This is a piece I reworked for English 204 - Creative Non-Fiction Writing. This one was the hardest of all, and the one I spent the most time rewriting. It is after all, a grueling and incredibly important story for me to tell. I dedicate it to all The Ghost Children of the world.
A Song for The Ghost Children
I woke very early this morning
with the gut-solid knowing that I must write about the singing and the
song. My spiritual practice is
eclectic. I love to join with others in
their various forms of spiritual gatherings to pray and sing their songs, which
has deep and joyful meaning to me. I think there is something powerful
about people coming together in community to sing and follow tradition.
We all want and need to feel connected to each other and there is no
better way I have found, than to join with others doing some kind of repeated
ritual that everyone knows. If these rituals have been done over
generations, all the better to develop a lasting, nostalgic, accumulative feel.
I always experience a breathless awe when I am invited in.
As much as I
have needed and embraced these gatherings, I have found over the decades, that
these practiced rituals leave me no room to sing my own song. I have been seeking my true voice for a life
time. As it has slowly emerged, I have found that I not only have a
voice, but a song. My song is a song of the moment in which I sing the
energy I feel and see. It's as if I am translating what is there for all
to hear. It usually feels sacred to me, though I've been known to do it while
vacuuming for example, which is a ritual of sorts. It helps me clear the
energy in a room, while clearing the dust - an effective one-two punch.
As an energy
medicine healer, I sometimes feel drawn to sing what I sense during a healing
session. Many times I have sung the story of the pain that is before me.
These are gut wrenching songs that can include sounds I have never heard
come out of my mouth before, because they are not my own. Over time I
have come to understand that these songs can help relieve the energy of past
traumas. It's as if I am standing witness to the atrocities of the lives
of those that I am healing. I speak
their truth with the song. I will say that often, as the energy sifts and
dissipates, the song changes to one of sweet release and tender hope. It
is an experience I truly cannot put into words. And I hesitate even
writing about it because it is sacred to me.
The specific song I am to write about this early morning, is a song that
I sang about five years ago when I was beginning to deal with the sexual abuse
of my childhood.
Unknown to my mother, my father was
"renting" me out to child pornographers. I was not the only kid
there. A small group of girls and boys would
huddle in a corner of the room, until the adults decided they needed one or
more of us to pose like puppets with them for a “scene”. I remember the blinding flash of the cameras
– this was 1960s technology. No memories
of the cameras themselves, only the numbing process of humiliation and pain
punched with the flash, flash, flash. It
was an unspoken rule between us children that we were never to make eye contact
with each other, because to see the truth in each others eyes would have been
too much. Perhaps the last straw in our
fragile survival. There was such a keen
knowing between us that this was so very wrong.
We silently held our never ending question: Why couldn’t these grown-ups comprehend what
we so clearly knew?
In my mind, I called the others, The
Ghost Children because that's what they looked like to me. The
walking dead. There was no life in their eyes and their bodies slumped
and shuffled when they moved, if they moved at all. It didn't occur to me
then, perhaps, because I would have been younger than seven, but I understand
now that I must have looked just like them.
So, five
years ago, I was in a therapeutic gathering of people where I felt safe and
supported. We were taking turns talking
deeply about ourselves and our lives. I
had no intention of talking about my abuse history. But as I spoke, my
story unfolded. It was the first time I shared it outside of therapy and
a few carefully chosen friends and family. But it was the right time, and
the right place, and the right people, and it all just came out. At the
end of speaking, I said that I wanted to sing a song. I felt intimidated
and a bit horrified by the thought of doing this. But I also knew that there was a song that
was ready to burst out of me and I really had no choice. At the time, this kind of singing was new to
me and I certainly had never expressed myself like this before in front of a
group of people.
I stood and
said, "I dedicate this song to The
Ghost Children", and then toned without words, singing a song of the
torment, anguish and pain. I sang of the injustice from the adults who
had harmed us. I screamed with tones, my
arms outstretched to the heavens, "How could this happen?" But then, finally, the energy shifted within
me. There was an actual release, an actual letting go. And my song began
to change. With time, it became calmer, richer and complete.
It is common for children of abuse to feel tainted. It is why we
don't let people in. It’s as if we live by the creed, “Let me reject you,
before you figure out who I really am and you reject me”. I assumed once
I told my story and sang my song in the circle that day, I would be politely
shunned. What else could they do after knowing what they then knew about
me. I will never forget what happened after I finished my song and sat
down. Without a moments pause, all 25
people unanimously jumped to their feet and came to me, to hold me and tell me
how much they loved me.
+++++
Closing the laptop, and with snotty
tissues strewn all about me; I have accomplished the task. Now, perhaps and finally, a peaceful sleep.
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