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Monday, February 10, 2014. It was into the waters of Prince William Sound in Alaska that my brother took me on his boat last June when he brought me up to visit him. See these posts from June:
+SOME SCENES FROM MY RECENT ALASKA VISIT
+WHAT WAS OUR FAMILY ALASKA HOMESTEAD FROM THE AIR – REST OF MY ALASKA VISIT PICTURES
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Sometimes I wish I knew more about the way thoughts are connected within me. A friend wrote in response to last night’s post, “I know the kind of loneliness you’re talking about.” An entire inner chain of images, thoughts and feelings appeared to me because I realized I had NO IDEA that the post he referred to – +LESSONS FROM MY JEWELRY BOX – was even ABOUT loneliness! I trust my friend absolutely so his response bore the weight that instigated an avalanche of connections for me – that I can only barely track.
How I feel (am) this afternoon seems to be more like dreaming than waking. I don’t expect my dreams (what few I remember any more) to make any kind of sense. But I DO expect myself to make sense in this world of waking! How did my friend’s comment to last night’s post trigger an instant connection to my trip north to Prince William Sound (the site of the massive earthquake I note below during which at age 12 I experienced my menarche)?
My brother took me to the base of a calving glacier last June. I will always believe the smell at the base of a calving glacier is the sweetest, purest one on earth. How is purity tied together in my wondrous right brain that has such information connections not only to and through my body and its memories but also to what my soul knows and wants to tell me?
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This is all further connected to something that came through of me/to me while in phone conversation with a dear friend this weekend. I was describing the weavings I have been creating: “When they are all finished they feel like butterfly wings in my hands.”
Butterfly Wings.
There is another part of my history-magical connected to butterfly wings. I have no idea where on this blog I have written about the white butterflies I saw on our Alaskan mountain homestead flutter around me as I sat on the earth, on the land – deeply, deeply wounded child that I was! I always saw them in the same place, a place where a wonderful lemony tasting little plant grew. The butterflies were smallish. Some had purple, some blue, or red, or orange….. delicate painted edging on their wings that looked to me as if someone had carefully painted them with the tiny tip of a paintbrush from a watercolor box.
Just as I wrote those words a small connection appeared to me. Because of the severe trauma of my childhood I could not wonder about life. My mother was not only insanely abusive to me – I know now she was psychotic in her mental illness. That fact removed sanity from the main part of my life so I never wondered why ANYTHING. But I DID experience an appreciation of those white butterflies fluttering light as air around me. “Who painted their wings?” I knew painting the edges of butterfly wings like that would certainly be something I would love to do!
While I was speaking to my friend about my weavings I thought perhaps “Butterfly Wings” (Butterfly Wing Creations? Designs?) belongs somehow in the name of my craftwork endeavors if I choose to have a name. Not that I need or want a business – but I may be able to see weavings and my sewn bags this summer at craft shows with my daughter (and ironically, sharing a booth also with my ex).
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All of these connections are somehow connected to an aching stiffness at the base of my skull today. I strongly sense this sensation is tied to a body memory related to being very small and having Mother grip me in her abusive powerfully forceful and painful way to shove me forward further into her rage – at me for….????
I don’t want to know what the memory is. I don’t need to know. I do know it is somehow connected to these connections!! As I write this post that tension in my neck is subsiding – just as I suspected it would.
Her illness put her on the side of the horrible. I was – and still am if I give myself permission to accept this – on the side of the beautiful and pure. The innocent – still – in many ways. We all are.
I would rather, if I could, spend all my waking hours sitting in a little dinghy as near as I could get to a calving glacier in Prince William Sound for as long as I live than do anything else “just for me.”
But I can’t do that as lonely as I am for the absolute wilderness I have loved from the instant I met it. Without my attachment with the land I could not have survived all that happened to me – none of which I deserved.
Meanwhile — there are connections. They are like mysterious ripples interlacing and interlocking with one another in ways I do not comprehend. I am grateful for them. They are gifts to me. They are a part of my life force. Without them I could not continue being.
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The 1964 Alaskan earthquake, also known as the Great Alaskan Earthquake, the Portage Earthquake and the Good Friday Earthquake, was a megathrust earthquake that began at 5:36 P.M. AST on Good Friday, March 27, 1964.[2] Across south-central Alaska, ground fissures, collapsing structures, and tsunamis resulting from the earthquake caused about 139 deaths.[3]
Lasting nearly three minutes, it was the most powerful recorded earthquake in U.S. and North American history, and the second most powerful ever measured by seismograph.[4] It had a moment magnitude of 9.2, making it the second largest earthquake in recorded history[2][5]—the largest being the 1960 Valdivia earthquake in Chile.[4]
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Here is our first book out in ebook format. A very kind professional graphic artist is going to revise our cover pro bono – what a gift and thank you Ben!
Click here to view or purchase: A STORY WITHOUT WORDS
It lists for $2.99 and can be read free for Amazon Prime customers. Reviews for the book on the Amazon.com site are WELCOME and appreciated!
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Please click here to read or to Leave a Comment »
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Stop the Storm 