A hard concept for me, as a reformed Southern Baptist who has been taught to be nice and that will make people like me, to understand. I was also taught to give the biggest smile and I will somehow have love and acceptance in Jesus Christ. It didn't occur to me this was a control issue.
In the early eighties I joined the shelter for battered women movement. It was intense training that was enlightening and painful all in the same instance. As I learned to gather my personal power I found out that this was a pioneer way of life and that the unknown was always scary.
At first, I couldn't understand this new way of thinking - that it was acceptable to say no, to demand what I wanted and to fully expect to get it. I had a hard time understanding that I could be angry and express it, and that this was a desired behavior.
As I grew in the movement I learned about the gods and goddesses. I talked with many powerful women who told me the only way they could remain powerful was to give their power away. I drank of this philosophical nectar as a woman who has completed a long journey through a wisdom-parched desert.
As I gained power, the imbalance of power shifted in my house. My husband, who was already abusive, set forth on a campaign to keep me in my place. I learned he needed me, but his put-downs and disgusted looks made me think I needed him and that I was incapable of making it in the world on my own.
Years of training in the art of "being nice" got me beat up by my husband, abandoned and betrayed. I tried to keep my marriage together by continuing to be nice - somehow that would keep my husband under control. I believed a myth about what women were and were expected to be. Little by little I gave up the guilt about Eve giving Adam that damned apple. I understood the apple story as a misogynist ploy to keep man from the responsibility of being accountable for his own deeds.
Now, I had a support system of some pretty powerful, loving women behind me and I, in fact, empowered other women to make the changes they needed to turn their roles from victim to survivor. Even so, I couldn't make the step to either leave the relationship or to balance the uneven scale of power in my own household.
I stifled my feelings. I put up with name calling and being bullied because I - somewhere deep in side me - still believed the myth of what a "good woman" should be.
Finally, the inevitable happened. My husband left me for another woman. He told me I was old, fat and ugly. He tried to take my children from me. He stalked, played court battles and made threats. He told anybody who would listen that I was a fat lesbian cult leader.
Living in a community that encouraged the good ol' boy network, one judge was happy to believe that I had actually held tarot cards up, causing them to burst into flames, burning one of my son's hands. He issued a pick-up order for my children. They were taken from me.
As I said earlier, I had pretty powerful people in my life and my sons came home to me in three days.
After about six months of this anguish I took my children and went into hiding. Running scared, I hid in battered women's shelters. My kids were confused and lonely.
Left alone in the world with three kids to support and no money left me bitter and, quite frankly, pretty pissed off. At first I was convinced there was something dreadfully wrong with me. Sitting in a shelter, afraid and alone, I drew upon all the teachings I had come across in my journey.
First, I called the goddess Diana in her aspect as the huntress. She taught me to hunt before I was hungry. She showed me my crystal silent place of safety, taught me how to enter there and gather my weapons. She told me I was always strong and she had always been with me. I now know it was Diana who always helped me find a safe place for my kids and me as we ran.
Remembering an instructor's words in a self help workshop, "Accept the challenge, pick up the burning sword of integrity, go on the journey, slay the dragon, get to the rocky shores of your destiny," I knew no one could take my integrity from me. I knew the dragon was only my fear of dragons.
The great mother loved me as I loved my children. She wiped away my sorrow, She loved me until I could learn to love myself and She continues to love me.
I gave up my Persephone victim role. I claimed responsibility for my anger by acknowledging it and welcoming it into my soul.
I knew anger was power. I could either become paralyzed in it or I could use it as a tool. So, I claimed the Goddess within me. I nurtured her and she me. In my exile I learned I was never alone, that we were all one. I came to believe that all the gods and goddesses were one and they carried me when I was too weary to walk on my own.
After I stopped running, my husband found us. People in my life who were my friends offered help to hide me, but I refused to run any more.
Armed with court orders to take my children from me, my dragon was standing on my porch. In my place of silence, I had been warned this would happen and I had hidden my kids so he could not take them. He preened and flexed his muscles. He spat his fiery breath in my face.
I went to jail but they couldn't keep me nor could the authorities find my kids. I went to court to fight the battle. Looking at the person who had caused me such pain and terror - suddenly he became just another human being. He was no longer omnipotent!
I knew I was powerless alone. I called upon the collective body of goddesses who had helped me through my ordeal. My mouth opened; the words that came out of my mouth were not my own. I know now that I was speaking with the voice of every woman who ever was and who will ever be in my situation, and my words were legion.
I won that court battle and every other battle he presented to me. My voice was clear and true as my weapons are in good repair. The final war has not been fought yet. The day will come when I meet him again in court combat. I know that I now have protection. I know I will not attempt to control him nor change him. I am not powerful enough to change him into a toad, but today I know where my position of power comes from.
I am still working on overcoming the victim role. I still work at giving up power. I understand that asking for help is an act of power. I need never be alone as long as I remember where my source of true power comes from. I gave my power to my husband, and I temporarily lost my integrity. The life I have chosen for myself is not about happiness and fulfillment but about power.
I am slowly learning about my own misuse of power - by trying to turn myself into something I am not. As I learn more about who I really am and become comfortable without my masks, the Goddess in her beauty keeps me safe.
I also know that I would rather live under a bridge and drink dirty water than to live under any person's power again.
So be it!
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