That "why." Do we ever really know? Why does it matter?

[Scent of Cedar *]

I will rise with the tide of my promised future and cleanse myself with a mighty swell of waves, large and magnificent. I will wash the muddied waters fresh with whitewashed waves, beating upon the shore. I am.

I really like this imagery, Leafy.

Cedar

To it, I will add Serenity, singing.

Cedar

 

[New Leaf]

Leafy, you will benefit too, I think. That thread is from the time we came to understand we were imprisoned somehow, in something we could not see or name. Enslavement...but what is freedom. What does that mean, to be free?

Thank you Cedar, I think you are correct about the benefit, I already have learned so much and continue to. It is a strange mix of emotions. Thank you. Thank you to all of my sisters here.
I will look forward to the forecasted resurrection of that thread, unlike the recent mysterious popping up thread. Ahem.

I feel very ugly, sometimes. I look very ugly to myself, sometimes. I find I have not been kind or generous or strong in my life and I wonder how I remained locked into them. And I feel badly for myself, and protect myself and find myself worth protecting, and admire my bravery and courage and heart.

Cedar, I go through this, too. Frequently. Attilla was a model, Cedar, thin and lovely and tanned and beautiful.
( play the Ipanema song)
I could never be as thin as she. I have an athletes body, thick and sturdy, and muscled when I am active. When I am not intensely training, I am a bear in hibernation. I have to accept the naturalness of it. Embrace and love my winter fluffiness.
My body in rest phase, ready to reawaken in spring. Hahaha.
My husband is lucky, I think now. He has had so many different wives in me, as I tried to keep up with my sister. Huh. I could never be her. Nor do I want to, anymore.
I didn't even have a name, I was "Attillas sister". That is what she wanted all along. Not only with her friends, but in the family, too.
To annihilate me with her presence. To swallow me.

She needed to be the mountain, and I, the valley in her umbra.

I am the valley, but not to her description.
I am shaded and moist, luscious in growth, rivulets, streaming from the mountain side, feeding, enriching my flora and fauna.
The shadow has not enveloped me. I grow stronger, more confident and still, in the lengthened morning birdsong. Neath the mountains cloak, the new days beginnings stretch on for hours, cooled in the shade, as the sun burns on the plains. Her adumbrate does not define me anymore, I think and learn in the stillness. I will rest in the shade of it, turn the grayness of it into a curtain, filtering the harsh rays of the sun. Ferns grow everywhere and fragile, many hued fragrant blossoms reach their faces to the sky. I grow shadow plants, kale, collards and broccoli, rich in nutrients, flavored with pungent sweet bitterness.
I am the valley and the mountain shall not over shadow me.

Our abusers had no right. Decency forbade it. Had we not been as kind, as forgiving, as willing to believe the beautiful things we believe, they could never have played their sick little games as they have. That is probably why they look at us so closely, as they do. They are trying to figure us out. Maybe, they expected to see eradicated instead of just broken.

We are too puzzling to them, Cedar. We have been fearful, but we mirrored their fear, their fear of us being who we are capable of being. They saw it as a threat, our rise into our becoming. As much as we celebrate one another's emergence from our cocoon, it was and is a threat to them.
We shall not let that stop us from breaking free, and sitting on the shady limb drying our fragile, moistened wings in the dappled sunlight.
We are getting there, I see it and feel it.
Hallelujah

Leafy

 

[Copabanana]

Well, I missed this thread too. I will comment briefly until I catch up.

The "why" matters to me because I am trying to figure out what makes me- me, how to change patterns and grow as a person.

I think it matters not at all the why of others.

I think it matters tremendously the why of ourselves. But why is not a question that is either fruitful or production. Asking the whys cannot begin the inquiry. Why will emerge in time. First it is necessary to ask oneself what you want. Right now. In the short term future and longer term. Then ask, how will I get there. What will I do to reach my goal.

Why comes up in the process. It emerges. Because invariably when one sets important goals there will be resistance. There will be barriers. There will be feelings. There will be temptations to do nothing.

Only then will the real juice of things come up. The why. Why is a dependent variable. It cannot drive the car.

That is how I have tried to live.

Why my mother was how she was is really not important to me. She was extremely important. But if I focus upon the why in terms of her behavior it gets me nowhere. Either I get to: She cared more for her own welfare than for my own. She got that way most likely because of her early life with her parents.

What good does that do me? I can feel compassion for her early life. I can feel anger for her caring for herself for me, but what does it really get me. Nowhere. Only back to where I started with my mother: I love her.

COPA