Workshop for Adoptee Integration

At the tail end of this posting is a web address of my blog. It describes a workshop that I am offering in my home town. I hope to bring it to a larger audience eventually. It grew out of an exploratory art class that I took where I created my own process of internal healing. My goal was to create a series of boxes that told the story of my life. Each box was interactive and told of milestones and important phases and feelings that have encompassed my life. The final piece to the work was a large canvas with a representation of me "out of the box". The art work has been exhibited twice now. It was in the exhibit venue that I got a larger view of my art piece.

As I created this art piece I worked with the writings of Caroline Myss, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, and some of Carl Jung's work. Each spoke to me of archetypes and how the individual has within them these larger embodiments. The universal idea of orphan, mother, daughter, wife, and woman played major roles in assisting me in coming out of my own limited story.

When the art piece was completed and displayed it dawned upon me slowly that I had created my life story and had actually moved out of the role of victim in a very true sense. But what hit me like a ton of bricks is that I had told the story of the adoptee...the larger archetypal story complete with the healing and process stages without knowing that this was happening.

The workshop that I have put together is done really to respond to my longing to assist other adoptees in the healing potential that comes from telling your story and healing the fractured pieces in it in order to move on to a larger definition of yourself. The process has given me such a solid sense of who I am and allowed me to move out of the life long story of being an "adoptee". I will always hold this as a true part of my experience...but it no longer defines me...I have moved to a place where I can feel and be whatever self definition fits me now in my life. In essence I am free of the story and can create a whole new one....this is such a gift!

In the mean time if anyone would like to go to this workshop blog and give me some constructive criticism of it...I would be entirely grateful!

http://tellingyourstoryinart.blogspot.com/

The Subtle Feelings

It’s one of those days…those days that feel heavy and wraps a sense of being lost around you. There is no reason for this dropping of heart that feels as if it could not easily be understood. In my reflection of this familiar lost place I recognize why I am in this mood. It is again that sense of leaving…ending…and having hope take your hand uneasily while mustering your courage as you clasp and grip the invitation.

I am 46 years old. Not a spring chicken, but I feel alive and vibrant. My mind and dedication and future plans are electric.

And then there is today with this reminder that I still visit the swamp land of my past in exotic and subtle ways. My adoption happened in 1964 which left the first 5 years of my life full of foster homes, neglect, abuse, and confusion. These veils of emotion still are part of the garment that my emotional life wears. You would think that we would shed them after years of self reflection, healing, and integration. What I know now is they never go away, they simply find a subtleness that at times is unrecognizable.

This is what is happening today.

It is Tuesday. This past weekend I had a celebratory two days with long time friends and new friends. My friends and I have had a Native American circle of healing together for many years. We have practiced Michael Harner’s Shamanic Journey work since 1988 together. It has been a couple of years since we have joined our circle together again in my home. The circle has encompassed White Feather, the medicine man for the Wampanoag tribe on Chappaquiddick. He has joined our healing circle and has blessed us with pipe ceremony and sweat lodge work. We had a glorious healing weekend and the group members each broke open their hearts. I am the only adoptee in the circle, but we recognize each other through the challenges and circumstances we struggle to overcome in our lives. These are my family members who completely see me. Today I felt for the first time that I had a circle of family behind me that I could fall into and they would catch me.

How strange that this realization would sit along side this deep grey green feeling of loss today. There is the subtlety. I recognize the sadness after they returned to their prospective homes in other towns and some in other states. I am alone in the quiet today much like the aloneness and quiet of the bedroom of the daughter of the foster parents who took me in or the quiet of the corner of the playhouse on the black top at the orphanage. That small sad child sits with me today and I hold her and coo to her and whisper that all will be well.

Triad Member Blogs

The following is a resource list of triad member blogs online:
http://miassavinggrace.blogspot.com/2006/01/mias-saving-grace-journey-to.html
http://haggardoldpsycho.blogspot.com/
http://paragraphein.blogspot.com/2006/02/little-low.html
http://everyscarisabridge.blogspot.com/
http://nancyverrier.com
http://adoptioncrossroads.org
http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/9950/?20069
http://lovechild-myreunion.blogspot.com/
http://emptycerealbox.wordpress.com/