Firefly Horizons Under Hummingbird Skies

Generational Shame

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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Old Satan He’s My Dad

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(Hear Crystal’s audio file for this blog. 7:35)
Vade Retro Me, Satana 
~Latin for~
Get off my back, Satan

Generational Transmission

Welcome to my second installment of My Mother’s Story and Mine. The poem, Old Satan He’s My Dad was an expression of my mother’s heartbreak after being devastated by abuse and abandonment.  My grandmother learned to survive, never truly adapting to the trauma. Newspaper articles reveal how she allowed the abuse cycle to resume upon my grandfather’s short-lived return to the family several times before departing forever.  The era in which they lived did not offer the exterior support that our society has come to depend upon.

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The Sound of Silence

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(Hear Crystal’s audio file for this blog. 2:30)
Sonus Silentii
~ Latin for Sound ~
of Silence

Generational Silence

“I don’t know where to start or how to bear this heart. But I see where I’ve become what’s been done to me” chants singer-songwriter Alana Levandoski. She and James Finley, a former Trappist Monk, combined their heart’s work in Sanctuary, an album dedicated to healing traumatic wounds. The powerful lyrics resonate with my mother’s arduous journey through childhood trauma. Having spent over ten years writing, “My Mother’s Story and Mine,” I speak for both of us with truthful, loving compassion.

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Stepping Out of Hiding and Into the Light

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(Hear Crystal’s audio file of this blog. 4:27)

OBCULTATIO ~ Latin for hiding, concealment
“That we write our story lest someone else write it for us.”  James Hollis

Paradox: Starting with the Epilogue in understanding the Prologue: The Generational Series

I am a wounded healer by vocation, a mental health therapist. Part of the therapy that I offer clients is telling their story through their own perspective, not with the voice of their inner or outer accusers. Rather, helping them connect with their purest and deepest self. Chronicling our story from our own perspective is a vital part of the ongoing journey of healing. TS Eliot represents my heart and others like me, (INFJ’s in terms of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator), who are not truly known. We are, “not known, because not looked for.”

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