Calling in the darkness

I remember rarely when I dream, and even less frequently have nightmares.
The last nightmare, before this encounter was almost a month ago now, and I could barely call it a nightmare, more of a very random, strange and messed up dream- where my estranged father was hammering nails in my head, in a bizzarre, harrowing and macabre DIY attempt at hair extensions. My mother was shrieking and saying 'you can't do that. WHY are you doing that, it's going to kill her.' In which he then protested he would remove them. I recoiled, holding my head, scared that if the nails would be removed, that I might bleed to death or that my brain might escape me through the holes in my head. Wierd? Very. A snap shot in the mind of colourful crazy! ;)
However, recalling it the next day I could put pieces in that these were real fears that my estranged father had delivered fatal emotional blows to me that in order to cope with the trauma, I had learned survival skills that may have been less healthy, and that were voicing discomfort, fear at being evolved into something else.

Last night was another encounter entirely. I would describe this as a nightmare, because it woke me from sleep with a start and an inability to rest for my flailing heart beating and for the images stuck in mind. I felt awake, which seems almost like a double reality- being awakened from slumber in a dream- and I guess this signifies my waking up... Rather a startling, rude awakening to myself.
What I saw when I awakened in my dream was an image of a boy- sandy haired, around ten years old. The boy looked dead. He had fully black eyes that seemed to be bleeding smoke, his mouth was  pouring out darkness, shadow.  And he was just there, across from me as I lay here, in this bed, sobbing, crying 'no... Oh no... Please no.' I don't know if it was exactly because the image in itself was so hellish that I really did not want to see it but also the horror that this child was dead above me... Like a loss of innocence. But the whole time there was something else... Something I couldn't see while I was quaking and terrified of the boy- a voice in the shadow. One in the dream that I was sure had caused his demise. It was screaming at me, hissing. 'You're a liar! You're a liar!'
It was then that I awoke with a start, my guts twisting in expectancy to see this same sight on opening my eyes, but there was nothing. Just the dim shapes of the furniture in my room, the moonlight casting a pale, mute glow in the window. And there was silence, no sound apart from the slumbering pup and my breathing.
I tried to turn over and catch the dream again. I wanted to enquire the screaming voice. I wanted to admit. Yes... I am a liar... I lied to myself a long time ago that the shadow doesn't exist. I lied and tried to escape the fear of facing it and last night it showed me, finally, an image I cannot ignore, erase or deny.
I may look upon it as the death of my innocence... Or rather that my shadow was showing me that my very young self had been living in the shadow for a very long time. In becoming more aware of my voice, it opened up something again that said to me that it will not be ignored. And so, I need to do more work. I need to find her... Me. I need to make her safe and give her the safety in the light she deserves and I need to acknowledge, respect and honour the wisdom of my shadow.
Because last night I met my shadow self. And it told me I need to wake up.

Renunciation of the mute button

The oddest equations can sometimes be the most freeing. For example, today and quietly reflecting and ruminating about certain situations in my life... And for a while being present with that, has been painful. And yet again though, I find tears springing to my eyes, a quiet relief. For years the notion that I would one day be relieved to feel pain would have sent me recoiling and scoffing at the idea... For the fact of being frightened to death of it- of pain. And by feeling pain and feeling relief, there is no masochism to this. I am simply stating that emotionally, it has been like blood letting- the infection that had been killing me slowly- the pain of the past- had been living in me and taking away parts of me, hiding away and smothering growth, covering it with the loudness of defense mechanisms. And it seems now... That while it hurts, it's freeing to feel it. It's okay now to bow my head and cry. It's okay to voice it to the silence in the room, to myself. It's freeing because it's one thing I have been missing. 
MY VOICE. 
I feel like I have all these years been mute and have only just learned how to open my vocal chords. And in that.... I guess the truth in a lot of ways is that emotionally, that has been the case. I have felt refused the right to speak, to lay forth boundaries, to say no, to express differing opinions, to express authentic. And truth be told that at many times in my life, and this is also painful- that I have been treated like some mindless automaton, meant to just follow orders blindly because these certain individuals (through their own inherrant issues with themselves and how they relate the world) believe me to lack any kind of sentient intelligence at all. 
I have been a ghost, I have been a drone. 
And that for me with knowledge NOW as I grow, as I start to understand a little more of my own self concept, it hurts. That I failed to have a voice then. 
But with it, there's an amazing sadness but also an amazing clarity. An amazing notion that 'oh wow. Things can be different now. Things ARE different now.' 
And they are. While I still struggle with voicing appropriately, because I am still growing into my right... It can sometimes be defiant, nascent and rebellious but I am finding those qualities, as tiresome as they are for other people, to be quite empowering and inspiring. I love those qualities, as it's quite literally, the 'little me' speaking up- finally, as it should always have been. 
But also, I am not met with the same feeling of shame that has gripped me before. There is no great anxiety over 'losing love' through acceptance of bad behaviour of others, it is simply now- bad behaviour which I have the right not to put up with. I feel more grown now. And I can smile with that, with the relief, the release, the knowing that I have come a little further on in my healing journey, but also- that as much as I have grown, I have also grown younger. That's a fantastic relief to me, that I am drawing ever closer to my little self than ever now. 

