I M Perfect lady

Category: Art & Quilts

  • A Journal to take Home

    Last week when I sat by the Detective and asked him how things were going….he said, "I have two adolescent boys (who are talking to him about their sexual abuse) and I don't have nothing to give them….I am not sure about a journal, but I do wish I had something. And I surely can't give them the ones with the Lady on the front," he said with a smile and wistfulness. I said, "Let me ponder this and see what I can do."  

    I mentioned this conversation to my brother Carl (who was abused as a young boy) and he said he thought they would use a journal…he mainly didn't want them being overlooked.  He and I both felt it would be nice if Tom had a boy journal to offer.

    I found two smaller sketch journals as well as two black lined journals that I covered.  This was a stretch for me to make "boy" looking ones….or at least non feminine looking, yet still artful….a place to put such sacred truths.

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    Above are the four I made this morning.  I wrote "Me, Mine, Love Truth, and I M Perfect" in the quilting.  I wanted to impart ownership as well as words that will reflect the essence of them speaking out.  

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    I am in awe of such young brave boys…and even if they don't choose to take one, the idea will have been planted…to write.  It gives me hope that boys are now willing to speak up so they can be healed…to shatter the secret and open themselves up to living life in full disclosure.  Even if they never write, just having the ear of Tom Rosemurgy is huge.  He is such a kind soul.  And I want to help Tom as he helps them.

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    May these journals find the right hands to hold them…and be a place to store the tragic truths of abuse.  Writing it down on paper, released the overwhelming emotions that swirled inside.  It was a place to go and talk…and cry.  A tool I used to find a clear mind.  May the children who pass through Tom's office shorten their pathway to healing…just by finding such a caring man…and a journal to take home.

  • Shatter Their Silence.

    Tonight at Michigan Tech in  ME-EM 112 (which is R.L. Smith Hall)., there will be the first annual "Take Back the Night" event.  

    Shatter the SilenceTrademark symbol
    Breaking The Silence Through Storytelling 

    “It takes two people to speak the truth: One to speak and another to hear.” – Henry David Thoreau

    Take Back The Night’s supporters have always understood the power of speaking out. Rape, sexual assault, sexual abuse and domestic violence are often labeled “crimes of silence” because of low reporting rates and social discomfort with their public discussion.

    There will be a walk after the discussion.  

    I, along with Tom Rosemurgy (Houghton County Detective), and Dial Help staff and a few others, I don't know yet, will be on the panel.  

    Just coming to hear is the first step in being part of the dialogue.  Silence is the only way sexual abuse will continue.  

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    I donated this quilt….and it will be framed and hung in the lobby of Dial Help.  I hope it inspires others to shatter their silence.

  • I will Dance in Mine!

    "I am often surprised and humbled by how quickly in my insecurity I can begin to assume responsibility for all the wrongs and sufferings I see around me.  When thrown off-center, when old patterns return, when feeling exhausted or depressed, I so quickly become the exaggerated cause of all that is not right with the world."  

    "I know I am not alone in this.  Perhaps it is one of the laws of emotional weather; sudden lows result in isolated storms.  It has happened to me enough over the years that I have to acknowledge the power of Negative Self-Centeredness.  We typically think of the ego-centered as being conceited and self-inflated and quite selfish.  But this recurring struggle with exaggerated responsibility has made me realize that more often we are ego-centered with feeling deflated, when feeling shaken from our sense of oneness with things.  In that place of separation, we become darkly self-centered, blaming ourselves for not fixing things or making things right or for letting bad things happen. Underneath these self-recriminations is the grandiose assumption that we have the power, in the first place, to control events that are really beyond any human being's influence."

    "Certainly, we affect each other, and often, but to assume that other people's inner moods hinge on my presence is an egocentric way to keep myself in a cycle of sacrifice and guilt.  Further, to assume that another's condition or way of being in the world hinges on my presence is the beginning of self-oppression and co-dependence.  In extreme moments of negative self-centeredness, we can assume magical proportions of burden, in which we feel acutely responsible for a loved one's illness or misfortune because we weren't good enough or perfect enough."  Mark Nepo

    In the past few days, okay 53 years, I have experienced this negative self-centeredness.  It is truly an awful feeling…feeling responsible for others…I just had not thought of how incredibly "special" I was trying to make myself and then how "unspecial" the other feels…when I take on their responsibilities.

