Author: bjukuri

What is the difference between living a life as a Mask or one that is mask-less?  How do you know you are wearing a mask?  How is it that we prefer the mask to our original selves?

 

Putting on Airs or putting on a mask, and weren’t we all taught to be social, to do pleasantries, to be polite and not mention the unmentionables.

 

Do religions have certain masks?  In order to match each other do you have to conform and behave in like manner?  Do even families wear certain masks and hid the skeletons in the closet? 

 

Who would we be without our masks?  And is it possible we are all in the process of either adding to our masks, or tearing them down.

 

Is the Mask the Ego?  What is the mask?  Is it a secondary lifestyle?

If the truth lay beneath the mask, what is the mask?

 

It seems that the mask always ends up being the Illusion, the false one, pretender, fake, imposter, yet it seems most have one.

 

Why is it that so many are wearing masks and even more are unknowing of this?  How is it possible not to know you are wearing a mask?  How is it possible that you have never met the real you?  That seems insane!

 

Are we born into a family of masks and taught the legacy that has been handed down. 

 

You know the term “black sheep” is that one who refuses to don a mask?

 

While listening to the XM Radio, Rev. Ed Bacon was on with Elizabeth Lesser.  They were talking about how parents raise their children to be spiritual.  And what was presented was for parents to raise children who were seekers, who questioned the way of humanity.  Little souls who arrive and let them tell us what it is they are here to do, not Us giving them an agenda the minute they arrive.

 

Little souls that arrive, what a cool thing! 

 

What is your soul’s purpose?  What is it that you are here to learn, to be, to do?   We all came in as new little souls, did we lose our way, did we get so caught up in the life of the masks that we simply forgot our way?

 

Learning to be and live without a mask is almost like living without a shield or protection, to be outside of groups of belonging, to be click-less, the black sheep for sure.

 

Our society it seems is not very user friendly for newly arriving souls, for immediately we want to classify them into a space, to make them fit into an already formed society, to tag them, to slap a label on before they even utter one little word.

 

We become part of the group we are born into without even asking what it is we are here to do!

 

Imagine if we looked upon all new little souls with wonder, in awe of what gift they are here to bring?  Imagine then how our world would be.  We would be open to individuals, to a million different expressions of the same thing. 

 

A Spirit on a Human Journey! 

 

“My fear was to remove my mask would be to risk insanity.”  This is a line in the book  “Art is the way of Knowing” by Pat B. Allen.

 

It seems if you have enough consciousness to know you are wearing a mask, if you are tired of seemingly being two people, one you seem to control and the other out of control, this dropping of the mask would be easy.

 

What I have come to find out is the mask is the ‘nice’ one and the other the beast.  A thirsty beast, relentless, cunning and deceitful, never content, and forever bursting into normal days to upend them, sort of like a bratty child perhaps a neglected one.

 

We are fearful when we drop the mask of nice, we are left being the neglected abused child, dirty, soiled, confused, screaming, not breathing, hyper-ventilating, breathless, too messy to look upon by others.  Way too hard to listen to, too horrific is our tale.  We fear being too yucky to bear, too ruined to fix, broken into a million pieces never to return to wholeness.

 

Yet, it is by actually dropping the mask of pretending we are normal that we find the wounded one.  We have to be the brave one to sit with us awhile.

 

The fear that we will never ever find normal again is real and present, but we are also faced with attending the broken child.  It seemed to me, that I had to let the future go on hold, while going backwards to gather into me a little girl who was for so long left alone, while I was busy pretending she wasn’t there, unbeknownst to me.

 

The fear is we will get left broken, unfixable, twisted and insane.  And once we drop the mask of pretending otherwise, we will be left exposed, exposed and not showing our best side, but our worst.

 

It took literally one second to agree with the statement that, “she said grandpa touched her”, one tiny little second admitting that her statement and my body agreed, that one small moment had the momentum to crash my normal mask.  Beneath it lay years of unknowing. 

 

My body shook like a volcano inside, the fear was cursing wildly throughout my body, gripping me and wrapping itself everywhere.  In an instant my world changed, my past too would never be the same, a future was uncertain at best.  Just to just survive the news took all my strength.

