Author: bjukuri

  • Matters More

    What are facts and how do they impact your world?  How many facts have you tossed out due to their content or perhaps that go against your ideals?  Are there more than one set of facts? Do we each get our own and do they have to match anyone else?

    How many relationships end due to the fact that we don't agree on the facts?

    Who gets to decide the validity of facts?

    It seems life is made more complicated by the facts or perhaps by the fact we don't all accept the facts.

    Not only not accept them; but live a life unchanged by them.

    What does it say about a person who can hear a new fact, that changes the character of someone, and it doesn't create change in their world?

    In the conversations that I have had with my family about my father and his crimes, is that most agree on the facts, and yet most did nothing to change their lives after.

    It was as if the fact itself had no real power.

    That something was stronger than the facts themselves.

    However, in my life the facts carried the ability to upend my whole life.

    Why, remains the million dollar question.

    I lived my first 46 years without the fact that I was abused by my father, that my father was an abuser, that my mother knew and remained married, faithful to him and her religion.  A religion that blessed away his sins of crime.  Yet, I was dumb to these facts.

    Without the facts, my life was in direct conflict with the facts.

    That is denial.

    Just because I didn't have the facts, it didn't mean they didn't exist.

    Can you bring in life altering facts and be unmoved by them?

    Isn't that in itself denial?

    I am watching the exchanges about facts and ponder the fact, that if you yourself haven't embraced all your truths, can you be a discerning person about truths.

    Truths of all kinds.

    I looked up the definition of facts.

    "a thing that is indisputably the case." 

    Synonyms are Reality, Actuality and Certainty.

    What happens when you play in life without facts?

    When they come in and have the power to destroy what you love, can you merely turn them away?

    I am a recovering person of denial.  My wellness, or peace, depends upon accepting all facts, regardless of their content to upset my world.

    Anxiety to me, is to live a few steps from reality.  I want to walk hand and hand, step by step with the facts, no matter where they lead.

    So, as people discuss this fact or that fact, I am more interested in how they themselves live out the facts of their lives.  Can you really see the truth in others, before you know your own?

    I think you can see, or not see, at the same level of your own personal blindness.

    And, that has nothing to do with the facts themselves, just our ability to truly see them. Let alone our ability to act in kind.

    What happens when you find out you were abused by your father?  Do you keep the relationship or let it go?  What is more important, the fact OR what you do after the fact?

    Just as marriages often crumble after affairs, what happens to the reality of your relationship when a new fact arrives; one that is directly opposing love, trust or respect?

    If you continue on, regardless of the new fact, do you get a relationship of value?

    What changes; the fact itself or you?

    Oddly, I became stronger for accepting what is, and allowing the facts to change my life. They allowed me to define my boundaries and self-worth.  Even while knowing I was abused by my father, I grew in self-worth, when I set the boundary against him.

    My self-worth grew each time I set a boundary with the arrival of new facts.

    For, I truly understood, the consequences of discarding facts – denial.

    Denial of me, and the facts that made me.

    My actions Are the facts of who I am.

    They are my reality.

    My old self was undefinable. She was unchanged by facts.  She withstood an onslaught of things that insulted her soul.  But, no more.

    Facts matter, and your response to them, matters more.

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  • Resides in reality!

    In listening to the different sides, opinions and views, it strikes me how it often seems impossible for the other side to see what you see; to be heard or understood.  It almost seems like we are experiencing life it two drastically different realities.

    Is there more than one reality?

    This mad dance is so reminiscent of my dialogues between myself and my family.

    Where it almost seems that there is a blindness to wrong doings.

    A man's moral character is held up regardless of his actions.

    And, that those of us pointing out the shortcomings are the 'bad' ones.

    Finding the ground zero in these conversations feels like insanity, where we are left defending ourselves when we have done nothing wrong.

    The women's march for women's rights, are wrong and not that our country has been okay with the less than equal rights. 

    Even that some don't feel its injustice, makes it less unequal.

    That it can only be unequal IF ALL women feel it is so.

    This goes back to the dysfunctional family, where a family is okay, unless the majority call it abusive.

    I don't have answers for this. 

    I just find it hurts my head trying to find the words or language to speak to those who see reality so differently.

    What I am finding it isn't even about morals or values, but that the facts are set aside as if they don't matter.  

    If you don't bring in and hold tightly to the facts, then you can actually have a life you want, not one that is there.

    How can you have a conversation where someone lets truth be a fact that can be taken in or released based upon its potential to change a life?

    How easy it is to be less resentful, if you can release a fact.