    However I have been getting better at dropping the responsibility and letting others carry themselves.  Yet, there are moments when I do pick them up for a few days and carry them along. And it is true, I do see them as less while I carry them.

    And at first glance, at least to me, it seems harsh to not pick them up…when with my limited knowledge it seems they "Need" me…(even if they have not asked…)

    My body has bore the brunt of this negative self-centeredness and it responds quickly when my mind stirs up another's life…I get a sharp clutching knot in my neck…the strain of mentally being responsible in a life that isn't mine.

    In yoga today, I had a mantra, that I released in different poses, to let go of the tightness of being in control, while clearly not capable of being…"I am responsible just for me!"….or "I am not responsible in other lives."

    If I had to boil down my dysfunction to one pattern that I repeat time and time again, it is this one.  Negative Self Centeredness. 

    Who knew that in jumping into lives I was pushing in ahead them and their God and Universe…wow.

    Hard to justify the two…for at first glance it appears to be 'helpful'…caring even…when I was actually putting them down as I got in front of their God.

    What I do love, is that at the end of the day, and the end of tossing around thoughts in my head, all I am responsible for is Me.

    Today I pushed aside the cape of rescuing someone by being responsible, and focused instead on my Art. Thankfully I have a place I can go that will shove aside the voices urging me to don my cape and get involved. 

    Here is what I did instead of playing God in someone's life today…

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    I love the Ladies dancing to their own beat…For each of us hears life and move in the way we feel best.

    Dance to the feelings of your Life…and I will dance in mine!

     

     

  • Unexpressed fear.

    Mothering for certain is where my greatest weaknesses lie, where all my scars seem to congregate and wait for one child to push a button, and all of the unexpressed emotions come charging forward, ready to spill from my mouth.

    A few sentences do, a few sharp tones and hitting remarks find their target…before I am able to gain control of myself.  Inside of me then echos and reverberates voices of fear and confusion, feelings of being put upon, used, etc.  My child self rallies forth, elbowing out of the way the mom.

    I have, and have had, a very hard time heading into conflict a mom first…leaving behind my scarred child self.  Which leaves me standing there a mom, spewing forth childish words of defense…forgetting I am supposed to be an adult.

    By the time I remember to be an adult, the child has made a mess…voiced promises she isn't going to keep, poured feelings of petty indignation and pretty much presented a 'mental' mom.

    My adult self then has to clean up and find a solution that restores us both.

    As long as my children live here and are under my care, I will have to be on guard.  Just as I don't want my child self creating my nutrition plan, I don't want my scarred child mothering.  

    She mothers out of fear, screams in fear of injustice, fails to see both sides is very much shallow and self absorbed…contents of an abusive mother.

    Knowing she exists inside of me, isn't enough to keep her silent…to keep her back and away from conflict.

    I wonder what triggers her most?  What are the tones that ring for her to enter into my world uninvited.

    They are feelings…feelings of being used.  Feelings of imbalance. Feelings that others should or should not be doing that which they are doing…so when I feel out of control, she rushes forth.

    Guess that is what they mean by Post Traumatic moments.

    Ugh.  I just get so drained being a mom sometimes.  Working to not become postal, and yet time and time I do.  Each time I climb to the upper rung by putting them down, I lose.

    Certainly, they are not the long raging moments of before, just small aftershock like spews.  Is it even possible for me to be in conflict while in control?  I get there, but not till after I have had my ugly say.

    Ugly say has to be like sweet treats, something that my scarred girl lives upon…being mute in the first few moments of any conflict will help and open up space for my adult self to arrive.

    Today, I quilted…lots.  Thankfully so.  Imagine if all I had to do was to monitor the folks who lived with me???  My child self would have a field day.

    Maybe one day I will match the lady of my quilts.  Be a lady at all times…in conflict and without.