 

 Made to walk into fear, terror and the unknown, while being so messed up your self seems madness now.  I have no real idea of how this all managed to work itself out.  How I managed to not only walk about, do normal things while in this state, but to hold on to reality.

 

Holding on to reality when reality is a mess is not an easy task.  Your reflexes almost seem to want to look away, to do anything but look, than to deal with something so large and so out of control.

 

My mask of being who I thought I was for 46 years lay broken on the ground, useless and hopeless.  I was not that, and I surely didn’t want to be just another victim of a man who abused girls, a girl who is broken, with no memories, knowing that all she knew, she had no idea of the truth, fatherless, I became no one.

 

I recall not wanting to be his descendent, or even carrying a name.  I just wanted to be a no one, attached to nothing, nameless, faceless, past-less. I guess free of the mess that lay beneath the mask of normal.

 

In the book Art is a way of Knowing, she suggest that if you are seeking to know, you best take care of yourself in your ordinary life.  To eat, sleep and work regularly, so you have a set routine to balance the imaginal work.  For me that means going backward in your mind to sort out the details that I had wrong, I had imagined many things that were not true.  Like imaginary friends!

 

So while I worked to put realness to my imaginary people, I tried to stay as normal as possible.  Which is funny now, for I had no idea what normal was.   My husband said, “What is normal, isn’t that different for all of us?”  And I agree, there are no rules to get you through this process. 

 

To keep the balance I sought out Nature.  I walked along the river, I sat for hours inside watching birds at our bird feeder, it was a waking meditation when my life had too many problems to work on.  I was blessed in having a one- day a week job, a husband who supported me, and lots of space to heal. 

 

Little by little, and piece by piece I healed, and I became whole, a whole new little girl, imperfect, but for me perfect.  

 

A broken bowl glued back together is stronger than the original, is what I had read once.  I would have to agree.  I do know that of myself.  I am stronger now then ever before.

It is true, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!

 

I guess I now fear normal pretend masks over what lays beneath.  Beneath is the truth.

 

In the case of addictions and out of control behavior who is in charge of the body?  Is it the mind?  Or is it something deeper than our minds? 

 

For we can say in our minds, I will not eat sweets, I will not holler today at my children.  Those are just two of my biggest hurdles I had to overcome.

 

I could tell myself in my head a million and three times not to holler to explode to get so out of control mad and yet the second something in front of me was a tad out of place, AAAAHHHHHHHH!  Yelling would come out of me like projectile vomit!  Covering all who happened to be in my way, doing what they were doing.  And looking back they didn’t have to be doing anything really bad, but it was something I felt was unnecessary.  I was the keeper of necessary.

 

It was like I was afraid of things getting out of place, like I would be judge upon my house, my kids and how they both looked, like I was hiding behind control and clean.  And perhaps I was.  The real me was a battered and beaten down little girl.

 

My hollering could have been fear of being discovered, discovered that I was not perfect, not good enough, loveable enough, just a battered little girl.  So what do I do, I batter my kids, as I was myself.

 

The cycle continues, not because we want it to, but because it is coming from a place deeper than our minds, our wishes, our dreams, and our hopes.  It is coming from the depth of our beings.

 

It seems to me that we have a dream person in our heads, the one that has wishes and possibilities and seems clear on the future, and yet battling for that space is another who we can only know by feelings.  That person feels or desires or is the drawing into our lives person, and the two of them have never met.  And then if you are like me and have a glimmer of consciousness or awake and can see the out of control person you are….that makes three!

 

It is getting crowded in my body, oh yeah and then the body.  The body gets to bear witness to all the drama inside, in fact when in doubt look at what the body does, where it goes and how it responds, acts and lives!  That is the affect of the deeper third desire feeling person.

 

In my world the words and flimsy dreams had no chance up against the desire feeling person.  It was not even a close war, but a slaughter. 

 

This desire feeling person literally moves the body where it wants to go and eats sweets by handfuls disregarding my plans to diet.  This desire person hollers any time something is off base, yet no one knows the correct way or the way to stop the hollering one.  WE inside don’t even know.

