“The more experience you have, the more possibilities you can create.”
Tim Gunn
Black Rat Snake, Drozda, 2010
Welcome to this week’s art/life trail ride. Since we last met…Wren House has been burglarized and ransacked. Three hours away at my retreat farm an email from my neighbor informs me that ‘things don’t look right’ from outside. He and his wife go in look around… Yup…a break in.
Pack car, dogs, drive back to the beach. Police arrive shortly after 10:30 pm. Forensics follow at 11:30. Fingerprints dusted. Point of entry inspected. Data collected.
Well educated regarding crimes of invasion…and assault…I remain calm knowing all is (and will continue to be) well no matter what the appearances ‘from the outside’.
Morning begin cleanup.
This week I publish a memoir.
Black Rat Snake, Drozda, 2010
Experience is the keyword for the month of October. October provides an energetic preview for the year ahead. 2016 offers each of us a time to take inventory on what we have learned and mastered…more on this in later posts.
For now, while cleaning and sorting, I’ll let the voice of Experience speak.
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The River Beneath the River
Donna Iona Drozda © 2000
“The old woman La Loba…who lives beneath and yet on the top side of the earth.
She lives in us and through us and we are surrounded by her.”
A great theft takes place when I am nineteen. It is a theft of my soul in three parts.
The first loss comes in early June when my newborn is brought in and placed into my arms by mistake. He is being relinquished through adoption to Catholic Charities ‘for his and my own good’. He will be swiftly delivered to his new home where a family waits to enfold him as their own. I hold him in my arms long enough to create the tiny hand drawn portrait on the back of the adoption paperwork:
My Newborn, Ballpoint pen, Drozda, 1968
The only tangible memento of my solitary rite of passage into womanhood.
The second theft takes place two days later when the taxi returns me to my parents suburban Cleveland home. Every one thinks I’ve been working in Chicago. There is one person, my age, who I feel compelled to see and speak with. I need to communicate with this individual. In my mind it will be a major step in my attempt to begin again, however, it’s not to be. My 13 year old sister calls out as I retrieve my bag from the cab; “Donna! Donna! Guess who died.” I receive the news that his drug overdose occurred three days before I gave birth. I seem to be toppling.
Finally I am shattered like a glass when within weeks of the birth I arrange to drive across town to the campus of Case Western Reserve where a group of artist, poet and musician friends (including the father of my baby) live in a sprawling campus house. The voice on the phone when I call to invite myself over welcomes me by asking when I’ll arrive. I say I’ll be there by 3 pm on this bright and sunny Sunday.
It turns out to be a set up. I am entrapped. Guns, attack dog, 3 miscreants hold me hostage. Grabbing hand fulls of quaaludes from a greasy paper lunch bag they flip quarters in the air to see who will pull me up the grimy attic stair.
Tossed overboard without a life preserver.
Thrown from a plane without a parachute.
Climbing the mountain unaware of the avalanche.
The summer of 1968 establishes my mythic story line.
Suddenly growing up does not appear to hold the promise of my long cherished art/life dream. Yet, rising up from beneath all of the mind-numbing confusion is the instinct to keep moving.
I boldly take action and change the texture of my days…forever…
I travel, with an acquaintance, to The Farm.
“You can dent the soul and bend it. You can hurt it and scar it.
You can leave the marks of illness upon it, and scorch marks of fear.
But is does not die, for it is protected by La Loba in the underworld.
She is the finder and the incubator of the bones.”
The Farm reminds me of idyllic summer days visiting grandfather’s five acre home and enchanted orchard in the countryside of Peninsula Ohio. When I’m eleven Grandpa and Grandma die within weeks of one another taking with them my deep and nurturing connection to the natural world.
The Farm, begins my healing. I wake each morning, walk outdoors and breathe in the harmony of land and sky ringed by the beauty of the forest. I feel home. I want to live the rest of my life on this 300-acre Twitchell Farm.
I see that something serene exists in the world beyond the chaos
I wander, hiking the land until tired, leaning against a tree watching what happens to pass by…
A snail
A spider
A butterfly
A rabbit
A hawk
A doe…
My meanderings link morning and evening collecting eggs…
Days flow with a nourishing rhythm. On my way to visit the Rhode Island Reds I pass the large fenced vegetable garden.