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    Doing Bikram yoga in the Sunrise…. (perhaps doing more yoga will release the unexpressed emotions.)

    And this is my latest Kayak Lady…

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    Art Therapy…it allows me a place to escape from the trauma…a place to express beauty…instead of unexpressed fear.

     

  • Dancing with Quilting.

    My latest Lady Quilt.  I am trying to do dancing ladies, capturing their movement.  

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    "And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music." ~Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

    I loved this quote.  Each of us are listening to our own inner music and our movements, actions, choices, etc…are derived from what we hear inside.

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    Her skirt has more movement than her arms and legs.  

    Fun to create and play with movement both in fabric, color and body.

    Dancing with quilting.

     

     

     

  • “Take Back the Night”

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    I created this quilt with the theme, "Take Back the Night".  I was trying to depict the weight of fear and how it bends you down…in comparison to taking back your power.  Dancing under your full power.

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    I met with Detective Rosie and An-gel from Dial Help on Monday. The three of us are forming a connection…coming from different angles, working to find new answers to old problems.  I enjoy our meetings greatly.  The meeting was about the event planned for April 24th, "Take Back the Night".  Rosie and I will be there…An-gel is one of the organizers.  

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    If this quilt isn't used there, she will go to the Ed Gray Gallery. 

  • Who Believed the Worst About Herself.

    In the aftermath of reading David Hawkins, I am left with an even greater understanding or perhaps an explanation of my journey, how I arrived, what happened that covered my eyes and spirit; my innocence.

    I almost felt that I was responsible for being so irresponsible, that I had somehow fallen asleep carelessly or that perhaps I didn't care enough to save myself or was kind enough to save my sisters or any other girl who was abused after me.

    There was a part of me, a pretty large part that felt I was responsible for being so irresponsible…and that irresponsibility is my nature, my soul's fingerprint, the DNA of who I am.  

    Another huge chunk also enjoyed the haughty elitism of the FALC; the one right pathway to Heaven.  That I didn't mind all the other poor souls going to hell…I was heartless to the core…Self Rightiously superior and self absorbed.

    When my 'truths' of my first forty-six years revealed themselves to be false, I began the digging process to uncover how I had gotten so blind, backwards and confused, and who was the real me underneath it all?

    It feels like I am paleontologist of my own life, where I am trying to get to the fossil of who I am…to see me in my natural state.

    While it takes courage to be willing to want to know the truth, to search for answers to your irresponsibility, to go into your coldness, your blindness to evil within as well as out; like researching a monster called Self.

    Being a detective in your own life…your dysfunctional life.  

    Taking apart your mental mind, re-creating the pathways of beliefs that led you to act like a robot…with a mind completely closed down and emotions and feelings buried deep.  A great student of hatred in order to feel good.  

    What I recall of the First Apostolic Lutheran Church, is that they spoke of nonbelievers as being the devil, along with items they called sins; how they will slowly take away your 'faith' little by little.  When in actuality, they (preachers) were taking away our innocence bit by bit.

    Each time we believed in the sermon about nonbelievers being bad, we were taught to hate them.  Each time we relinquished our rights to our body, the preachers/church won another part of our lives.

    Its subtle and not so subtle messages slowly turned us into hating not only others but our own flesh and blood…and the weakness of self against them.

    How it would be impossible to resist the devil, so best not to dance the first step.

    Innocence and strength of spirit was not preached…but wretchedness and our inherent weakness poured into us. 

    I recall spending my first night at a non-relative nonbeliever's home…I was in grade school.  They had a TV, the parents drank beer, and I was afraid to go to sleep.  I was terrified, like sleeping in the devils home.  Fear of them…and fear of the pull and not being able to resist.  I remember we slept on the floor in the livingroom, and she fell asleep with the TV on…and I was mesmerized watching it, while knowing it was wrong, but couldn't stop.  I felt how 'evil' was stronger than I.

    The little innocent child self, curious and in wonderment, wanted to see TV, knowing it was wrong…did so and then was terrified I would die with this sin in me and go directly to hell.  Stuck in a home of nonbelievers.  A weak child against the demons.