    Kinda like forgiving a sin in the old church's way of forgiveness. To live as if that action never happened.  Forgive and forget – to keep sweet.

    It almost feels that if one side doesn't see the victims, then there is no inequality…or visa versa.

    Pretending or acting like there is a equal and balance in our humanity, that race and gender are not an issue, that there isn't a dominating white male overtone, IT will not be so.

    Do we need people to believe it to make it so?

    Are we more a belief based culture than fact/truth based?

    I know there women who truly believe that they have free will with their bodies, while having none.  

    They believe it, regardless of the facts and rules of their religion.

    They are free in mind only.

    The facts are, they do not own their bodies.

    They don't even see who does own them.

    I know this, because I was one of them.

    I had no clue that the church owned my body.

    It actually owned my mind, in a way that I wasn't even aware of that I wasn't free, let alone equal to any male.

    How can you have a cognitive conversation about freedom and equality with someone who is in bondage and being treated less than, AND they don't know it…

    It is like a prisoner talking from behind the bars of how there are no jails in the land.

    This blows my mind and interests me immensely.

    The land is seen from two minds. 

    Or, perhaps the mental mind and the awareness of one who resides in reality. 

     

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  • March on Being You!

    Today there are many marches, to decry inequality.  

    Today many will gather in solidarity and with diversity. 

    Marching for their rights within humanity.

    Marching against the ideals of many who neglect to see them in their perfection.

    Will the march awaken or stretch the narrow minds?

    Will the millions be enough to change a mind?

    "A mind convinced against its will is of the same opinion still."

    Do they know the mind they are marching against?

    It is like a program that has been indoctrinated into them since birth.

    A landscape that excludes many; but saves them.

    They don't see the exclusion; only what saves them.

    All that truly matters IS their entrance into heaven.

    The indoctrination is very deeply imbedded into their whole lives.  There is no part of it that is untouched.  This belief that separates them from others is built upon fear and hell will be their reward if they deviate from the program.

    They will lose their place in heaven IF they allow women rights to their bodies, or same sex marriage, etc. It isn't about you, it is about them, and the God and Jesus they believe in.

    While you march to be seen, they march blindly towards their unearthly goal.

    The Marches will not hurt.

    Gathering with others whose experiences match yours is empowering.

    I don't know the tipping point, where there will be more open minds than closed, where it will be only the fringe with the narrow mind…but, the numbers are growing.

    We can march each day in how we live.

    In what we let our lives reflect.

    Who do we present to the world and in the places we gather.  

    Are we an open mind or a closed one?  

    Do we entertain critical thinking and inclusion?

    Are our minds the same as when we were young?

    Are we just a tool in the same narrative that has been handed down for generations?

    Who is in our circles; who do we include or exclude?

    What evil do you allow due to family connections?

    March today, and march tomorrow. 

    We all March either with an open mind or a closed one.

    We either march towards equality and inclusion or against it.

    What is funny, is that those against equality already have it. 

    The privilege will find no need to march.

    Which is telling.

    Yet, some women have willingly given up their rights to their own bodies.

    And, do so in the name of God.

    That to me is so scary.

    They also hate, fear and exclude in the name of God.

    A mind that has turned on humanity.

    Attacking its own, as well as its self.

    My march has been to reclaim my free mind.  I have lived on both sides of this march…the blind and the seeing.

    My old God would have stopped me from being free…and was judging and denying those who were not like me.

    I march now with a new God.  

    A loving God.

    Open and including all…God.

    Imagine a world minus the religious mind?

    This song comes to mind.  Let it play today, as the millions March!  I am cheering you; march on being YOU!

    Imagine

    Imagine there's no heaven
    It's easy if you try
    No hell below us
    Above us only sky
    Imagine all the people living for today
    Imagine there's no countries
    It isn't hard to do
    Nothing to kill or die for
    And no religion too
    Imagine all the people living life in peace, you
    You may say I'm a dreamer
    But I'm not the only one
    I hope some day you'll join us
    And the world will be as one
    Imagine no possessions
    I wonder if you can
    No need for greed or hunger
    A brotherhood of man
    Imagine all the people sharing all the world, you
    You may say I'm a dreamer
    But I'm not the only one
    I hope some day you'll join us
    And the world will be as one.

     

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  • Authentic Life

    As I broke trail today while snowshoeing, I thought of how easy it is to follow a path, to repeat what you did yesterday and how much harder it is to veer off and go a new way.

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    Dogs intuitively learn to go where the going is easier; and we do too.

    Mindlessly and effortlessly we step where our feet have already stepped.

