From Silence to Cacophony - Stories of Survivors May Right the World

 Yesterday light and dark were in perfect balance. Today we inch towards more light. I wish it felt that way. For almost everyone I know, this has been a tough week. The Mad Would Be King is reveling in his cruel war, almost every one is experiencing climate change, and the air is filled with a cacophony of stories about pedophila and sexual assault. I'm sure I've missed some things that would in the past have been major news events. But here we are, struggling for balance. 

Despite all the fuckery, it is the work of Witches to tune into, to invoke, to envision where balance could be. I've been doing that. I invite you all to do this as well. Despair is everywhere, so tuning into hope is indeed a rebellious act. It's part of breaking the chains of this Devil card. I can't hold it all the time but I'll share what is helping me at this moment. 

I grew up with the sound of silence. I had no words for what was happening to me, being sexually abused from 4 - 8 by a much older cousin. There were no words, no stories, no room in the collective consciousness to hold the reality of female experience. I remember at 19 sitting in a room with other women ( a consciousness raising group of the 70's) and saying for the first time what happened to me. Telling my story, the world changed. 

I've been thinking about how the 1970's and feminism gave words to things that were formerly unspeakable, the spell of giving words and forming concepts. Sexual abuse of children, battered wives, domestice abuse, sexual harrassment. Ecology! These were words that were not used when I was growing up. "The universe is made of stories, not of atoms" wrote the poet Muriel Rukeyser. The world was out of balance without women's stories. Without BIPOC and Queer stories. 

I'm breathing into this and finding hope. There is a mighty battle to silence the stories, the histories, to go back to the universe before our stories filled the air. But there is no going back. The stories will not be silenced. As a young woman I felt strongly that feminism was simply women being able to tell the truth about their lives. I still feel that way. 

Dolores Huerta just got to tell her story. Finally. It makes a difference. It brings balance. It unlocks the chain of silence that women have been bound by for eons. 

Patriarchy is doing it's best to keep our chains on, and our muzzles. My hope and prayer is our stories will eventually free us. As Gloria Steinem said - "The truth will set you free. But first it will piss you off". Many of us are indeed in an Epic Fury. That too is balancing.