Can I take down all the barriers to Love that I have erected? Can I speak and act from God in me, all the time? I believe I can.
Moving from the idea of God within as Power, to God as Grace, seemed a decisive step. So I sought a meeting with Friends to explore this: not quite a meeting for clearness, as I was not making a decision, but finding that of God- the Light, the Seed- within me.
What is within? Gabrielle Roth talked of a moment, dancing, when she is being danced- the movement comes from something spontaneous, unconscious, liberating- powerful. Anna Akhmatova wrote of “something not known to anyone at all, but wild in the breast for centuries”. Mary Oliver: “Let the soft animal of your body love what it loves”. Ladinsky’s Hafiz poems have “The God who only knows four words, and keeps repeating them, saying, ‘Come dance with me’.” This is not Michelangelo’s God in a pink shirt and grey beard, reaching out in Love to us, but a liquid God, flowing and sparkling. If I observed it, I could only say where it had been, not where it is, now. If I surrender to it-
Four Friends. Earth, Air, Fire and Water. Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. A psychotherapist and a lawyer. Two men, two women. I wanted one of the men to be straight, and he got things that I did not fully articulate. With no false modesty, I asked for, created and received a celebration of Myself, me in my purest form.
In my reclusive life, this is what I do: I find my I Am, and- whatever else there is in me, my internal conflicts. What ought I to do? What do I want to do? The answer surprises me. I wanted to write about the EHRC and the conversion therapy consultation, and I did. It was a lot of work. And I stopped applying for jobs because, while applying was stressful, I did not sense until I was weeping and screaming how stressful it was. Something blocked my awareness. That something is the Trauma.
If I do something freely, I am motivated to do it. If I do it under constraint, I am not. You clean your teeth as a routine part of preparing for the day, or for bed. I clean my teeth to make my mouth feel good, and do it carefully, because it is important. But if I do it because that is the rule, because I am supposed to, there is no life or motivation in it. I might lie in bed all morning, listlessly thinking, I ought to clean my teeth, yet I do not move. This perplexes and distresses me, as my apparently rational being says, of course I ought to clean my teeth, and cannot understand why I don’t. And there is-
something inside so strong
that is so battered, so hurt, that all it can say is, “No”. And it will say “No” until it is heard. Then it says, “I Am”. Then for a long time I was in a stage where it was like a beaten animal, to be managed. My conscious self, apparently rational, would spend some time listening to it, humouring it, so that it would come round, and obey the rules again, so that I would be safe and rational, doing what I ought to do. But somehow it, unruly, unmanageable, saw through this stratagem.
I could not hear God within because of trauma. Imminent fear of death made me willing to do anything to survive. It is not a trauma I remember, only one I have deduced from experiences. Then its guards are active, telling me, that is ridiculous, I am not traumatised, I am pretending or acting.
They tell me no-one will believe me. That is, if I want to assert my ridiculous nothings, I will be completely alone. So all I can say is “No”. As a child, controlled by my mother, the only way I could assert control was to refuse food. So I did, and she fed me a limited diet of beefburgers or rissoles, chips and beans, which I accepted. I don’t remember the negotiation, only its result. That was what I could control, by saying No, and that was the control I was allowed.
As an adult I have found clues, and the clues convince me. They bubble up from my unconscious mind.
With Tina in Southampton, I mentioned that my mother told me I liked it when my pram was placed under a tree, so I looked up and watched the light through the leaves. And- I went back there. I was in the pram, feeling overwhelming rage and terror.
In the Hoffman process, at 6am in February I lay on the ground outside, and imagined I was in my grave. I looked up, and people walked by, looking down at me. Imprisoned lawyer Alasdair Hall said, “Well I’ve never been that low”. Then, lastly, my mother looked down and said “I never wanted you”.
In the film “Ma vie en rose”, a child decides to express as a girl. The family is driven out of their home. Her mother has a nervous breakdown. At the end, the mother accepts her daughter. Seeing that, suddenly I was on the floor, in the foetal position, weeping and wailing. H was concerned.
If I commit to a task, I commit to it completely, not acknowledging any difficulty I have with it. I do not give up until I am dangling on the end of a rope. Realising that was a profound blessing.
To speak of these experiences on Monday, and have my experience accepted, was profound for me. The guards of trauma, who deny my experience, were silenced.
Preparing for the experience over the previous week, I noticed how frightened I was. What if God acted through me, and it harmed me? The Farmington prophecy came through Licia Kuenning’s inner God, which was insane.
On the train, I made a list of what is inside me, what might be in God in me, what might be in ego. A simple taxonomy is a tempting illusion. Anxiety; denial; self-improvement; motivation; survival; pain; refusal; recordings (when I tell a story in the same words); rationality; feelings; suppression from my consciousness; inner critic; professionalism; history; trauma; love; collective unconscious; God; Ego; introjects; presence in the moment; the soft animal of my body; grace. I do not want to expunge anything, I just want it all pulling together.
In the meeting, I spoke and was heard, about my history. One did not see what I meant by rejecting power, but one did. I articulated it after: Grace is powerful, but not an ideal-masculine power. It is not subduing the world to my will, but dancing in blessing, taking what I need from abundance, acknowledging the worth of whoever or whatever I work with.
I recited my Two Souls poem, which they liked.
He leaves behind the master’s role
She welcomes him, and I am whole.
I wrote that in 2003, and it expresses my aim, now.
I had wondered if I wanted to speak from other parts of me, which I believe are not-God. I spoke of seeing other people as beautiful. One asked, are you beautiful? The voice in my head saying you can’t say that was only an echo. It had no real power. I said, Yes. I have wonderful intelligence, humour and expressiveness, and deep wells of compassion.
I said I do what I see is good to do. Then I said “I don’t get paid for it, which bothers me”. I wondered after where that came from. Is it true? Is it from God? Is it from some conventional self which wants to be earning my living? Is it from a male self which needs to surrender and be integrated? I do not know.
On Wednesday I hosted, and Jamie wrote after, “They all adore you (rightly)”.
After, I wrote,
I speak from my integrity.
I act from my integrity.
I do what I want to do.
This utter gorgeousness!
I Am- beauty, wonder, delight.
How could I trust something that could only say No-
only scream No because I could not hear it until it was screaming?
As I trust it, it says more
I let it withdraw, and it acts.
There is still “I” judging, but more and more it fades, judgment goes away.
I within, I choosing emerges.
I am here, now, real, truthful, loving, whole.
I knew what was sensible, what I ought to do,
and God said, No.
I could not do it, as God said No
and I wanted to do it,
I knew it was sensible,
I knew I ought to do it.
I commanded, and God resisted.
So I decided to humour God.
I would listen for a bit,
make God feel better,
get God on side,
then I would tell God what was sensible and God would go along with it.
But this did not work. God still said, “No”.
I despaired.
Then God said, “I Am”.
I do not know what is sensible. I do not know what I ought to do.
What I thought I ought to do is meaningless to me.
And, there is, “I Am”.
I Will Be.
There is the dance.
I only know the dance when I look back, and see what I have danced.
The dance continues.
Clare Flourish 