Feeling my power.
Coming now into my own.
Wise. Woman. Elder.
Cori MacNaughton
In early April of last year, I attended a conference for female entrepreneurs at Asilomar, in Pacific Grove, Monterey Bay, California. And an interesting thing happened.
Suddenly, unexpectedly, many of the younger women started treating me as a wise woman elder. And my inner GIR rebelled, thinking, how can this be? I'm only two years old! I can't be a wise woman elder!
For those who didn't catch it, GIR is my alter ego, and those familiar with Jhonen Vasquez's "Invader Zim" are already laughing. I am indeed One with my inner GIR.
For the rest, I can correct a longstanding error. Invader Zim was/is a cartoon series created by the brilliant Jhonen Vasquez, creator of the comic book series “Johnny, the Homicidal Maniac” (which I've never read), and while kids love the series, and especially GIR, it was really written for their parents. And if you haven't seen it, it is hilarious, and well worth your time. I adore GIR.
While the official explanation from the show is that GIR is an insane robot, I maintain that he is nothing of the sort; he is simply a hedonistic robot going though his terrible twos, who loves everyone, including asking the local cows and pigs to come and see his room. And turning their house into a giant ambulatory monster in order to acquire his favorite food: tacos.
GIR is usually in the company of (and usually disobeys) Invader Zim, who is a dictatorial and entirely incompetent interstellar invader; who, when given his first task, nearly destroyed his own home world in his zeal for battle. Oops.
Zim wants to conquer earth; GIR thinks it is beyond cool, and loves everything about it, and just about everyone. And wants to sample it ALL.
For those unfamiliar, here is a clip that will give you a taste. The first two minutes pretty much explain my take. ;-)
In reality, I've been a wise woman elder since my teens, I just didn't realize it for what it was for years, but there it is. I have been sought out since I was a kid to smooth things over, to negotiate between disagreeing parties, and to just bring a more peaceful vibe to whatever was going on. I have friends, family members, and several companies I've worked for, who regularly called on me for my abilities as a peacemaker.
Additionally, I can be in the airport, on a bus, on a park bench or in the line at the store, name the place or circumstance, and someone unknown to me will walk up unannounced and start pouring out their life story to me. I don't invite them; they just show up. All the time.
Marek even makes jokes about it. I told him once I was going to the store, and I'd be home in about an hour, and he replied, "No you won't. You'll be home in three hours and you'll know at least one person's life story before you get here." And yeah. Often the case.
Of course, there have been some interesting incidents as well, such as the time a man started telling me his “life story,” only for me to recognize after a few moments that he was actually relating the plot of a film I had seen in the theatre a few days earlier, but that sort of thing is quite rare. Most people are sincere, humble, and entirely perplexed as to why they are moved to tell such personal things to a complete stranger.
Like many odd occurrences in my life, I've come to view it as normal, and just one of those things that is to be expected from time to time.
The first time I was told I was an old soul I was seventeen, and didn't take it all that seriously, because I assumed that the woman was telling me what she thought I wanted to hear. But when I continued to be told the same thing, by many people over many years, most of whom had nothing whatever to gain, I started realizing that perhaps there was something to it that I had yet to understand.
And then came the feelings and images. Many times, when meeting someone for the first time, I not only know how they are feeling, but in many cases why. I can't read their thoughts, it's not that sort of telepathy, but more feelings and images, and a sort of empathic connection.
It is not a constant; with most people I get a sense of how they're feeling, but it seems to be only people in need for whom my intuition goes further, which interestingly just came to me as I was writing this, but makes sense.
Marek shares this sense to a degree, although for him it is more recent, especially since we both studied Matrix Energetics together, though his seems to take more of a physical/medical slant. He told me once that he'll often be near someone, for example at an airport, and he can tell that they have an issue with their heart, or their kidney, and is torn as to whether he should say something to them. So far he has not.
The first really concrete example I had, that I can place in time, was the first time I took the Silva course, when we were learning to tune into medical perceiving for the first time, and a woman brought me a paper with the case of a friend of hers. I was not shown what was written, as the paper was being held by our facilitator, who was leading me in how to proceed.
I said that I was feeling a heaviness, and the woman started saying no, no, this woman was slender; but Judith Powell, who was leading the class and acting as our facilitator, asked her to refrain from speaking and to allow me to proceed. Within a short time, the sensation of heaviness moved into my lower legs, and I told them that it felt like edema. And, sure enough, the woman was having serious issues with edema, which I had called by name.
Where do such feelings and images come from? I haven't a clue. I can say that I'm not really doing anything; I am only serving as a conduit for information coming from Spirit, or God, or the Universe, or whatever name you wish to use.
