I’ve reached a point in my reading of Dissident Daughter that has shown me that I have already absorbed a lot of the ideas – only with different words. I’ll never be as articulate or organized as Sue (I feel like I know her so well through the reading, we must be on first name basis).
Ecology: she speaks of experiencing oneness with the world, with all of creation. Connected to suffering, crying dolphins. This type of connection has always been close to me. Growing up I was the one who dosed the dogs and cats; the one who could stand next to a 17 hand horse without fear. Even if I didn’t understand the connections, they seemed to be the right direction… the ideal, the dream.
I have trouble cutting the strings that connect me in relationships. Even when it might be better to cut some of them. They are a part of the fabric of my life.
Learning boundaries has taken a lot of work. And boundaries must be learned. Otherwise children can never be let go of. And if they aren’t let go, then they either have to fight bitterly, or they never become themselves. It seems that I always understood somehow that my children were both eternally connected and eternally separate people. It took a lot longer to understand and accept that I could not be the emotion for both partners in marriage. That I had to face fear, accept my shortcomings, my abilities and inablilities and basically hand JP his own emotions to deal with. Well – maybe I’m still fighting that battle.
I never thought of this connectedness in terms of Goddess. But, I do recall that when I worked my way through She Who Is that the one thing that really stayed with me was the image of creator and creation as that of mother and child. A woman carries a child within her. It grows within until birth – or some other separation, be it miscarriage or abortion. At birth, the child becomes “other”, but it is alway still a part of her whether it thrives or fails. This I understand.
So – now I find that my path is shared in many ways. It is also mine alone… and I’m not there yet!