THESE ARE EXCERPTS FROM THE STORY . . .

The healing process of selfhood
The different relationships that I’ve had, specifically, the two husbands that I had, and the circumstances around those relationships, gave me an opportunity to actually be wounded enough to the very core, that brought me to the healing process of selfhood-- of knowing that I was somebody.

Survival
It was during the process of leaving my first marriage that I started to heal, although at that time I did not have a sense of the actual experience of healing, the concept of healing. Then it was more about survival. It was more about just getting through my depression and getting out of a relationship that was abusive, and saving my children from a man who was physically and emotionally abusive. It was really just a fight to stay alive, and to stay sane, and to live from one day to the next and be able to have the strength to protect my children. I didn’t want to think so much about protecting myself. I really was concerned for my children.

Giving Birth
Then I believe that when I started to take my art really seriously, that that was a very important healing time for me. And it was definitely a way for me to articulate, other than with words, because I didn’t really feel as though I was particularly facile with using words. But the clay became the way out for me. It was a way to take the positive, to take the negative, to take the emerging force of being a woman, the emergence of the sacred feminine. It was all about claiming that I am a woman and that I am a force, and that I am a creative being.

I created Hawk Woman. I saw in the hawk a quality that I could really identify with. She was a messenger. The hawk was about taking life to the highest spiritual level and seeing from that highest place. That was something that I wanted to embody. That’s something that resonated in me, and in art, to ground it in me, and I needed to create her, so I could stand and see her. That whole process of forming her, it was like giving birth all over again.
So, I gave birth, not only to my children, but then I started giving birth to myself. Through my work I gave birth to those parts of myself that I didn’t even know were there. I was claiming them. They were there, they were a part of me. But I couldn’t see them. So, as my life presented experiences that called me to be Hawk Woman, or to be a messenger, or to take a situation or problem to a higher level and look at it, I could take exactly what was happening in my life and actually put it into my work and have it come out, and then see it. It’s like, "Oh, there you are. I recognize you now!" It’s an extraordinary process. It really, really is. And I think that all artists must in some ways go through this because the art comes from inside us.

A presence all day long
Commitment in my life, and dedication, and perseverance, and will, and loving kindness towards myself, and bringing God into my life every day, and living with that, living with that presence all day long, as many times as I can remember, has really changed my life. It has changed my life because I realize that I am not doing this alone. I am totally supported. Totally supported. That is beyond words. It’s easier today for me to face the struggles and the things that happen having this faith and having this deep abiding place for Divine Spirit to live in me. The thing is that, culturally, for my family, I never went to church, I never had that background at all. So this is something that has made it’s way into my life in a different sort of way.

Healing is fluid
As I look at healing now, I look at the possibility of healing as an extraordinary gift, instead of seeing it as being something very negative and scary. I welcome the opportunity to heal and to transform and to change. So there’s this idea that healing is about transformation. It’s about movement. Non-healing, to me, is about being totally rigid and stuck in a place. Something that’s healed is fluid and can move, and can change.
In my process, I knew a particular issue was being healed when it no longer made my body seize up. It didn’t make me want to feel diminished. When I get to a place in myself where I feel as though all the pressures in all the situations in my life are causing me to feel as though I’m nothing, I’m less than good, I keep diminishing, diminishing, diminishing, until I feel as though I’m standing on the head of a pin. I feel as though I’ve backed myself into a place where there’s nowhere to go.
So, the total opposite of that would be this very expansive place. This very open place. This place where something has been healed. The problem can still come to me, or the situation that used to make me fearful can still come to me, but I don’t react in that same negative way. I have much more curiosity about it. I have much more compassion for it. I have a sense of really loving it and being sort of interested. It doesn’t clamp my body up, and everything in me, the way it used to.