Presence

The first thing I felt as I awoke this morning was a deep knotted sensation in the pit of my gut, followed by a peripherally, distant feeling of alarm. I'm not sure what I had dreamed, but something has remained with me all day, as if someone has stepped into my shadow, shaken my subconscious and stirred my mind like the coffee grounds still twirling in my mug. It's a quiet feeling of tension, gnawing at me, tinged with anxiety and that same old fear... Of my ghost self, of passing on without ever being. And yet, with this peeking beyond the curtain of my consciousness, I have mostly found myself in a comfortable state of semi hyper awareness. Not in the sense of over awareness of social situations but more an awakened, mindful state that has lapsed between the drowsy,melancholy feeling that has jabbed its way into my diaphragm today. I have noticed much... The foggy, dense overhang and the cold biting at my thumbs and nose, the invading smell of ginger on low boil and how much it resembles incense... The smell of home cooking, heart and home. The swans, cooing as they flew above me. The smell of bonfire, and winter and fresh air. The sound of heavy, pelting rain on my roof... And how good it feels to be listening to it. Today I feel again, that although I may not understand the lingering fragments of feeling that are stirring in me, I will understand it in time. And what it has given to me today... From the minute of awake is a freedom that has permitted me to loose the reigns that hold me captive to my mind, my thoughts, my ego.. and that free me to be and breathe a little gentler and just for a little while, to walk in step with my Higher Self. I'm starting to look up again... I thank that feeling today for its gift of quiet presence. 

Flown blind and perplexing unknowns

I haven't blogged for quite some time. Needless to say, much has happened in my life since I last came here... I've come full circle.
And I'm still working out whether that seems to be a good thing, or a bad thing. Either way, what transpired has humbled me. It has changed me.

My inner work is never ceasing. Whether or not I hear it, it continues to work through me, ticking
 away, grinding in my solar plexus and at times gently simmering on the bottom like fine sediment lifting, dredging up old remains.
I still don't know what it all means, and maybe that's the beauty of it all. I will never know. The minute I get some semblance of understanding, something comes before me again so I see the puzzle is even more intricate, even more mysterious, and is a constant challenge to my thinking. I feel like I have a hand before my eyes, making me blind to strengthen my peripheral understanding. I know... I know that I am so young still. I have so much to know still.

Tonight I feel quiet... Rather perplexed, a little mournful. But rather inspired by the depths of where this karmic residue might take me. Where the pain lies within me...should I look upon its true face what transformation might begin within me. I don't know how much continental drift has taken place. I do not know how far I have shifted.

Today has felt like a quiet test, where I have bitten at certain points but I have become still again. I've been trying to work out what I am feeling, what has been missing- where the loneliness has gathered in and filled me- the unease, the dissatisfaction, the 'should' thinking has caught me in this place since I moved. And tonight there is a feeling of familiarity... Not of the sense of incessant chatter and wavering dysphoria but that of connectedness. To something else. I've been staring out into the silent white landscape with only my thoughts. And the moon hides between a smoky shield of cloud where only a dusky sliver of light is cast on the irredescent carpet that covers everything. I've been thinking- that in waiting I am wasting away, silently, quietly and again, alone. But now- I see that I am merely again- awakening. I'm looking on the reflection of my inner workings and seeing it with a knowledge that I have something new to discover. Something old to uncover. And I'm connected again to the wonder of the voice that speaks to me, that connectedness to all and everything, every atom and every part of the earth and sky. I'm waiting for it to reveal itself again... And I'm becoming new again, rather than a ghost of what I was.