A sacred space; far more private than the rest of the surroundings I give this area a wide berth…until several days into my visit. Now, I need to see what it feels like to be among the large leafy rows of greens, amidst the tripods holding vining plants and heavy gourds.
I unhook the rusted latch on the slatted wooden gate. I enter. Life is burgeoning. My inner senses dance among the variety of shapes and colors, textures and earthy aromas. I breathe in the perfection of the leaves and fruits. Bees and butterflies are at work in profusion.
I realize immediately that in order to be whole again I need a garden in my life
Something catches my eye. I squint through the over-sized foliage of a summer squash. Two hundred feet up the slope, lying snug against the earth, I see the main residence, a low single story contemporary home, a natural pond outside the back door.
I stare
The sun is reflecting off of the surface of the water. Through the dazzling light I see an apparition. I watch as a graceful nude rises up and steps out of the water. There’s fluidity to her movement and dignity in her posture. She wraps in a white flowing garment. She stands in the sun and idly creates a long single braid in her pure white hair walking slowly as the shadows absorb her into the house.
“Within each woman there is a wild and natural creature,
a powerful force, filled with good instincts, passionate creativity,’
and ageless knowing.”
The following day, as I wander near the garden I find, squatting low among the rows of beans, a clay pot at her feet, my vision. She smiles and asks about me; my name, my length of stay. She introduces herself as Alice Twitchell.
After our initial meeting, Alice silently invites me to spend time with her.We become companions. The days take on mysterious depth and substance. I am entranced. I observe the manner in which this angelic woman glides through her days. There is a frailty that visits her… frequently she excuses herself. She floats around a corner like mist and disappears into a room down a long hallway.
Reappearing from her quiet time wrapped in the embroidered white caftan she speaks quietly to me of things foreign and exotic like India and Tarot, Ba’ Hai, meditation and miso; of the rigors of art school, sculpting marble, lingering effects of polio and chiropractic adjustments. I don’t understand her or her ways yet I know that I want only to be with her and I want to be more like her than like myself.
After two transcendent weeks on The Farm I must leave. I don’t recall any part of the departure. I disassociate.
Alice has so much to teach me and I have so much to learn. I sense that I will follow in her footsteps (to the best of my ability) for the rest of my days.
I write to thank Alice for all that I have gained as a guest on The Farm. A week later a large manila envelope is delivered. I find five pages of her poems, four sheets of her small abstract watercolor paintings, and an enraptured letter. It is the first of twenty-six years of delightful correspondence and visits.
This first treasured letter kept me alive for years:
Dear Lovely beautiful Donna
Tis my turn to thank you and also to thank that Unknowable Beyond Our Knowledge God which gave us both, Life…on whose path we walk towards Life…Your gracious and penetrating letter plumbed the heights of my depths! How about that for a paradoxical impossibly feminine construction?!
We learned anew, deep truths anew! You and I!
Man changes…man becomes Man, girl becomes woman and woman becomes WOMAN! Our humanity is potentially, no more than that! It must become high, Donna, higher than the angels, for so it is decreed!
Our Lord Jesus Christ so said…and others as well…
I am thanking Him for the gift of you…and …since I first saw you; your lovely self has firmly imprinted its image upon my heart, my inmost heart! Yes you will never leave the farm…always I’ll look up to see your piquant face and slender strong figure, your eyes with the depths of the High Ones shining through their lustrous grays…and wherever you walk, I’ll be with you…my strength is vast, and from Beyond, for without Him I am empty, a nothing…but O my path is that razor sharp Path…He helps me to be strong. So take from me what you will…I know that you will use it wisely. We rejoice at your gift of yourself…it gives us joy, deep as well as sweet,
Lovingly yours,
Alice
Thank you for writing…thank you…Please let me know where you are as you follow where your special star leads you!
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In 1991 I camp beside the Rio Chama, in Abiqui, New Mexico where Alice and Larry live. Next to my campfire under the brilliant October night sky Alice shares the story of the loss of her eighteen-year-old daughter.
The fatal car accident occurred six months before I arrived on The Farm as a young girl in a deep state of trauma.
We had bonded as surrogates…each unaware of the others shattering injury.
“What is La Loba? …she is the female soul. Yet she is more;
she is the source of the feminine. She is all that is of instinct.
Of the worlds both seen and hidden-she is the basis.