 

So then how is it possible to get free of the addictions?  What causes them to start up in the first place?  What is it that keeps us locked in the madness of the desire person when in our minds we would like a whole different life?

 

In my case, reality came in and tossed me upside down or right-side up!  I was shown how wrong I was inside.

 

As wrong as my reality was, that was how wrong I was inside.

 

I have been known to say we get the understanding in three levels.  The knowing happens intellectually first, then our hearts feel, and lastly our souls know.

 

It is when you know it at the core level, when we discover that we had a secondary fear system running our lives, we see the wound, the seed that grew into a need much larger than us ourselves.

 

In abuse and especially when it is a family member, we get handed abuse along with love.  Love comes attached to the pain and hurt, and we tangle the two together in a messy little package we simply call love. 

 

In our insides we then desire and crave the Love.  The love is the heat -seeking device that calls out for love, our definition of love, abuse.  This device was set at the moment of abuse.  Our interpretations as a young innocent child is that love hurts, love is out of control.   In fact the more upside down our worlds the more normal they feel.  We feel love, we don’t think it, and if abuse is our love, that is where we feel love.

 

It is not like we have two choices of love. Nope we get one version, just one.  And in my experience it takes many years to come out from under the control of that device that calls abuse love.

 

It is not the walk for the meek or faint of heart, it will take you to your knees and require strength you never knew you had.  You will be asked to do battle with an unseen, unknown device that has led you around unwillingly for years!

 

Once I understood that my love label was wrong, that is when the work began, that is when the walking was required, that is when there had to be a second of space to step in before reactions did. 

 

You are literally required to learn what real love is, to recognize that all you had prior was not love, but abuse.  That the intentions could have been love from your parents, but it failed, their love was abuse.

 

“Forgive them they know not what they do.” Is a phrase that has saved my sanity, for they did not intentionally hurt me, they just did not have a second choice in their love either. 

 

Karma, the cycle that flows from cause and affect, is either personal or group, and in the case of abusive families, it is both.  A legacy that reaches beyond just my life has been set in place.  I felt at times I was going against generations and generations and feeling like a baby as I tried to change the pattern.

 

I am not sure why this was my path, why I was the pattern breaker, why it seemed that I had a second of space, a glimpse in to the reality, while most in my family are locked into the pattern and can’t seem to escape, I can’t tell you why.

 

But it is with gratitude in my heart and a new version of love inside of me that I am outside of that pattern.  I know how hard it was for me to break out, and I know that I did not do this on my own.  It was beyond me, beyond my realm of knowing, beyond and for the sake of many, not just I.  I am simply one who experienced the ride out!  

 

It is still with great reverence for those who are locked behind the addictions, fighting for space, for even an inch to get ahead of the demon that runs with our lives securely in it’s grasp, I know from experience the hell they are locked in.  The battle inside that rages, that seems to always win no matter what our good intentions. 

 

With reverence I have escaped it’s clutches for today, for this moment, for now.  And I believe that the more I can cultivate awareness, present moment being, and stay in reality, the less chance it has of winning. 

 

It has been a hard won fight, and I love to be in control of my reactions to my world.  Reality will happen, but I control my reaction to it.  I am the choice maker in the face of reality, now.

 

I can’t, and couldn’t before, control others, I can only hope to control me, and that is a full time job!

 

I do this second by second and moment by moment, not getting too far ahead of reality.  Live shortsighted like children do, live like there is no tomorrow, let the worries go, for we can only control or be in this here moment called now.  Just be here now.  It is by gaining control of this little second, this little bit of time, that we control our whole worlds!  Second by second we can change the whole world!

 

Life unfolds seconds at a time, not in days, weeks and months.  Do each little second well, and if you fail, I am sure another second will arrive momentarily! 

 

This second counts, always.

 

 

Today is the day that I find out if I can follow the Pattern of the Route.

I did cheat however, last night my husband and I took a ride and tried to follow the map.  Lucky for me we did go.  One road is unmarked, and I would have breezed by unknowingly.  

 

And by seeing it a second time from the front seat of the car allowed me to get a better view!  Imagine they do a ride along and have us sit in the backseat. 

 

I know the phrase “backseat driver” but you really only get a good side view!  That is fine if you never plan on driving!

