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The Journey Home

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(Hear Crystals Audio File for this blog 9:08)
Viae Errantia
~ Latin For ~
Wandering Roads

Generation of Awakening

Wandering roads manifest in a multitude of form; literally and metaphorically. My wanderlust is rooted in understanding the mystery that is ever before me which proliferated my Seeker’s avidity. Paradoxically, I have come to accept that great questions are an introduction to doubt. “Learning to live with ambiguity is learning to live with how life really is, full of complexities and strange surprises..” (James Hollis). Thus, my odyssey is an inward journey. The warp and woof of my life are pathways woven by a cogent, circuitous-grid providing many access points to my soul. This grid-like passageway positions me with various perspectives to understand more deeply the meaning I forage.

When I began writing my family story over ten years ago, I wrote these words:

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Uncategorized Moments

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(Hear Steve’s Audio file for this Blog 3:17)

Halcyon: characterized by happiness, great success, and prosperity :  golden—often used to describe an idyllic time in the past that is remembered as better than today

Life, unscripted, surprises me.

When is a halcyon memory born? I imagine we miss its birth and only come to recognize its existence as the energy it brings stimulates us? How often do we neglect the time in which we are living, longing for a future distant time where the projection of fulfillment resides like a mirage? What we need most is in the moment and how can we prepare for any moment before it arrives?

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There is ~ No Way ~ Except the Way

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This morning I awakened with the sunlight beaming through our window, I immediately became aware of everyone who is suffering.
In our area of Nebraska, the flood waters are impinging into personal lives with a fury. It will be the end of a particular way of life for those who have been devastated by the raging and destructive waters. The earth is groaning through its convulsive land shifts as levees burst under pressure and the rain representing how the sky is weeping in deep sorrow for all of the suffering in our area and our world at large.

Then, more personally there are those who are undergoing hidden distress in a way that is not obvious to others. My sister-in-law is grieving the unforeseen loss of her grandson, the young man she raised for 18 years. Another, a confidante, who has been impacted by injustice through the legal system. Another, business connection which has been patiently nursing her husband back to health for several years. The suffering is relentless, and no one is immune. I could continue with “another and another,” as I am a mental health therapist by vocation and an empath by design. I bear with those who are suffering. As I consider the suffering, a spontaneous poem emerged this morning, and I want to share it with you:

(Listen to Crystal narrate her poem. 1:28)

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Like Waking Up From the Longest Dream

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(Hear Crystal’s Audio File for this Blog. 6:09)
somnium longissimum
~Latin For~
longest dream

Generational Dreamers

“Once upon a dream, I fancied fairy tales and fantasized the type of life that little girls believe someday might be theirs. I held in my heart that my true love would arrive on a white horse and whisk me away to a happy-ever-after-life in his castle where he would be devoted to me forever and ever.”

 The End.

The schmaltzy archetype and allegory of what love and romance should look like were emblazoned in my heart during my childhood era through movies featuring Elvis Presley and stunning leading ladies.
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Provoking the Thought

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(Hear Steve’s Audio File for this Blog. 7:32)

Who is this scrivener that writes this esoteric discombobulation? What is he saying in this jumbled melee of words… What is it with his epexegetic discourse of terse and often exotic pontifications?

Oh, wait… I’m doing it again, aren’t I? Let’s try this once more…

Who is this guy who writes in an English language that is sometimes difficult to follow, often with words that are not commonly used by many of us, and in such short bursts of phrases that we have to read the explanations twice to understand the point?

I had a conversation with myself about this.

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Malevolent Memory: Days of Tragedy and Grace

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(Hear Steve’s Audio File for this Blog. 5:48)

I do not despise these days,
though I have reason to do so.

I have become fully licensed in malevolent memory though the operative purpose of such an affliction is yet to be adequately vetted. The masochistic application for licensure was far too barbarous by my assessment. In 4 years I have moved 5 times, I have lost a son, a marriage, a career, a retirement; the modest material wealth I had established; all investments once thought to be innervations of heart and soul, now deferred to higher reason, which is to say, an inconsequential assignment of value.
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Inheriting the Wind

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(Hear Crystal’s audio file for the blog. 8:07) 
Possessio Ventus
~ Latin for ~
Inheriting the Wind
Proverbs 11:29

Generational Inheritance

Welcome to the fourth installment of My Mother’s Story and Mine. I offer you, the reader, an invitation to follow the path on which I have labored in making sense and finding meaning of my maternal family history. This solemn narrative has developed as I have developed, ripened as I have cultivated my thoughts, and effloresced as I continue to pour out of my heart into written word. This series of blogs titled, My Mother’s Story and Mine reveals our painful family history and is now shared vulnerably as a case study with my professional and personal assessments. Which is to say the only real authority in which I am able to speak, is from my perspective. It is my narrative as I experienced myself in our family.
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Manifesto of Pain

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(Hear Crystal’s audio file for this blog. 4:04)
Edictum Doloris
– Latin for ~
Manifesto of Pain

Generational Shame

The following poem was penned by my mom
in the wake of her Evangelistic father’s abandonment
with his sister-in-law Pearl, a member of his congregation.

The poem suggests mom lived with Basil and Pearl 
until she ran away at age 16.
Basil continued the cycle of abuse against those in his domain.
The depth of creative expression revealed 
in mom’s words is amazing with the witness of her own mother’s pain.
Mom became distrustful of men, having developed a negative schema which impacted her relationships with men thereafter.
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