We each receive from her a glowing cell which contains all the instincts
And knowings needed in our lives.”
*******************************************************************
Alice Emma Buscher Twitchell
November 4, 1917 – January 28, 1994
“She who we love and lose is no longer where she was before.
She is now wherever we are.”
English gravestone inscription
All quoted excerpts from Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
The trail ride goes deeper inward. How do you rebound after you Experience a wounding?
Help us gain strength. I invite you to leave your comments.
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my heart is heavy and made light at the same time…
each word (in your post and in all of the comments) I digest…
I have not these experiences howeve the generous sharing and compassion felt,
allow me to move deeper into the feminine, into the womb, into the container that each of us holds sacred
i am humbled
i thankyou
Dear Cindy
Good to see you. Thank you for your heartfelt comment…when we tell it like it is it rings true…when we practice with one another the wave grows stronger, more compassionate and each of us advances on the art/life trail ride with truth, beauty and goodness overflowing our saddle bags.
I’m so glad that you are here.
me2xo
This is the COOLEST thing, Donna! The teaching as a result of your blogs just goes on an on!!….from one majestic comment after another and then your replies to each. This is like watching the building of a cathedral from the ground up, getting grander and grander with each new addition!! I am in awe and full of deep, deep appreciation for the words each of you speaks.
I agree Marianne…it is cool.
As we go further into the ‘season of Being’ (fall/winter on the natural calendar) the opportunity for adding to the conversation ‘deep in the cave, close to the fire’ will be available for each of us to witness and/or bring our voice to.
Reminder: During the fall/winter we’re exploring the art/life from a feminine perspective. Symbolically we move down and turn within. We spend time settling into the orenda, the womb cave, the seat of our creative power. We visit our creative roots. When we take these six moon/months to repair/prepare it gives us the power and the resolution that allows us to take wing anew come the spring.
Dearest Donna,
I just returned from a month on the road with a big project and, the preparations the month before gobbled up my time so I wasn’t able to keep up with your amazing newsletters. Today, (out of the thousand plus awaiting emails) I was immediately drawn to read your October 15 “more experience” blog. My heart kept bursting open as I read on through yet one more devastating experience after another. I knew something of your experiences but this open, unguarded and vulnerable sharing really dug deep and cut to the bone of pain and compassion. It both breaks my heart and inspires me with your courage. Through all the harrowing experiences you’ve been through in your life, I have never felt that you have taken it on as “the victim” or “a poor wretched target of evil.” YES, my god, you’ve experienced more than almost any human could take without completely breaking and as a young woman I’m sure you pulled in deep just to survive. The physical abuse is amongst the deepest scaring. And yet out of each dive deeper into the inferno, you have arisen more whole, more spiritual and more powerful as a human being and creative, loving soul. You’ve transformed hell into heal, misery into mastery, pain into love. You are a true Heartist & heroine my dear friend and an incredible teacher. I am so grateful to share this time in the world with you and thank you deeply for your contributions to my life and learning. You are a gift to all.
Much Love,
Joanne
Joanne…thanks…thanks for naming…
open,
unguarded and
vulnerable…
these three descriptors lift me up and allow me to feel carried by something bigger and greater than my little self.
I appreciate your reflection and I’m grateful that being open, unguarded and vulnerable made a place for your “heart to burst open”…not on my behalf but on behalf of the many, the countless many, who endure violence and hidden abuse that creates a wall, a tomb, a death sentence for their life force.
I didn’t have to have that as the main part of my experience. It’s true. I was offered a death sentence. I might have remained broken in two had it not been for all of the support that life provided through Alice and her modeling for me of what an art/life could look like.
From her example I learned of gardens lush and wild, the sanctuary of yoga & meditation, the making of marks on paper in a whole new way and from there I opened myself to a full pantheon of healing techniques…for sixteen uninterrupted years…and it didn’t stop there.
I don’t minimize what I endured however it has not defined me. Facing the ‘Angels from Hell’ makes me capable of feeling the trauma of others and has set me on a course of tremendous love of life and for discovering the joy medicine that deeply heals…no matter what the situation, circumstance or challenge.
Here we are…each a ‘Here-O’ in her own life capable of modeling the ‘Chronology’ of ACT III for all. AH HO!!
Oh yes, open hearts to empathize with those who suffer and when you yourself have experienced something of the same, the empathy goes deeper. It is what I will call an anomaly for us to have to experience pain to feel for others yet, pain can be a great teacher, adding to our growth process.