 

So by going over the pattern a second time, I already feel that it has an imprint on me.  I remembered and found it familiar already.  Soon this route will be cemented in place in my file of memories.  It will be hard to remember not knowing.

 

The mind is an amazing thing and we fail to understand its flexibility!  Just because we have been stuck doing something over and over, doesn’t mean we can’t add or switch it up!

 

It is actually hard for me to remember my blind way of operating, of being so lost in a sea of rules and others ideas.  I have gotten used to being me, doing, as I want, being an Art Quilt in my daily life!

 

 

Well this Mail Lady best be getting her lunch box packed for her solo ride!  What will I see, how will it go, what will I remember and what will I forget…..who knows, we don’t until we arrive.  Just arrive!    

 

 

 

While watching Oprah yesterday I was able to see how another girl is working to make sense of her abuse by her father.  Although she also has to come to terms with her actions of killing him, she spent 18 years in prison. 

 

In prison she had no therapy, no help to sort this all out.  I am not sure where she is today, for she seemed confused.

 

What a mess this all is, there are relationships mixed in with abuse, and love clashing up against abuse, a child’s body being assaulted while the mind struggles to maintain the image of kindness while hiding the terror, a child threatened into silence and submission, unseen by the mother.

 

Her nightmare began at 8.  She remembers her mother asking him, and him denying, she remembers her father telling her there was no where to go that her mother knew and would not stop it.  She grew to resent her mother more for not stopping him.  In fact when her parents got a divorce when she was 12 she chose the father, for she felt her father loved her more!  Insanity at best!

 

Her confusion makes sense to me.  How she was able to see two men, not just a father.  That she would hate her mother for allowing this mess.  Somehow we feel that the mother should be able to stop this, to get the children to a safe place, we don’t expect the man to stop, and we know that we are unable to make it stop, so we look to her.  When she continues on in a so-called normal way we are left alone in this mess.

 

Ignoring becomes just as bad as the one who is molesting it becomes a dance between all involved, a dance in a vortex of insanity!  Her silence seals the space allowing this to happen her non-action says we matter not.

 

She said that it is abuse again to be asked why she allowed it to happen.  Why she didn’t reach out and try to do something.  Why she felt she had to Kill him, instead of going for help.  Again, they ask the child, ask her to be the one to stop the madness! 

 

We get left in an 8 year old emotional bankrupt body.  Our body does hold all our emotions, the fear, the terror, the anger, the neglect, the worthlessness.  And in that bankrupt state you want us to do what?  Please?

 

Yet how can we tell you, how can we articulate what we have to struggle through, how we are mentally incapable of knowing what is normal, for we never had normal. No normal for us.  No parent looking out for our wellness, our safety, making sure we were loved and cared for, nope.  

 

In a book I am reading “Art is the Way of Knowing” by Pat B. Allen.  “Art Therapy seems like a passport out of the dark swirling waters of my river.”

 

She was told to paint her dreams as vividly as possible, to then write about what the painting was saying.

 

As she did this she learned about parts of herself that was hidden, the fears, the blockages, the unspoken and unheard parts.  She was painting and finding her voice.

 

It seems to me, that by doing Art in whatever form, by writing it out and letting the words flow, we can slowly but surely gain the ground of sanity.  We can get ahead of the swirling river, perhaps ride the surface, knowing what lay beneath us respecting it and giving reverence to it, but not being affected daily by it.

 

They say that the bottom of the river is dark, murky, slow moving, and the surface is clearer.  I agree. In my world, the emotions are the river sometimes we dip deep and get lost for a while in dark pain, but then slowly rise to the surface.

 

How to explain to those who have only skirted around on the surface what the deep dark waters hold, the emotions, the pain, the terror, how they all leave you beaten and worthless inside.  How? 

 

Many live only in the dark waters, some get left below never to float in the sunshine of normalness, in the flow of nature, some are bottom dwellers forever.

 

When you see a person who has struggled to the surface, it may be best not to ask why it took them so long, how come they didn’t stop the darkness when it wasn’t their creation, perhaps it would be best to listen, to learn and applaud the swim upwards. 

