Sensing and Learning

The Exception contacted me this week about joining with her and Mama Llama to focus on a theme. Mama Llama kicked off the theme for this week with her post this morning. The themes selected come from three lines that peaked The Exception's interest in a book called Women Who Run With Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. I feel at a loss since I haven't read the book but the theme seemed interesting enough for a good solid diversion from the visits to Soldier-ville.

I read a little about this book on Amazon.com and on several other websites. The foreward of the book has definitely garnered my attention:

"Within every woman there is a wild and natural creature, a powerful force, filled with good instincts, passionate creativity, and ageless knowing. Her name is Wild Woman, but she is an endangered species. Though the gifts of the wildish nature come to us at birth, society's attempt to "civilize" us into rigid roles has plundered this treasure, and muffled the deep, life-giving messages of our own souls. Without Wild Woman, we become over-domesticated, fearful, uncreative, trapped."

I was reminded of this, one of my favorite quotes:

“Well-behaved women rarely make history.”
~Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

Today's topic is "The ability to sense and learn new things..."

Its no secret that I am a sensual person. I am also very open-minded and willing to try new things. Unfortunately, there have been times and people in my life that attempted to squash that part of me. The first, of course, was my father.

My father, I now realize, had his spirit broken as a young child. I only found out, shortly before his diagnosis with cancer, that he was adopted by my grandparents. His mother was actually my Great-Aunt Rose who took in a boarder in the years after WWII. I still don't know the whole story... if she was raped or had an affair with this man, but she was soon pregnant and devastated. She called up her sister-in-law, who was to become my grandmother, and threatened suicide. My grandmother and grandfather offered to take the child and raise him as their own.

My dad didn't know the history of his birth until his real mother died. It was on the way to the funeral that my grandmother finally admitted it to him. She had held the story, at the request of my Aunt Rose, until Rose passed away. My dad felt angry and justified in the hatred he directed at my grandparents. He always felt that Papa was hard on him, never satisfied and never proud of a single accomplishment. Now, he felt he knew the reason why.

The thing is, he continued to treat me, his oldest child, the same way. Unless it was done his way, it was plain wrong. I can't explain why God would put me, a girl who always did things just a little differently, with a father who couldn't stand that about me. I never felt I could do anything right. I never felt his pride in me until, thankfully, as he lay dying. I now realize that it wasn't about me but nevertheless, it was a constant struggle throughout my childhood.

Then I married a traditionalist. The ex was one of those men who firmly lived by the addage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." One of the biggest struggles towards the end of our marriage was because I was laid off from my IT job and was home with the kids. My interests had changed. I wanted to study Homeopathy via a distance learning course and someday open my own practice. He was furious. "Why not go back into IT? You were good at it! Why change now?"

Why the hell not?!

I am constantly growing and learning. Life is about LIVING! Why not sense every moment of it, allow it to shape you like the wind shapes the sands of the desert or the waves on the ocean? Why not be malleable to life instead of miserable because you feel as if you have no choice in the matter? I saw this with my father, the ex and with Soldier too. I have always been that girl who loves to be held loosely, allowed to bloom where I am planted but to grow upwards and around to what feels good to me. Yes, I require security but I lean on my faith for that. I don't have to deaden my sensuality or lose that ability to always see things just a little bit differently than I saw it the moment before.

Its one of the things I love about me.