I believe that once the heart is open (even by breaking) that there is space for greater compassion.
You were indeed offered a “death sentence” yet held tight to something that allowed you to endure and finally gain freedom. Alice was a blessing indeed and you were there to receive. I know you were a gift to one another. These guides help us first help ourselves, then others. It is glorious healing.
Here and Now O’. May our Crone-ology be of inspiration to others. 😉
I agree Joanne…I couldn’t know anything about suffering in the way that I do…or the release from the causes of suffering…as I have been gifted by experience… without having gone through the ‘death sentence’ and getting the simultaneous reprieve.
It is such a grand demonstration of how life indeed works…as my dear friend ‘Madame Silvari’ said as she lay on her death bed leaving via a fast growing brain tumor: “Life works.”
Ah Drozda,
Life called me to read your post this morning, a routine I have dropped. Thank you for the reminder of life’s core, the undeniable urge to renew. Today is the five week anniversary of my home burning to the ground. Since then life has been tumbling through resets, friendships deepening, kind strangers, willing assistants. Many in my community are also affected, and we are coming together, exploring how to rebuild better than ever. I am not a victim of the Valley Fire, I am a cocreator as a result. And yet I need to remain vigilant for my inner little ones, those aspects of self who carry previous trauma, who have been hiding under the blankie, so-to-speak, who sit dazed, too numb to even question… It continues to be my honor to know you.
See Debra…this is where the trauma comes and where we have the opportunity to make huge leaps as we grow past the awful and find the awe-full.
How completely stunning it is that you have EXPERIENCED “friendships deepening, kind strangers, willing assistants” and that you can remind us that “I am not a victim of the Valley Fire, I am a co-creator as a result”…smart to keep the blankie near.
I’m so touched, moved and inspired that you dropped in today. We’re here trail riding into the feminine depths of the art/life…as these coming months unfold…
I am so deeply and unspeakably sorry that fire took your home… I saw news footage of those wildly brutal infernos devouring everything in their path. I stand with and for you and your community coming together during this exploration of the rebuilding time.
Metta
nothing like being ransacked and vandalized within and without ones home and ones body and heart to bring EXPERIENCE to bear.
Experience with its double edged humour and acceptance of the present. It cruelly and casually shows us where we are in our growth.
However this burglary doesn’t sound right. It doesn’t sound like EXPERIENCE but simply ughly action on part of ughly people
Take care m’deah Iona.
love, Ellis
Hi Ellis…yes…these were clearly creeps. The police picked them up two days later using a helicopter and K-9 patrol to corral the three of them on their bicycles…armed. These ‘uglies’ are off the street.
hugs
d
After every wounding, I have always found a teacher. I was not aware of their role in my life journey until I became AWARE. I have had always, always found solitude in nature to be my healing place. I am most comfortable in wooded areas, but I always told my grandmother I would live in the mountains or I would live by the ocean. I have done both, and now I live in the mountains. My trees and I have a mutual healing agreement. When winter ice or snow harms them, I send out showers of love. When I am harmed, they send me showers of love. Now that I am a Crone, I find I teach others and I live in solitude. It is wondrous that I live in my studio, and I arise every morning to a world of weaving, spinning, knitting, and other fiber arts. I am preparing now to move into my winter retreat and projects. I am seldom seen until Spring. Thank you for your sharing and your teachings. It is always affirming to know that others live the life I do.
Oh Juliann you weave such a gorgeous picture of the feminine energy of not only this inward turn of the year but also the over all awareness of how to be in the world but not of the world. Isn’t it the miracle of miracles that “After every wounding, I have always found a teacher.” That was the lesson that came for me in having Alice rise up out of the water, stripped naked, fully exposed, vulnerable beyond my knowing and so willing to hold my energy so that I could begin to not only heal but also see and sense and feel the way that my art/life would need to be…in nature, on water and near the Standing Ones….like you…”My trees and I have a mutual healing agreement.” How lovely that you are here….weaving, spinning, knitting the art/life.
Dearest friend, though I “know” your story, as I read it here today, it moves me again. In such a short time you are forced downward, and move yourself from one most harrowing into a true heroine of life, which you live as an example for us all to witness each day, sharing yourSelf, your ArtLife so eloquently. Thank you ❤️
And I love the wisdom in those words of Tim Gunn, great quote!