 

We swim in starts and stops, in lunges and in retreats, in fear and then in terror of being sucked back down, we try to rise upward towards the light of hope, it takes a lot of courage to swim away from them.  They hold our love, our dreams, our hope, our self-esteem no matter how small, the little seeds of love get left behind, we swim alone.

 

It is only once we reach the surface that we see really see clearly where it was we were, until then you are asking one who lived in the dark forever, what the sunshine is like!

 

And it seems to me hopeless to ask why we didn’t arrive on the surface earlier, why it took us so long, the endless questions we too would love answers to.  All I can say, is I am here now.  I am here.

 

We can only share our experiences of living in the dark, and then how we were called to make towards the Light.  It is a journey of a million sorrows, one that you travel alone.  Some make it part way, others seem to go the distance, some never attempt to leave, we don’t know why.

 

I just will forever live in reverence to those who get left in the deep dark waters, and be grateful that I am one of the few to break the surface into a whole new reality.

 

“We are all great rivers flowing to the sea.”  A line in a Rumi poem I believe. 

 

The river inside of you has many levels. I found that mine is rather deep, with cascading waterfalls perilous to traverse, to swirling rapids to glistening sparkles on the calm surface.

 

We are all great rivers flowing to the sea….

 

We can look at life from two views, one where you are secure in the patterns you have cultivated or walking outside the patterns.

 

Do we think different and then act, or do we act different and then begin to think about life differently?

 

Why do we even have patterns, what is their purpose, do they really make life more controllable, more manageable?  Can we manage life, or does life manage us? 

 

Are we being shaped and sculpted by life?  Will the tragedies of life define who we are?  What is this all about?  Surely life isn’t just tweaking us about for its jollies!

 

Maybe we need to look at life from Its point of view, instead of from our point.  Our point will always seem personal, and limited.  Instead if you look at what life is trying to teach you, how it is trying to get your attention, how each situation is for inner growth.  We learn more and more about ourselves in places that are difficult, when our thoughts and beliefs are challenged.  Life sometimes seems to be stretching our limited thinking.

 

While pondering the patterns or being like Art, it occurred to me that many are in fear of stepping out of patterns.  Fear that locks them in a pattern, unable to just do one thing differently.  Yet sometimes we are tossed out of the patterns and the thing we fear the most happens!

 

It is in those moments we are then able to make a choice.  Do we sit in a broken pattern and work like hell to make it work, or do walk out of a pattern into a new foreign land fearlessly.  Not that there isn’t fear, but we step anyway.  Walk in the face of fear.

 

Fear inside of you can be excitement, high energy, thrilling, and scary all at the same time.  But oddly enough you feel very alive with razor sharp newness.  Doing anything new for the first time has your fullest attention

.

As a student of a new way, learning and practicing until we have conquered the fear, adding a new dimension to ourselves.

 

We are all students doing things for the first time.  Just the first times may be different from person to person.  But I don’t believe that you get to come to this planet and not get lessons.  Some are hard won, some turn us upside down or right-side-up. 

 

It is not whether you will get a lesson, but whether you will succeed at it, will you be able to fearlessly walk.

 

In my experience, the greater the fear, the greater the lesson at hand.

 

We do have the choice of either standing in a spot and refuse to learn, and it will shrink us, or we can decide to at least try and see if we can do the lesson.

 

See what is. See what life has dished us up.  It is on our plates, now what?  What will you do?  What can you do?  What choices are now sitting there?  Can you see the choice?  Do you have the courage to walk, or will it be easier to sit down.   Sit down where?  Usually you are asked to sit in the middle of a mess and do what?  Learn to live in a messy spot, in discomfort and stress, learn to live with the anxiety within?  Or, you can take the mess and use it as fertile soil to grow into a better you.

 

We never know what is within us, what supports us, how the Universe always has our best interest at heart, until we are standing up to our necks or in over our heads in a sea of troubles!

 

When I found myself empty of inner strength and knowing, the Universe served me up just what I needed, always.  The right book arrived, the perfect situation for me to see where I was lost, an old friend appeared or a new one.  I was always supported, as I fearlessly walked, what I never knew was who walked with me! 

 

“You do not walk alone.  God’s Angels hover near and all about.  His love surrounds you and of this be sure; That I will never leave you comfortless.” 

