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.