rock people, the mountain people and the ice people.  When one of us is wounded we all bleed.

Men and women bleed differently.  Women bleed from their wombs.  Men more frequently bleed through their fists and wounds of wars.  We all bleed through our hearts.  While men are often required to hide the wounds of their hearts, women may show their heart break freely.  Men take and inflict blows to protect home and family.  Women send their men to war and then criticize and shame them when they come home emotionally unavailable.  We are outraged by domestic violence, but does a mother mourn any more for the wounds of one child over those of another? When one of us is wounded, we all bleed.

What am I to do about the blood discovered in the men’s room?  About the wound inflicted in the sanctuary?

Some say their salvation came through the blood shed by Jesus.  Other claim the only healing is through healing the mother.  Where do we learn of right relationship between the Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine? How does a technological, consumer society such as ours find the balance between taking and giving?  How do we restore sacred balance in ourselves, in our homes, in our world?

2 comments:

  1. Excellent, provocative questions, Angela! This experience is so potent and I'm guessing there are many more levels to it. I think it's another example of when the personal becomes public. There is a larger conversation here.

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    1. Melissa, I'm finding few things are 'merely' personal. The longer I'm on the planet the more connections I see. The powerful dreams are always for the dreamer and others. The questions about right relationship between masculine and feminine seem to permeate every area of our lives. I'm so grateful to have received the dream that lead me to these questions.

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