Healing Tools
I’ve really acquired tools for looking at myself. I’ve done so much examining, and so much probing and deep work. I’m not afraid to look. I’m not afraid to confront. And again, I’m so curious. It’s become sort of a mystery. And it’s really extraordinary, the kinds of things that one can learn, constantly, from all situations, be they painful, or be they joyous. It is. It’s truly a never ending mystery, the inner landscape, the inner world, for me. And I’m really happy to be in there. I am. And I’m happy that I’ve been taught the tools to navigate in there.
I’ve learned to put myself much more in a neutral witness position. To be an observer of my life, which really gives me depth of perception so I’m not totally mired down and swimming in the muck all the time, in the center of it where I can’t see. I’m removed. And I can see all that going on in a much clearer way. I’m clear that my personality is not all of who I am. They’re just bits and pieces. I know that my soul core, that part of me that’s connected with God, is who I am. My personality is just something that helps me to negotiate in the world, here. And parts of it do it better than other parts!
But, I have an acceptance of more of myself, and more of those parts of my personality and it just really helps to be in the witness position, to tell the workings of the self that go on. That’s a big piece, a big tool.

Learning to Love and Trust
Through my healing process, there were beliefs that were challenged, and shifts in consciousness. The biggest one is this truly abiding love for myself. You know, I used to get confused with whether it was narcissistic to love yourself. But, this isn’t that kind of love. This is a love, which comes from deep examining who I am, of the personality, of acceptance of what I found about myself. And a genuine liking. I like myself, you know. I do. I really do. And that’s really just happened, well, it’s a process that’s been happening. But I feel more deeply caring about myself at all levels. What comes along with that is also a deep responsibility to truth. To living truthfully. To not allowing myself to accept less than I feel I really deserve.
The shift is towards boundaries. About paying attention to different energies. I’m very sensitive to energy now. And to how far in I will allow people’s energies to come. And paying attention to red flags. Really listening and paying attention when my gut says, "No, I don’t think this is a good thing to do. Yes, I think this is a good thing to do." I’m much more trusting, deeply trusting in my own voice inside. I find that my intuition is quite good. There is so much, there’s so much. I really do feel as though I am enough. That’s not to say that that can’t be challenged, and that there aren’t moments. But, deeply, deeply, held inside that I am enough, just as I am.
And I’m very much here for a reason, and that God has a purpose for me. I really believe that I’m on track with my destiny as far as that goes, in terms of my work, and in terms of creating this sanctuary for myself, and creating community with my work -- creating family, my family, and being a source of wisdom to them now. I have deep convictions where I can’t believe that that woman who sat and who had no voice, how different that is, and how different that feels.

A sense of peace
There is a sense of peace now that really pervades my life. That’s not to say that things don’t come in. That doesn’t mean that I couldn’t be rocked by some major disaster that could strike my life. But, at this moment in time, I feel a capacity in myself to live with great peace and great joy which I never dreamed was possible -- that I could feel the way I do. And I have to be careful because sometimes the joy is so big that I’m in jeopardy of dampening it down because I’m not used to being there. I’m just really used to the painful, dark, familiar. And this is like, oh, my gosh! Can I really be filled with so much light and so much joy and so much love! Really!

A world apart
My experience of especially challenging times invokes a sense of a world apart from my ordinary world. Time out of time so to speak. When I am in this place often the pain is so intense that it is hard to access or implement the tools I’ve learned for recovery. However, over time and with some wisdom I have found some tools I stand by: silence, prayer, trust, faith in the transformational process, and friendship.
I find that I have very little extra energy to cope with the demands and the fast pace of my normal life. I deliberately slow down and stretch the silent spaces so that I can rest and care for myself. There is much to be heard in the silence.
I remember to pray. God is always with me and wants to hear what’s going on.
I remember to trust that I am always held in Divine Hands. By taking responsibility for my part I am available to co-create a solution with Spirit.
I remember to have faith . I believe from every challenging experience we are transformed into new Beings. I have faith in this healing process although at the time I many not be clear what’s transforming.
I remember to call on a friend. A true friend will listen and support and understands that I don’t need to be fixed. What a priceless gift is an "Anam Cara", a soul friend.