     

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    Until you are aware of where your path is leading you and it isn't how you want your story to end. Then, you have to step in a new direction…off the beaten path of your comfort zone.

    I lived for 46 years on a well beaten path that excluded deep personal truths.  

    The silence that sexual abuse demands, left me stepping in the footsteps of my mother.

    Forgiving the truth along the way.

    Accepting less and doing more.

    In the past 12 years, I have taken a new path.

    One where the truth is followed; no matter what.

    What came to me yesterday is how life is so complex when the truth is ignored or hid.

    When it is silenced to stay on the path of belonging.

    To belong many will twist it around to make it fit into their spiritual journey.

    For raw truth is hard to live by.

    But, very easy on the mind, body and soul.

    It just is.

    Accepting the truth is very rare.

    Many will look around it to be loved.

    A path of truth always breaks new ground.

    Goes where few will follow.

    It is personal.

    To you.

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    Like great art; there is no pattern to follow or script to repeat. 

    You walk it organically as it rises to meet you.

    Solid

    One song.

    or voice.

    Universe.

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    Each path is uniquely you…when you know your truth

    and follow.

    My life has become more alive, and I, more present, when I meet reality as it is.

    We are dancing off the path and patterns. 

    It can be harder to travel off the beaten path, but its returns are so much greater.

    Self-worth, confidence and empowerment are strengthened when you dare to follow what is true for you.  

    What is important to me, is walking the path of truth.

    No matter what that looks like.

    What parts are broken, ugly and damaged.  

    To walk down the truthful path, until you understand how it came to be.

    Most are walking a path blind to where it came from and where it is going.

    They are on it, because their parents walked it.

    It is all they know.

    Fear is the wide open field of awareness.

    A place that I seek.

    Once you leave the well trodden path of unbroken cycles, it is impossible to return.

    For, once you know, you can't not know.

    Where I was blind; now I see.

    Blind to me, is not living the truth.

    How many are really living their truth fully?

    The dark secrets exposed?

    Rare is the individual who will break trail with their truth.

    A path that leads you to your authentic life.

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  • I love this question!

    "What is most important to you, is a good first question to start learning about who you are." Jonathon Fields

    Some may not even know what is important, for we are so busy just living a repeat day from the one before.  Life on cruise control.

    Do you ever stop and ask what is most important in your life?

    Have we been handed down "importance" and believed it?

    Is your "importance" different than that of your parents

    and, friends?

    Based upon your actions, the 'important' thing to you is how you are living.

    The choices you make and why.

    Once you recognize your importance, you eliminate choice.

    For what is most important has a certain path.

    There is a word, a feeling that leads your every move.

    Can you name it?

    You defend it always by your choices. Rarely are you disloyal to this importance.

    This importance is how you see you.

    It becomes you.

    What is most important to me…has its markings in all facets of my life.

    It is the trace of me that I bring to all that I do.

    I love this question!

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  • Norm in my world.

    "Evil only prevails by making it the norm" Maria Popova

    Doesn't it seem insane that this could actually happen, that we can with our words and actions, literally make evil seem the norm.

    So many times, I have heard apathy where sexual abuse against a child is concerned; that it is everywhere.

    Meaning, it is not that unusual that the church has it.

    The catholic church has it.  

    Many churches have it.  

    Families have it.  

    It is everywhere.

    So, then what?

    No point in fighting?

    Or no reason to walk out of a family for something that is so normal.

    What would make it criminal enough to take action and what action would make it less normal?  

    Or perhaps what is the abnormal reaction to hearing about sexual abuse against children within your family/church/organization?

    When would you leave?

    Do you have a drop dead idea of your exit?

    I believe it is the non-action upon hearing of abuse, that makes it so normal.

    If you don't change the way you respond, it is life as normal.

    How many other evil behaviors are you non-responsive to and why?

    The lack of treating evil like it is really evil, neutralizes it to appear non-evil.

    Evil doesn't change to non-evil nor does it lack the truth. 

    Evil is.

    A crime is a crime whether we treat it as the norm or not.

    We are the ones changing it potency…to something more palatable.

    What I feel mostly, is that I am the odd duck, the resentful non-forgiving person that holds evil accountable. That I am full of bitterness. And, that is not normal.

    I looked up bitterness…for it lies at the heart of resentment.

    "Anger and disappointment in being treated unfairly." 

    Ironically, I believe I had more bitterness about the way I was treated when I didn't respond and make abuse the norm; rather than the act of being abused.

    Does this make sense?

    Sexual abuse by your father is unfair.

    We were all treated unfairly.

    I however, got a double blow of 'unfairness'.

    I looked up unfairly.

