stone child

i'm listening to a lecture by a jungian psychologist by the name of clarissa pinkola estes. she wrote the women who run with wolves book, and this lecture is entitled, warming the stone child. it deals with abandonment and unmothered children.

i don't want to write about this because it will be hard for my mom to read (yes, she reads all this stuff). but i want to write about it because it is one of those topics that won't let me go.

dr. estes said whatever archetype or myth you cling to has some significance in your life. what fairy tale, what story is your story?

i couldn't come up with one. but then i realized romeo and juliet has always been a favorite of mine. since i saw it at a young age, and that monk and horse walked right by romeo returning to verona.

but you know all ends in shadow. i know this. what a wretched lifemyth to embrace. so dr. estes advises, rewriting the ending. not sure how to go about that just yet, but i will. because my season, as i've said, has more to do with thriving than surviving (which is the goal of the unmothered child).

dr. estes said the unmothered have acute intuition but often they override that intuition. they have this hyper knowing thang, but will often sacrifice it for love.

how well i know that story. how i have lived that story my whole life.

where the good doctor gets all whacked out on spirit guides and whatnot, i veer off the path there because i don't believe in any of that. but i won't throw her whole message out because it is sound and deeply stirring to me.

i've long sought healing. i've long pursued true maturity. and sometimes i am baffled by why they continue to elude me. i know one person is not the answer to that, but when she says, sometimes we want to devour that thing which gives us great comfort. sometimes we want to rest on the spine of the one we love, enter in and be them. i understand this deep down.

the goal then is, as nouwen would say, entering into that place of pain and allowing the Love of God to penetrate.

estes said, we must allow ourselves to be loved. this is part and parcel of the maturation process. this keeps one from collapsing like a cheap aluminum folding chair when one is met with downward glances or words, or treated in any way negatively.

this collapsing business has begun to fade from my life, but i have my moments. i do not know i will ever fully be able to bear the weight of the judgments of others, but i don't know that i need to. i need to not let them douse my light. i need to guard my inner flame, instead of relying on others to stoke it for me.

the mother figure, according to estes, tends the flame. where there has been wounding, the mother is undeveloped. she spoke of the moon and this resonated with me but i'll have to hear it again because i failed to grasp all the subtleties of her words.

i'm going to leave off now without profound thought or much of anything other than honesty. but i think you understand. i trust you understand.