The only times in my life when I've gotten into real trouble have been when I have felt and yet ignored the "vibes." When I pay attention, and follow where they lead, everything turns out fine, even when initially it doesn't look like it is going to. Trust, in the process and in self, is key.
I am one of those who has never really considered myself to be a feminist, but in looking back on my life, yes, I really have been. I was at one with my personal power as a child, knew that I and my mind were powerful, but then allowed that knowledge to be "trained" out of me.
I lost ground shortly after starting college, when my decision to focus my studies on trying to unravel the mysteries of whale and dolphin strandings, not the wisest choice for an animal lover and natural empath, resulted in the beginnings of profound depression.
And then I had my sense of self utterly ripped out of me the rest of the way when I was date raped when I was twenty. As has happened to countless women before and since.
This resulted in the single worst decision I ever made in my life, to give away my five-year-old Newfoundland, because I was so convinced of my own unworthiness that I truly believed that she would be better off without me in her life.
And so I betrayed the best friend I ever had, who voluntarily chose me for her own, who was more like my kid than my dog, who would absolutely have laid down her life for me in a heartbeat, because I thought it was in her best interests. And a vital part of me died that day.
If I could go back in time, and change one thing in my life, that is the decision I would change, and I would never let her go. That is still my greatest regret, and I'm crying as I write this. No surprise there.
This is a poem I wrote about that time, and about how losing her really affected me. I still miss her more than I can say.
Byron’s Dog
I read him the poem
Of Lord Byron’s dog
Boatswain
Virtuous friend
Whose short life
Had been so cruelly cut
Bringing sadness and grief
So profound
The irony evaded me
In less than one short year
I, too, would lose my trusted friend
Not Fate, but by my hand
And she,
At Boatswain’s age was sent
To dwell with strangers
Whilst I,
Whom she would die for,
Died for her.
8Aug2002
But I come from a long line of inconvenient, intelligent, opinionated, strong-willed women, and for that I am eternally grateful. It was that sense of self, though it deserted me temporarily, that ultimately brought me back into who I really am.
My maternal grandmother, when my mother was a baby and being cared for by her parents, was a newly-divorced social worker in rural New Mexico, at a time when divorce was almost unheard of, and decidedly looked down upon.
She was a college graduate, when few women were, and was determined to make a difference, as she strove to make a good life for herself and her daughter.
Many of those she dealt with as a social worker were Mexican and Native American women, who were at odds with the Catholic church, and its edicts against birth control of any kind.
My grandmother, whose name was Ouida (pronounced weed-uh), saw the repercussions of these rules, saw women losing their health and even their lives from being forced to carry repeated pregnancies to term, not to mention having trouble adequately feeding and clothing the children once they were born.
People forget, or never knew, that the majority of abortions even today are not sought by young single women, and certainly not by “loose” women, most of whom use birth control; but by married women who already have kids at home, who don't want to lessen the quality of life for the kids they already have, by bringing another into the world that they can ill-afford to care for properly.
And so Ouida went out of her way to provide these women with birth control, at a time when it could have gotten her arrested or worse, because she knew in her heart that it was the right thing to do. The women, for their part, loved her for her courage and tenacity, and because she was so firmly and uncompromisingly on their side.
She would stand toe-to-toe with anyone for what she believed.
So I, for my part, will continue to honor her, and the other strong and noble women in my life, who have helped to make me the wise woman elder I am today, and to do them what credit I can, by refusing to give up or give in, by speaking my own truth to power, and by passing along the knowledge I have gained along the way so that it is not lost to future generations.
I will continue improving my corner of the world, teaching others how to improve their health and grow their own food, how to cook from scratch and make it taste amazing, and how to honor ourselves and our loved ones by truly caring for ourselves as we never have before.
And, in all likelihood, I will remain one of the few, if not only poets on Steemit, who post a traditional seventeen-syllable haiku, accompanied by a thousand to fifteen hundred words, or more, of context and meanderings. ;-)
Thanks to TeamGirlPowa for hosting this contest, and for the amazing and moving entries I've read in the past few days that inspired me to enter.
And on my 99th Daily Haiku entry no less, with 99 being a vibratory number, and my original inspiration being @brokemancode's 30 Day Haiku Challenge. Thanks again for your inspiration.
Blessings to us all, to Steemit, and to our world.
And I would love to hear your take in the comments.
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All words are my own.
The first image was taken of me by my friend, Dan Nelson, who was kind enough to take me kayaking at Weeki Wachi in Florida, where we communed with the fish, turtles and birds, while enjoying the lazy paddle under the overhanging trees. It is a fond memory, and the last time I spoke with Dan, he had purchased a place near there, so he could go paddling more often.
The photo of our dog, Lolo, and our late cat, Miod, I took as they were cooperatively begging at the dinner table, despite our longstanding rule of not feeding them from the table.
You can see how much that deterred them both.
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