    "in a manner that is not in accordance with the principles of equality and justice."

    What seems most abnormal to me was the way the treatment of me, does go against the principles of equality or justice.

    I was treated WORSE than the original evil doer.

    Insanity.

    The original criminal was taken care of.

    He was treated with equality and justice.

    Literally respected by the actions of many.

    This, my friend, is how evil is made the norm.

    And, how the victims who rise against it are treated NOT in accordance to equality and justice.

    When you withdraw your feelings of injustice; you are now a full collaborator.

    Me, I will hold on to the injustice of sexual abuse of a child.

    It will not rise to the norm in my world.

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  • To Be

     

     

    I loved this conversation.  

    The tone and its ideas.  

    I too, knew it. 

    And I could really relate to this segment about the three responses when something is crumbling or broken.  And, agree about the crumbling of religion…and that it is needs a cosmic shift.

    1. Denial of it – it is not falling or we are not in trouble.
    2. Yes, we are in trouble, but we need more of the same.
    3. The third, is to ask, what is trying to be born.

    This explains the differences between my family and I, in our response to our family crumbling, in the aftermath of my father's crimes coming to light.

    My response was allowing the birth of something new. A whole new look at the content of our family and most important, the content of Me.  The birth of a new Self. Letting truth crumble our family. And, to allow my old self to die with it, and to be fearless in letting the new me arrive with each new truth.

    This is the kind of shift that needs to happen to a dysfunctional family in order to save the family unit itself. A cosmic shift.

    Instead of feeling we are in trouble, but to continue doing more of the same. 

    He also speaks about the oneness and the essence of sacredness in each of us, compared to the idea of "original sin" that is most often taught.

    One is easily controlled and the other is empowered.

    It is interesting that the less you believe yourself to be, the easier you are to control.

    What I see again, is the correlation between the religion who believes in the original sin, and a dysfunctional family; where the children are often seen and treated as 'bad'.

    There is no way a person would abuse another IF they believed that the other was sacred.

    What I find so intriguing and knowing, is that the way my old religion saw humanity as sinful and how I was treated as a child, are the same.

    In neither place, was I seen as the essence of God; but rather the devil's spawn.

    The rebirth of Me, came with a new definition of my content.

    My core changed completely.

    From being sinful, to being innately good.

    Just a pure as when you look into the eyes a newborn child.

    Church, and the treatment from abusive family, changes who we were born to be.

    As I listened to the conversation, I thought, these are my people. They are saying what I know to be true.  I know where I was led astray from my own sacred essence.

    In the beginning, back in 2004, I had proclaimed to the skies, "This will not define Me." 

    My journey, was going back to find the essence within me.

    To do away with anything that didn't honor my worth.

    I am so grateful there are people out there who are willing to speak up against the majority, to dare to stretch and be part of a new cosmic change. Who speak against old definitions that are not empowering; but controlling.

    The main objective of abuse is to control.  

    Empowerment and seeing humanity as the essence of the Divine, is my passion.

    For women (and men) to feel their worth and be empowered and free!

    To believe to the depths of their being their Holiness.

    The flow of God; everywhere in everyone.

    To eliminate the idea of being sinful, wretched and in the need of being saved and changed. But rather to get rid of all that insults your soul.

     

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    I am Perfect, and it is impossible not to be!

  • Happy New You!

    I don't think you can expect Change from a year.  Yet, so many have 'hopes' that this new year will deliver better. 

    A year is just time passing. It is the blank space we reside in.  It doesn't have the power to change how you live; you do.

    To passively hope for a better year, is to place the power of your world in the hands of time.  An innocent bystander who is waiting for you to use your free will.

    Time is time.

    It equals the same for everyone.  

    I listened to a podcast on Ted – "How to gain control of your free time" by Laura Vanderkam

    She spoke about the 168 hours we have in a week, and how we use them?

    Change will happen when you use them differently.

    How we spend time, decides how our year will look upon its completion.

    When you say, 'it was a bad year' you are blaming the passing of time.

    Changing the way you see yourself and the relationship with time, will create a different view of a year.

    As I sat here this morning with a new calendar day, everything seems the same as yesterday.  I have zero expectations of the year giving me anything.

    I expect that I will engage in my life with heart, mind and soul.

    I will accept what comes and that I will know how to manage it.

    I will dare to try new adventures.

    I will make plans and follow through.

    I will be the one who determines how my year flows.

    My year, the passing of time awaits for me to dance upon it.

    It is the gift of life, the present.

    How I engage with it, is up to me.

    It simply cannot give me a better year.

    It is just minutes, that grow into days, and weeks, months and a Year.

