Where were you and where are you? My up bringing was paraphrased as ‘typical.’ What the ‘f*&^’ does that mean? I believe it means that they did the best they could, even though it was conditional and wounded. The majority of families were living that way. Somehow labeling it ‘typical up bringing’ normalized it. Or made it acceptable which somehow ignored the dysfunction that was really going on.

Where do I start? WHEW, maybe I will start with where I am and where I have been. I live and thrive with Stage 4 breast cancer and I was one of the healthy ones. I changed my lifestyle over 20 years ago. Coming through hard core drug and alcohol addiction and combine sexual abuse as a very young girl, through adolescents and into my early 30’s. And through all of that there was violent trauma in a number of relationships after I left home at 14 years old. One of the healthy ones you ask? Well in the last 20 years I have dedicated my life to being well, healing from past trauma, seeking out as much spiritual and holistic medicine I could find, implementing all of the shamanic teachings into my day to day practice & holistic & spiritual lessons, and major dietary changes switching from meat eating to vegan and raw foods for 20 years.

What was going on? Where was my protector, my father, the masculine figure in all of this? He was living his life, figured he had done his job with raising me at 14 years old when I left because of severe unhealed trauma. Washed his hands of me, stating that I was the problem and needed serious help. A dear friend of mine called my family when I was deep in alcoholism (around 23 years old) he answered and said, “take her to the fourth floor!” Well for those of you who don’t know what that is, that is the mental institution. I found out years later that they had passed me by while in Sidney where I lived, I was drunk sitting on a park bench, they were riding their bikes and saw me drinking out of a brown paper bag. How does a parent ignore their own child, a grown young adult in so much pain and suffering and SOMEHOW BLAME THE CHILD? I believed that there was something wrong with me for the longest time because my parents, my father couldn’t bare that he had failed me. So he had to make me wrong, a damaged one, soiled from the seed. My behaviour wasn’t a reflection of his defective parenting but bad genes on my part, I was adopted. I guess that was an easy out for my father and mother at that time.

The masculine, the healthy one, is a protector, ruthless in his guardianship. He makes sure she knows how valuable she is by her simply being born here on this planet. She needs nothing to know her worth as that is an inherent right that he instills in her. He provides a safe environment for her to grow, make mistakes, learn and integrate all the while he surrounds her with unconditional loving acceptance. She may fall and slip while getting back up and he is there making sure she is guarded while in her innocence while maturing. When she abandons herself to test how loveable and worthy she is he stays with ferocious love and adoration. She learns from this that when she falls she is still worthy and loveable and can manage herself in any circumstance because he stayed by her as she developed that essential muscle. He loves her through all her trials and tribulations while growing. And when she was molested on his watch he rose up, took responsibility, supported her healing and stayed by her side until she was strong enough to fly out of the nest without harm. She could recover from anything because her Father, the healthy masculine did his part in raising her to be the best she could be even through hell. ((((His strength, loving commitment & adoration, merciless protection and his genius that knew it takes loving devotion and time to bring up a healthy feminine.))) He never failed her and when he did he came back quick to correct his error. When she left home she was strong, healthy, assured, knowing her worth and love and would succeed through anything. Her muscle was that toned and defined through his relentless love, protection and guardianship.

Fourty one years later after leaving my home at 14 years old I am still developing the muscle that I should have had when I left. There is no excuse for children who grow into bad adults that make horrible choices that harm themselves and their children except BAD UP BRINGING!!! We live in a society that has accepted this and normalized it. NOT ANYMORE!!! Speaking out, sharing my experiences, taking responsibility for my mistakes as a Mother, healing the trauma, diving deeply into the scariest parts of my life at the hands of abusers, and staying in with love, openness, a relentless commitment to transformation and divine integrity.

To believe that I caused this cancer all by myself. That I inflicted all the pain and suffering to this body when in fact I did not. To sit here today and HOLD MYSELF completely accountable for everything that has happened to me is a DIS-SERVICE to my DIVINE PATH. It is important that I don’t live as a victim however it is also important that I do not take responsibility for the defective parenting, men and experiences that happened TO ME. If I had been raised by a healed masculine father I know that I would not have gone down the path that I did. And I have accepted that this too was my fate and life lessons. I can sit with it all now, the unhealed father who threw me away, the horrific trauma I have endured, to the bad Mothering that I did to my daughter, to being diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer, working through my victim to embodying my powerful divine state of God/Creator and everything in between.

Everyday I awake with immense gratitude that I am breathing, have the strength to get up, create, take care of myself, live and inspire. I have explored every dark avenue of my journey here as a human being. Embodying a pride of my accomplishments, where I have come and where I am today and how rich, full and highly attuned to my innate wisdom I am. I celebrate who I am because I have found and integrated my own healed masculine father. I know what the healed masculine father is now through a relentless exploration of my trauma. I have integrated him and learned of his ways through deep excavation & study, lived experiences and embodying him. I know that my father will never come for me, save me, sit and have heart to heart conversations, support me, protect me and show his love for me. I have had to find that on my own. My father (adopted) has passed over now, last year, 2021. The very next evening I was doing a sacred ceremony in front of the fire drumming. His spirit came through and said, “I am so sorry for not knowing who you really were, for blaming you for existing, for not being accountable as a father and protecting and loving you through it all.” I felt him, not as the father that he was but as the God/Creator spirit that he had returned to. He could then be accountable because he had joined with God and now knew of his failures and inept decisions around me. He was in the light once again returned to his true nature of love. I felt the depth of that love and forgave him instantly. I do not grieve him but the father I didn’t have. And I know that by not having this healed masculine father that I had to become that. This was a part of my sacred journey here as I walk this profound experience of being human.