    Looking upon this from the perspective of the program they were putting in place sickens me.  Not so much the program which is so filled with elitism, but the fact that the innocent child gulps this up without question. 

    Eroding its sense of pureness. Imagine by grade school, I was already gone.  

    Now add onto this being abused by my father.  I am weak and wretched once again.  

    And now my mother's opinion of me comes in.  Once again, no one sees my innocence.  It must be true.

    Three very influential factions in my little world all see me as no longer innocent.

    There is no way I can't turn on myself and see me as they see me.  

    See my body as they see my body.

    And if I was of stronger 'faith' or a stronger little girl, I could have saved my innocence….I believed.  I was the one who was weak and couldn't save myself.  Because I couldn't I was responsible for being irresponsible.

    I didn't pull apart the string so deeply to see the intricate pieces of how all my innocence was lost.  

    If the church still held me innocent, while I had lost it with my father, I would have then been half innocent; half good.  But, there was no one in my little life that seen me as a very innocent child whose consciousness is not devious.

    What a big burden for a child to carry, the lack of innocence and good.

    No matter how much I tried to do good, It was never enough to erase the DNA of being guilty for losing my innocence…hating my weakness against evil.  I lost and it won, always.

    To see myself and to know myself and to feel myself as being innocent/good/a joyful Spirit was taken from me…replaced with feelings of guilt, shame and weakness. 

    It is like the church/dysfunctional parent rips apart all that is natural, and of spirit; peace, love and joy…transforming the child of innocence, to reflect instead, that of the devil and hatred and fear.

    What chance does the child have?  

    No wonder I felt weak and powerless, I was.  I was weak in discernment, weak in not standing up against adults.  I was weak in not questioning…I was weak and unable to fight those who were determined to have my innocence.

    Yet I berated myself and my weakness…and grew into a girl wise beyond her years.  An old person in a young life.  I tried to control what was out of my control….and felt guilty when I couldn't.

    I knew I lost my innocence. I knew I was weak.  What I didn't know was that the strong people in my life preyed upon this.  That there was no way in hell I could have stopped this.  

    Not the rape of my body nor the rape of my innocent mind by the church…nor could I have convinced my mother.  For her love of both of them left me with no one to turn to.

    As Dr. Maya Angelou says, "Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives."

    What I failed to appreciate are a few things;

    The strength of the adults and the natural inherent trust of the child and its inability to discern makes it the weaker of the two.  It isn't that I was irresponsible, I was naturally over taken.  

    I didn't fight this larger system.  Which leads to another quote by Dr. Maya Angelou "…surrender in its place was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice."

    I now can honor my lack of resistance, for I had no choice.

    It wasn't weakness…I surrendered in order to survive.

    I can vividly see, feel and know the weakness wasn't weakness, but the truth of being a child…it is inherently weak against an adult.

    It isn't a personal character flaw, a carelessness or calculated callousness; I was naturally being a child.

    I could weep for the natural little girl…who believed the worst about herself.

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    Photograph, by Hannah Jukuri

     

     

     

  • A broken Heart can open you up to you.

    I made it to the yoga mat today, the third time in a week.  I was surprised that my yoga was waiting for me, that my poses were pretty much where I left them.  

    I was a little stiff, and a bit wobbly in locking my knee, and my middle had bulked out some, which didn't make that much of a difference.

    Today, when I went into the first floor exercise, and lifted my left leg, the pain in my hip or joint area was very intense.  As in the past, I began asking it what was its source…and when I said the word guilty, immediately I began to sob.

    It felt like I was left feeling guilty for being abused, that I was carrying the guilt and it constricted me, made me curl into myself.  I began doing what David Hawkins suggested, to cancel the guilt beliefs about myself, and breathed in the knowing of innocence.

    As I do the floor exercises my belly button hernia sometimes bothers me, so I was rubbing that and wondering what belief or what message the body was delivering with this bulging of my guts. How did this develop… I asked was it that I was "spilling my guts" and nothing happened.  I then pondered if I hated my guts, if I as disgusted with myself, and again immediately an emotional response.  I acknowledge this wrong belief, feeling the innocent me getting this wrong…and then did the cancelling breathing and adding that I recieved the message from my body, that my belly no longer has to gain my attention.  I will continue to do this in yoga now and see how things improve and change.  

