Rising to Higher Ground with my Voice, Presence and Power
Flame of Light Purifies Self Destruction Finding Freedom from the Cuckoo's Nest, Part 3
After Mother’s wordless visit in the hospital psych ward, I realize I’m going to be here for a while, so I accept my fate and begin a routine.1
After breakfast in my bed, I walk the psych ward floor from my room to the shared refrigerator at the end of one hall. I help myself to a cranberry juice or yogurt tub, carrying my snack to the other end of the hall where the day room is located. I sit in the sunshine, absorbing the heat, feeling the sun’s rays softening deeper tension in my mind and muscles. I surrender to the automatic relaxation in my body. My eyes gaze in silence at the bright blue sky through the window panes.
Awakening is a series of softenings. Gene Keys Pulse
Daily Art Room visits are my refuge and solace. I find an orange spiral notebook and ravenously write down as much as I can manage about the different timelines that came through during the first week of being admitted here: the black and white kings, racial war with women as the reward or prize, and my long-distance sensory abilities to hear or see people I have a bond of affection with, where space-time doesn’t seem to relevant.
I paint, scribble, tear paper and wad it up and toss it into the waste bin. I record my dream images; one image is an aspect of my childhood or psyche that appears like a dead shriveled rabbit. It feels lifeless and I can’t sense anything more — it is opposite of the velveteen rabbit in the children’s story. I continue to attempt to draw this bird creature with a prehistoric curved beak as its predominant feature that seems so important to get it just right.
It’s the Wound that Makes us Whole. RR
I draw lots of sketches of the bristlecone pine trees with scraggly branches, most seemed dead, empty, lifeless, yet the core of the trees’ vitality centers in their eternal trunks that have endured thousands of years. This blows my mind. The images give me hope and helps my heart to stay lighter, more open.
The more time I give to art, the more centered. I begin to feel rooted into the earth on the seventh floor of the hospital. Art gives me a way to focus my energy creatively. Connecting with my Source and what endures and continues through any of the recent past hardships.2
The foundation of Creativity is to be unafraid of making mistakes. Richard Rudd
Photo by Geordanna Cordero on Unsplash
As your Higher Self, I must tell you when you claim your connection to your Source, your natural ability to purify anything comes online. This is your true self-healing ability inside you. Everything that happens in this time/space coordinate is for purification. Events and people outside and emotions or thoughts inside are all part of the purification process. Your automatic ability to allow or let go of and turn over anything to your inner purification space is your Super Power as an imperfect, fallable human being. You continue to purify what isn’t you or for life or in alignment with nature’s principles.
After a week on the hospital psychiatric floor, Murphy calls saying she and two teaching friends are coming to see me that weekend for a visit. I have mixed feelings about them coming. Part of me feels embarrassed about ending up here.
When they arrive, Murphy asks, “Can you go for a walk?”
I have no idea. I never thought to ask. Immediately I ask the day nurse if I can go for a walk with my visitors and she said, “Yes, of course you can.”
We walk along the mighty Missouri River, high along the banks, the lush green foliage soothes my heart. Walking on the earth near water with a light breeze, all my senses naturally reawaken my aliveness and helps revive and renew my sense of autonomy beyond the medication. I begin to feel more like myself.
“How long do you have to stay here?” Murphy asks me.
I have no clue, assuming it’s up to the staff to decide.
After my friends leave, I ask the day nurse how long I need to be here. Three days later, I am released.
Your wise crone Self needs you to know that your oppressed creative divine feminine power, vitality and resilience rose to the surface when you spoke to the staff, using your voice, empowered you to become more fully yourself. Your friends’ presence and practical support gave you the strength and tenacity to find your way through the webs of darkness or density of a lower energy frequency.
Please know in your heart that you didn’t compromise or fall into giving up or collapsing into the mediocrity of our constricted collective consciousness. You chose to respond at times that freed you, and when you reacted, you were willing to see and accept your part you played in this play of unfolding consciousness, widening your point of view for the benefit of not just your life, but all of humanity.
The psychiatrist gives me a prescription for Navane which I find out later was an antipsychotic drug. He doesn’t explain what it’s for, nor about any specific side effects. He says it will help me sleep at night. He also gives me the name of a psychiatrist whom I found out was deceased.
Upon being discharged, I read the paperwork from the psych ward’s test results. The diagnosis is listed as “possible drug overdose.” The CAT scan shows no brain damage.
Mother’s waiting for me in the car as I leave the hospital. I stay with her for the weekend. We’re both learning to play golf and decide to go hit buckets of balls the following day. I enjoy being with her. We don’t talk about the hospital or what led me to being there. She shows me the paintings she’d been working on. Mother was going to the community college to earn an accounting degree. We cook together and watch a movie. Sunday we go on a long walk with her little dog in my favorite park.
Mother and I are becoming closer and enjoying each others’ company as I have always longed for. I didn’t know that this was the last time we would be together.
When I returned home, I found going up the three flights of stairs to my sixth grade classroom was difficult on medication. I was shuffling climbing up stairs or walking down the hall. This wouldn’t work for me with my adept advanced sixth graders.
I called a friend who had a PDR and the side effects for long term use or going off them too quickly could result in involuntary facial ticks. So, slowly but surely, I decided to go off the medication and found myself sleeping more soundly.
I found a good therapist who also offered groups. She mentioned J. C. Sikking’s book Creative Responsibility for me to read, his message was empowering; that my mind could adapt, change and create a new life, and her most powerful guidance was for me to begin to write this all down.
Your Wise Crone Self loves you so much. And, write it down you did, and your willingness to take responsibility for your choices frees you to begin to release the self blame and shame about being so vulnerable to unwelcomed sexual advances.
What your family viewed as a mental breakdown or emotional weakness became your breakthrough out of a compromised and mediocre life. Your seeming broken vulnerability, a willingness to feel, opened your creative resilience that became your power and strength.
Realize you looked for emotional, mental and spiritual support from your mother and the medical model that could not help you manage your spiritual emergence in the way you needed at the time. This is the beginning of reclaiming your personal autonomy sovereignty.
Trust your innate source connection and self healing abilities and keep writing.
The way you write brings the reader into your world and invites us to experience on a cognitive and also a feeling/emotional level. I appreciate how you share deeper insights and wisdom as you tell the day-to-day events of your story, sharing about a time in your life when you were so vulnerable. You say just enough to keep us informed and curious, while also hungry to learn more! Already looking forward to your next post.
So much respect, Grace. Thank you for sharing your story🙏🏼I feel the medicine of it. The letting go of shame. The courage to feel. The courage to tell. The ability to forgive. Love 💕