 

This quote my brother shared with me, carried me along.  If I remember correctly the quote is from the Course of Miracles.

 

“There are two ways to live your life.  One is as though nothing is a miracle.  The other is as if everything is.”  Albert Einstein

 

Whether you live your life secure in a pattern or out beyond the lines, miracles happen.  Miracles are the way the Universe talks to us, can you hear and are you listening?

 

What is it saying?

Listen.

 

I have heard it said that prayer is talking to the Universe and meditation is when we listen. 

 

Listen.

The difference between tossing mail and doing Art Quilts is so wide, they are the complete opposites.

Yesterday I rode along on a new route, 236 boxes and 75 miles!  Dirt roads most of them, and we cross over the same road many times, go down this deadend, over to that deadend, onto this section of the road, back over to the other side.  I had to keep asking "so what road are we on now?"  I can't even imagine me doing this successful come Saturday, my first solo ride!

There is no room for creativity, we are driven by the mail in our hand.  The next pile of mail goes in a certain box, my fun will be finding the right box on the right road going the right way!  These boxes mean nothing to me, faceless people, names I hook up to the numbers on the box.  Perhaps they are more a number than a face.  Maybe the faces will be waiting at the box for their Mail on Saturday!

There is a typical way the mail routes are designed, and this route is non-typical.  We usually take only right turns, well mostly.  This route is peppered with Left hand turns, so many you turn around in circle! 

It is like I am made to follow a pattern in real life, from point A to B and now let's find C.  Now this is only after I have put the mail in the correct slots back at the post office. 

There are 236 slots in route order in the Post Office, like a pre-pattern to follow.  What a hoot that too is!  You have a letter in your hand, you read this unfamiliar name, on a unfamiliar road and you search the slots in front of you, racking your brain to remember where this one goes! 

You do this often enough you get the pattern down pat!  Then you become a mindless follower of the pattern, you can talk and sort, dream and sort, you literally will turn in the direction after awhile depending upon whose letter you have in your hand. You automatically know that this name makes you pivot to the right and your arm reaches either up or down, left or right!

Isn't that just simply amazing!

Now take doing Art Quilts.  No pattern, no automatic reaching, no pivoting here or there, well maybe, but you literally have no idea where you are going!

I love the differences, and I find that my body responds much more favorably to the Art Quilts.  My body seems happier doing quilts.  The mail isn't bad, but I just don't feel as alive.  Saturday I will be alive and tuned in and trying real hard to do it right, but after awhile, it becomes a habit.

Today I toss mail in my usual route, I know this one so well, that it is just pivoting and reaching, and then driving along listening to the radio, following the pattern, directed by the mail in my hand.

Now think about your day?  How many times do you do the exact same thing?  Do you take a new route, eat something new, do something new, wear something different?  Hey folks we are not on a Mail Route, you are free to take a few lefts and then turn a few rights, cross over, follow a new path!

The patterns of our childhood walk into our adulthood.  We get stuck going over and over the same tracks, pivoting automatically, mindlessly.  Mindlessly but not lost in our imagination! 

Lost in your imagination is dreaming while being awake.  Mindless is just robot like moving, doing without thought.

Somedays I get to do both!  I will even notice more now, how I get lost in routines, and challenge myself to step out and cross over to a new side of the road!  I am so lucky to have found the love to create quilts, quilts without patterns, to have dared to try, to learn to let go and play, to just find wonderful colors and let my imagination take me on a ride!   

We either ride the same route or dare to float free into a space of the unknown. Be a careless mail person and just go where you want, paying no attention to the old thoughts and beliefs of past!  Are they really set in stone?  Do they serve you today?  Do you feel alive and electric while moving about your day? 

I love how this life is so open and free!  Start slow if you like, just add a new scarf, a new haircut or color, maybe just a new color nail polish, or change up your usual breakfast!  The opportunities are limitless. 

Today I do have a pattern to follow, but maybe I will do something different, maybe a new radio channel, or a new lunch…..We can always look different while doing mindless tasks!   Make them a challenge, change them up!

Play with your patterns and soon you will have a unique pattern called you!