Ashes...

Let it burn...let it come and rage, shaking fists at the heavens...we will stand on a foundation of stone, of rock...pilings driven deep beneath the surface...

Let the storm come...let it come and beat against the rock, roaring in anger and vile musings...we will stand behind the bulwark of stone, feet planted firmly as the waves crash and dissipate, flowing back out to the depths in defeat.

Let it burn...that empty flash in the pan will fizzle out...no discipline, only the hopes for an easy mark, an easy way to hurt, to maim, to destroy peace...we will move with grace, with dignity, with peace dwelling in our hearts...with love we step out in faith, with hope in a God who never fails...

While stoking the fire this morning, I listened for the telltale sound of kettle whistling and thought on ashes...how those fluffy, floofy, silky remnants of the nights fire are what is left of combustion...beauty for ashes...how ash can be used as a disinfectant, used organically for healthy soil...

We may fear the fire and its capability to injure, to hurt even while watching in fascination...dear treasures....for those walking through and amidst the fire and fearing its power and destruction it is a very real fear...fire was used as a threat the day I ran, the day I saw true evil on the face of one I loved, deeply...destruction at its finest...we rise from the ashes dear hearts, we rise and we walk, crawl, fall, get back up and walk until we can run, until we can rise from the detritus of that fire, to live a life of peace, of love, of joy.

The ashes become our place of cleansing, of purifying...of rising like the phoenix to fly...of shaking off the death and ruination clinging to our bodies, our psyches...as we rise we survey the damage, the battle scars running deep below the surface and smile...oh yes my friends, we smile in victory, we throw back our heads in laughter and delight...we have survived a land of terror, of constant threat to life and limb and climbed out the other side...slightly or terrifically battered to stand again on a higher level than ever before.

I am here to tell you today that what lies on the other side, at the end of that proverbial tunnel is victory, the kind that makes you move your feet, that inspires you to dance in the snow falling all around you in big fat flakes, arms wide, head thrown back, song bursting from your lips in rejoicing.

Dear Hearts, you have survived something that should have killed the spirit within you, not just broke it down into little tiny pieces that you somehow, with the help of a Loving Father, put back together to form something stronger, better...more. You will always be more, too much for the average man/woman to handle...you house within you a spirit of a warrior.

Oh I know, some days it feels as though we are a field mouse on the field of battle, scurrying this way and that to avoid the bombs, the artillery barrages landing with no thought or purpose other than to decimate the enemy...you.

It may sound strange...even wrong somehow my fiends, but WE are the enemy...is it any wonder the survivors constantly question our existence? The absolute mind f*ck is we started out as their salvation, their love quest come to an end...think excalibur style, full of drama and bigger than life style love...we soon become the enemy; it's little things at first, the dishes, the laundry, the domestic chores, the food you cook, the clothes you're wearing...oh if you've lived it you know...you know what I'm speaking of.

We become enemy number one, even as we struggle with the dichotomy of the changes in the land around us, suddenly dodging stray bullets, then bouncing betty's, while they work their way up to artillery charges, armour piercing projectiles that pierce to the very heart and spirit, until one day the plane circling overhead drops the atom bomb, delivering a payload that obliterates all thoughts of love, of safety, of forever.

I walked, I ran into the cold one night...running from a three day barrage, reeling like I was drunk...stunned and in shock...and still I am blamed for the attacks, blamed for leaving, blamed for forcing responsibility and accountability into the vacuum left in my wake...

I recently sat with a gentleman who related a story of his girlfriend and her struggle with her x...going on 2 years...I was amazed, not shocked, no...I listened, commiserated and offered tiny bits of wisdom...I left that conversation convinced that the fight may be long, but that the fight has to be fought.

I have been told to just let it go, to move on with my life....and here my anger rises to the surface, the frustration that lives as those who have no idea of the trauma and the battle that raged for my time with the monster...but more, and this is something I believe many are unaware of...we do move on, we live life, we drink joy and peace with gratitude and thankfulness as deep as the ocean...but...and this is a all encompassing but, the monsters do not go quietly into that good night, oh no they circle round looking for opportunity to hassle, harangue, shoot missiles of poisonous gas out their asses and generally endeavour to never let you forget them.

Go no contact....ah hell people...there is no such thing...at least on their part...the truly horrific truth is that if we hunker down as survivors and just get on with our lives and try to ignore the monster under the bed, in the closet, outside your house, it lives on...it breathes out in glee, an easy victim...do you see? The fight must be taken to them or it will be brought to us, where we live. Affecting those we love, those we work with and love...

Hitler, oh yes I'm using that psychopath as an example....so many allied countries stuffed their heads in the sand and said it'll be ok, it doesn't affect us...if we ignore the monster he'll leave us alone. Wrong...

“Hitler is a monster of wickedness, insatiable in his lust for blood and plunder. Not content with having all Europe under his heel, or else terrorized into various forms of abject submission, he must now carry his work of butchery and desolation among the vast multitudes of Russia and of Asia. The terrible military machine, which we and the rest of the civilized world so foolishly, so supinely, so insensately allowed the Nazi gangsters to build up year by year from almost nothing, cannot stand idle lest it rust or fall to pieces. It must be in continual motion, grinding up human lives and trampling down the homes and the rights of hundreds of millions of men. Moreover it must be fed, not only with flesh but with oil.” Winston Churchill.

On a smaller level, these men/women who walk this earth seeking victims, discarding them and moving on for more to feed the monster. But you see where he speaks of allowing these 'gangsters to build up year by year,' this is what these abusers do...they continue to build up continually...practice makes perfect and they are perfectly horrible in their treatment of those who they declared their love for...

I feel a slight rant coming on for this topic...that eyes may see, not shun the horror that happens down the street, next door, upstairs in the apartment above yours...in the sad smile of the woman behind the counter, the shadowed eyes of the woman who greets you each morning with a cheerful hello as you pass in the hallway at work...it is prevalent, it is epidemic and the police force lives in frustration as they see these works of art leaving the courthouse free instead of behind bars, rocking the pretty orange jumpsuits and their new boyfriend, Bubba.

I pray you hear my heart this morning dear hearts....there is a life to be lived, in love and peace and joy, not the heartache you are currently experiencing. There is a war to be fought as you make your way to that new life, that new woman within you crying to grow in a land no longer fraught with danger.

We fight so we may live free.