    It is so telling that as children in our innocence we believe things due to the lack of adult supervision and correcting our distorted beliefs, and it becomes something we re-inforce as we unconsciously don't fully embrace ourselves.

    We have to see where our innocence left and then make a correction in order to make changes in our minds.  Our Spirit can recognize the place where we veered off the path of innocence and it too can bring us back.

    What a very healing yoga session…working my body and correcting my mind.

    Then, I went to do a Valentine Quilt, but what came to me was to work on the one Lady Quilt that was a work in progress.

    My Valentine Lady is much more pensive than what I had pictured…perhaps I had to get this one out of the way, and then do one that represents a very much in love with herself Lady.

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    The Hearts say, "Broken – Open" and  "Self – No one" and the bottom one says, "Self Love". 

    I see her as trying to protect herself from heartbreak, and yet her hearts break.  

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    By feeling the loss you can become whole.  Very interesting to me how this lady turned out.  A broken heart can open you up to you. 

     

  • Era of Individuality.

    While listening to Sir Ken Robinson reading his book, "The Element" I was struck many times by the way he saw things in a totally new light, how instead of reforming something that is broken, it is best to transform or evolve into a totally different idea.

    He was speaking about education and how it is modeled after the fast food industry, how every thing is standardised…no surprises, everything matches and conforms.  Imagine?  Our education system has followed the fast food industry, where no imagination or individual passion and ideas are allowed; the main focus is to do well on the standardized test, caring less of the value left inside the child.

    And the standardized test making people and industry is booming…while our kid's minds are being bent to do well on their tests…and their natural instinctual abilities are being ignored.

    He also compared the school day to that of a factory, where bells ring to end a shift or begin one.  Where all like models (made in year 1958) are put together, where each teacher adds one thing to the student, like an assembly line.  

    Some children do well in this conveyor like system, but there are many others whose passion is completely ignored and not allowed anywhere in the school factory for it doesn't fit into the fast food model.

    It seems that the natural talents and abilities, the passions and desires to express what you love to do is being completely overlooked, that the child has to fit into the standardized class, leaving behind the very things that excite him.

    You have to leave behind who you are to fit into this system.

    He spoke of visionary schools, who are doing education completely different, who are teaching backwards it seems.  The teachers take direction from the students…seeing the student, her desires and talents and her interests, and expanding on those…allowing the child to flourish that which is already organically there.  

    He also gave an example of a Kindergarten Class set in the middle of an Old Aged Home…glass walls that didn't quite reach the ceiling, so the children's voices could be heard.  How the elderly walked by with interest for the first few days, and then would stop and ask, what the children were learning.  "We are teaching them to read," the teacher said.  "Can I help?" the elderly asked, "I know how to read."

    The Elderly and Child formed a Reading Buddy System….and the elderly drug intake almost lessened by half.  The child left kindergarten reading at a 3rd Grade level.  The children learned about death and grief, when their Reading Buddy's passed on.  The children also learned about life and history by talking to their Reading Buddy.

    Most of us born into these systems are not even aware of the cost of standardized learning…we simply never considered another way. Our own individualize way of being has never been allowed to grow…most don't even know it is there, for it is buried far beneath all that we had to learn and be in order to graduate.

    Years worth of standardized lesson piled upon our dreams…Often we hardly even caught a glimpse of our natural excitement, before it was squashed and pushed aside, for it didn't fit in.

    Not only do I see the standardized learning, but standardized religion or God learning…spiritual seeking etc.  We are taught about this subject, by having to fit into our parent's idea of who God is and what spirituality means.  We are not allowed to grow naturally into wonderment, but are instead taught the lay of the God land by weary disenchanted travelers (in my case).  

    I wasn't taught the wonders of God, but instead his wrath and what would happen if I didn't obey the rules etc.

    In my standardized religion there was no room from my questions or wonderment or disagreement…I had to conform into their system.