    How I spend the minutes, will add to the contents of this year.

    To expect pure happiness isn't realistic.

    We will have pain and sorrow.

    We will have struggle and hardships.

    A good Life isn't just living with positive feelings.

    The wealthiest of lives, is to live the full spectrum of our emotions.  To feel deeply and express freely all that we are.

    I want to be more me, deeper, fuller and more complex.

    Our character continues to have opportunities for becoming.

    Worry less about the passage of time and more about the opportunities that define you.

    Maybe we should be saying "Happy New You!"

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    What wonderful new things will be added to you this year?

    I am excited to see how life unfolds this year and what it will change in me.

    Happy New You!

     

  • What will you tell your daughters…

    I listened to this poem on Ted Talks and it's the backbone question "What will you tell your daughters…" that motivated me the most to change.

     

    She is speaking about a year, and I, a lifetime.

    When something happens in our lives, we always have a choice and that choice will reflect who we are, who we stood for and what mattered most.  It echoes not only in our lifetime; but becomes the legacy of our family.

     

    "When she asks you of this year, your daughter, whether your offspring or heir to your triumph, from her comforted side of history teetering towards woman, she will wonder and ask voraciously, though she cannot fathom your sacrifice, she will hold your estimation of it holy, curiously probing, "Where were you? Did you fight? Were you fearful or fearsome? What colored the walls of your regret? What did you do for women in the year it was time? This path you made for me, which bones had to break? Did you do enough, and are you OK, momma? And are you a hero?" She will ask the difficult questions." Chinaka

    I do ask the difficult questions, I want to know.

    How you answer, is who you are.

    Over the past many years siblings come in and we struggle to connect.  

    I wondered if it was my expectation….and then, even, what an expectation was.

    Its definition, "a strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future."

    Where we fall short with each other is how we answered the tough questions?  

    It isn't about denial as much as I once concluded, but rather their answers to life's questions; and mine.

    As my mother's daughter, I did want to know.

    And didn't.  

    I didn't want to know how short my mother fell from being my hero.

    Or my sisters…

    "She will not care about the arc of your brow, the weight of your clutch. She will not ask of your mentions. Your daughter, for whom you have already carried so much, wants to know what you brought, what gift, what light did you keep from extinction? When they came for victims in the night, did you sleep through it or were you roused? What was the cost of staying woke? What, in the year we said time's up, what did you do with your privilege? Did you sup on others' squalor? Did you look away or directly into the flame? Did you know your skill or treat it like a liability? Were you fooled by the epithets of "nasty" or "less than"? Did you teach with an open heart or a clenched fist? Where were you?" Chinaka

    This poem answered for me the hard question of why am I so reluctant to re-build bridges, walkways, pathways, connections with my estranged family.

    We would answer this poem differently.

    We are different in the areas, that I find extremely important.

    Our estrangement is not shallow.

    The answers I receive don't inspire me for connection.

    I am proud of how I answer this poem.

    I can speak my truth of courage and the cost of staying awake.

    "Tell her the truth. Make it your life. Confirm it. Say, "Daughter, I stood there with the moment drawn on my face like a dagger, and flung it back at itself, slicing space for you." Tell her the truth, how you lived in spite of crooked odds. Tell her you were brave, and always, always in the company of courage, mostly the days when you just had yourself. Tell her she was born as you were, as your mothers before, and the sisters beside them, in the age of legends, like always."

    "Tell her she was born just in time, just in time to lead."

    Chinaka Hodge

    What will you tell your daughters, sisters, friends….?

     

     

     

     

  • What will the next year grow in me?

    A year ago when a snowshoe was suggested, I asked how difficult, how long, and was very apprehensive about whether I could complete it.  Understandable.  I had no gauge at what I could or could not do.  Each adventure was to test my ability – I was starting with nothing, so I was timid when it came to a new trail.

    Would this trail be too much for my physical strength and agility?

    How would my body respond?

    How painful would it be to push muscles I hadn't used in years?

    Now, after a year of tromping up and down hills, on snowshoes or hiking and biking, my skill level isn't what first comes to mind.

    I no longer feel that I am too weak to tackle what the trail has to offer?

    My confidence in my physical body has changed.  

    I love how far I have come in one year!

     

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    Instead I am looking forward to what we will see, where we will go and to breathe in fresh air and hear the quiet of nature.

    To spend fun times with ladies as we move, stretch and challenge our bodies!

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    Oh, and the great sights we see!

    In one year, you can change how you see yourself, life and each new adventure!

    The hills haven't changed, I have!

    What will this next year grow in me?