Eyewitness To Life By Judith Arianne

Being born gives you the privilege of living and taking in all that you can. Being born comes with other things, like poverty, pain, disease, and war, to name a few. How we deal with it, relate to it, is up to us, or our therapist, family, spouse, etc. I have been here long enough to see what it is I did not see earlier. While growing up I did not see manipulation. I ignored abuse and instead abused myself by not being awake to whom my abusers were. The mind becomes full of the abuses and tapes that are played over and over while learning to function as a fulfilled, happy, spiritual, human being.

For starters, being Catholic determines exactly how one will spend one's life being a victim. As a child I enjoyed this part - kneeling on a kneeler, not having breakfast and fasting so that while in church I fainted, was, for me, the essence of VICTIM. Once the fainting was accomplished, two nice boys would carry me out of church and, suddenly, before me were wonderful donuts and orange juice. I could never get it that God wanted me to become sick in church so I would miss the service, but I figured if that was His wish then I was there to serve.

Standing in line making up sins so I could go to confession was another exciting form of being a victim. Once inside the confessional all Hell could break loose. I could make up the best stories about my misbehavior. Not really comprehending what BAD was as far as God was concerned (I could have been The Boston Strangler posing as a guy) because no matter what I did I was forgiven. However, all bad things, I was told, did stay in my innocent psyche for later use in adult life, as it does for everyone. Do not say to me that nothing is left from your past that does not come up day after day. Something you want to release, yet, somehow, when you least expect it, suddenly explodes into a diabolical metamorphosis of rage, victim, fear, abandonment, and you are stuck with it unless you know how to rid yourself of this record that keeps playing in the same groove.

Unless you have the tools to release the pain of the past, it will come to haunt you and sometimes take away the happy life you so desperately fought for. Yet, you did not take the time to fight the memories, releasing them to the ethers, and in their place bring light and love into a space that was dark and disrupting. If you have, congratulations, for it is tough. The penance I had to do from the stories I told kept me the kneeling victim, and since I was still young, my learning brought more opportunities to be a victim.

As life progresses and we experience the big picture of what we have been taught, then what we have experienced for ourselves begins to have a tear in it. If you have had ten bad relationships, getting into a good relationship is somewhat fragile. Once you are in it, all the bad relationship memories are there, waiting for one little signal that something is not right. This does not mean your partner has to do anything specific, no, just an inkling or fragment of something that could bring about the condition of abandonment or fear. It is all in the mind, the belly of life, and her conditions, conditions that rule, that take away from normailty - but this condition IS the norm. Our minds play tricks on us, and we go along for the roller coaster ride. If nothing really happened, why is our mind in a shambles, telling us that something is wrong? We have not abandoned our fear from the past.

Now, I understand we must all grieve, but not every moment, everyday, every year, and some of us grieve our whole lives. In order to grieve, one must go back to that place of darkness and sadness that brought grief. Why do this? Training. If one grieves, all must grieve and remember the tornado of pain forever. What does this do to our lives? It simply writes the story to which someone does not want to change the ending. As a former Catholic and not seeing the abuse at the time, I now see how as a child I was brainwashed.

Each day I was to grieve for the saints, for Jesus on the cross, for Mary, and remember why each and every one suffered. Where was the laughter, the light, instead of this dark view of the world? Consider the phenomenon of stigmata. Is the occurrence of the stigmata a blessing from God or a self-creation of a fanatical belief system? My life is not over yet, and my eye view on matters, close to me and foreign, changes each day. Each day I become more of who I am, and not what someone thinks I am. Each day I must cope with the past and be able to allow myself that memory of something I feared, and now will release.

How am I doing this? Not without some help in the field. Oh, I could do it all right, but having a handle on it now, and being able to share it, to talk it out has made me MORE AWARE of what is happening. Why wait if you have someone to share it with who wants to see it solved? I am lucky in that sense because I have my own Shaman who, being enlightened in the ways of the world, helps me along the path of life. I could walk alone, but my footsteps would be too deep. Having someone to love and confide in, to accept me as I am made me understand more of why I am here. So, the footsteps I take may be baby steps, but they are mine. I have all of eternity to learn this life.

I look at the world with eyes wide open, like each day is a new canvas, a new subject with fresh new paint to do with as I please. I choose a yellow sun, a blue sky, and the white light that comes to me in this body of energy. I will have days of muddy colors, but it does not have to last. I am the only one who can make it go away. I am the only one who can fill the vacuum of what is left to learn with the whole of me, and the whole of me is the whole universe, and WE are all of that and more. I can hardly wait for the lessons of tomorrow.

I have a head full of stories about life that I have lived and of others I admire. Each day I am thankful for each mouthful of food, the soap to wash my hair, the toothbrush, and the freedom to look out my window and see the sky. I am thankful for the freedom to live as I do. If you want to read about true spirit, sacrifice, and a life that really makes you appreciate living free, read "Stolen Lives" by Milika Oufkir. I remember Hitler. I remember others that dumped inhumanities upon innocents. This book reveals lives that were indeed stolen, whose memories will remain with them in dreams even after they are gone. It is a story of courage I could never dream, and it is a story that all of us should read and then release. Releasing because reading it lets you know you are alive. Releasing it because it is in the past and nothing can be done except to replace the bitter memories with love and the light to go on to the next and better chapter of all lives.

© 2001 Judith Arianne

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Judith Arianne was born in Wisconsin and now lives in California. A person with many profound events happening in her life, she is always open to new secrets of the universe. She is an artist, writer, and works with older people who if given the time, have many life stories that have too long been silent. She loves and cares for the planet as a citizen of the earth and is grateful for the gift of learning that has held such great bounty for her. She can be reached via email.

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