    This leads you to wonder how many other systems do we have in place that were created during the Industrial Age that are broken?

    You have to wonder how at one time they believed what was best for us was to all be the same. To learn and believe the same was a good thing…modeling us after what they deemed a perfect being.

    When born into an already operational system of conformity, we are naturally made to conform by the folks who have lived on this planet longer than us…we believe the natural way to be is to fit in…and there are awards and ribbons for being a good conformist, and their are punishments or nothing for those who don't.

    My way of raising my children began in the industrial era and I have transformed it into a totally free zone.

    I now mother to the individual…I no longer have a standardized religion that they have to fit into. In fact, I am trying to unearth their natural talents and dreams that I buried in my broken way of raising them.

    What is so striking, is that the systems are broken and oftentimes the parents themselves come with dysfunctional baggage.  What a maze our children have to navigate through in order to maintain or hold on to their inner passions. 

    Imagine the change our world would have if all systems were geared to serve passion, talent and natural abilities, desire, excitement and inner joy, from the seed of individual that is already planted there?

    How tragic it is that we have to run through an obstacle course that is set in place to steal this talent away…

    So much of the dis ease and un rest is that so many folks are not doing their natural talents, that their seeds are lying dormant undernourished…that they did conform and are fitting into the world, but dying inside.

    A very interesting overview of what we are teaching brand new seeds that arrive on the planet…we ignore the Element of who they are.

    I certainly hope this next Era is called the Era of Individuality.

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  • Enjoying LIfe together

    Yesterday I spent creating two Mitten Tree Ladies…who are so full of, (as one woman put it,) exuberance.  I love the fabric and the feelings these ladies have.  Their spirits are imbued with self power.

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    And working with sweater fabric has been a new challenge, but I love the way it adds a new dimension…the feeling of winter.

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    This Evergreen batik fabric was a challenge, just to see what colors would go with it.  I put down the white and black and greys and whites and was surprised it would go….and the brights flowed too.  I add colors by feeling and never know what will be allowed and what will have to go.

     

    As I was waiting for the above pictures to be downloaded on to this site, I was reading in David Hawkins book, Power vs Force. 

    "Force is limited, whereas power is unlimited.  Through its insistence that the ends justify the means, force sells out freedom, for expediency.  Force offers quick, easy, solutions.  In power, the means and the end are the same, but ends require greater maturity, discipline, and patience to be brought to fruition."

    "Great leaders inspire us to have faith and confidence because of the power of their absolute integrity and alignment with inviolate principles.  Such figures understand that you can't compromise principle and still retain your power."  David Hawkins

    What really caught my eye, is that Force Sells out Freedom…and it will justity any means to get what it wants.

    Acting out in this moment of time, to ensure a peaceful end…really?

    Is not your life created by each step in time?  

    It is insane to think that all the steps of force will in the end deliver a relationship of empowerment.  You can't steal power and have a strong individual left standing.

    I have seen families in the FALC, and even those who have left the church behind, but not the force driven relationships, force their children…by not letting them have their freedom.  

    It has shown me how it was so imperative that I give my children the power to make their own choices.  That is freedom.  Letting them decide…especially when it went against my values or viewpoints…or basically against me. That was when it mattered most.  And I let them.  I not only let them, but had to do so willingly in complete agreement, that yes, they are allowed to go against me.  In fact, if they feel so drawn to, they must…they have to follow their own inner feelings, NoT Mine.

    My earlier mothering instincts were to force them to do as I did…yet after I gave my self the power to walk differently than my parents, it would have been hypocritical to not let them do the same.  And they did.

    It takes great discipline and patience to watch your children grow into their own maturity and lives…but what freedom and joy to allow them them to be free thinkers and free movers, to not be attached at the hip of me….doing and saying and being…Like puppets on my string.

    I truly believed in my own freedom and my authentic power…and that belief powered and gave me strength to give the same to my children. 

    It really does take great patience and discipline to stay in the mode of freedom of choice and empowerment…allowing them to be free, for you can't know if they will freely chose to be with you.

    "If you love someone, set them free….If they come back to you their yours…"  You will then have two free spirits enjoying life together.