Hey K
What a great surprise to find you here. Yes…I was so happy to have those Tim Gunn words pop up so perfectly for this week.
I appreciate your tender reflection…we heal together.
hugs
d
Love, love, and more LOVE. What I always strive to do asap after I feel wounded is to dig deeper and deeper to uncover how and why I was the one wielding the knife. As an example,
(Reader’s Digest version), four years ago I won an international Batik competition, and this wondrous event pushed my partner over his emotional cliff. He felt/assumed that I had abandoned him (original wound) and over the next two years, entirely behind my back, got us 200+k in debt and lied to me all the way through. The best description of how I felt was BETRAYED. When, after the initial PTSD, I began asking myself the deeper questions, I clearly saw that I had been emotionally betraying myself my whole life. Cody’s behavior, while very different in form, was in fact a crystal clear mirror for the way I had been treating myself on non physical levels. Once ownership has been claimed, healing is as swift as we are able and willing to allow. I now am Whole in a way I could not have imagined two years ago, and have never been happier or freer. And, I am glad to report, Cody is going through his own profound transformation, taking responsibility for his life and actions, and our relationship is becoming something brand new and truly self and other respecting. You are a True Warrior, dear Donna, and a Warrior of Truth. Ask yourself why this event, at this particular time in your life’s journey. What does it mirror to you, about you? Feel, own, take responsibility, set yourself FREE.
XOXO
Beth
Hi Beth …your report is clear and indicates the joy that waits to meet us as we face the demon dancin’ round the bed.
You model the tough love of asking the deeper questions. That’s something we are often too busy, or unwilling to do…and yet when we climb down into the feminine version of the Kiva (which is more akin to listening to our gut) and allow the still voice to speak, the clarity rises up unobstructed.
From there we are free to deny or accept responsibility.
thank you for your questions.
I really value how changing our own behavior changes the dynamic that we share with those around us…as you relate with the way that Cody is transforming his life. Win/win.
As for the home invasion that took place at Wren House…thanks also for asking about the quality of the ‘attraction’ around this experience.
First, is the recognition that there was no harm done. They took a few items that they could get money for and they left.
Second, the act of trespassing and taking…that’s predatory energy. Predators are all around…these three individuals who broke into our home, and several others homes in our neighborhood before they were apprehended on Wednesday, are not able to see a different way as of yet.
Third, I’m not their victim. This event happened because I forgot to lock one window in my home when I left town. They took actions that intruded on my life for a brief moment…this took place at this particular time in my life journey, mirroring to me my deep strength and authentic love for all that is, including the polarities that show us the dual nature of it all…the up/down, in/out, good/bad, right/wrong, glorious/wretched, joyful/sorrow, white hats/black hats. One big third dimensional soup. Yum Yum.
I shared ‘The River Beneath the River’ memoir…written in 2000 because that ‘Once upon a time…’ is for me a constant and compassionate reminder of the way that life truly works. Keeping the focus on beauty, truth and goodness, the likes of which Alice modeled for me, has served me well…demons may dance…and when they do I take a deep breath, take a healthy dose of joy medicine and turn on the light.
Oh, Donna! I am sitting here after reading today’s blog with tears in my eyes! And they contain EVERYTHING because your words contained everything. So many write and touch another’s mind or heart or feelings …. but your words went so much deeper, landing with such quiet force, such noisy silence in the core of my very soul! How horrible/wonderful that you had such excruciating experiences in your life that stripped away all potential superficiality, leaving you standing naked and beautiful in your pure Self! This week’s post made me want to run to you to comfort you, to sit with you to ask questions and hear more of your story, to sit at your feet to absorb your wisdom that seems to leak incessantly from your lips and pen and brush! : ) Thank you for this most recent gift to us all! You are swiftly becoming my ‘favorite author’!!
Hi Marianne…your comment is a gift. Thank you. Horrible/wonderful, glorious/wretched, joyful/sorrowful…this is a magnificent time of the year, during the Experience moon/month to look at the duality, polarity and shadow dance of dark and light recognizing that this is the climate of the third dimensional plane and the experience of being here.
I thank the stars that Alice appeared rising up out of the water on that day, at that time creating a life line for my art/life that has been unbroken for now 47 years.
Life works.