The last few days have been pretty hairy for me so this one seems like an appropriately timely choice. Kind of a little southwestern US region / Arizona / New Mexico vibe going on here, with something reminiscent of a mutated I Ching hexagram in the center.
Drawn on Valentine’s Day 2013. Any connection to the alleged holiday of Feb 14 is purely synchronistic in nature.
Last December, I published a post titled “A male survivor’s perspective on ‘rape culture’” in which I wrote about attending my first group for male survivors of childhood sexual abuse at the local rape crisis center. I recalled that as men entering a space most prominently defined as a safe space for women, an environment where men were perceived by many to be the enemy, we were less than welcome:
I’ll never forget the looks I received from the women I encountered as I crossed the parking lot and entered the building. Hostility would be putting it mildly …
I could understand the attitude, given the “men are perpetrators, not victims” orthodoxy of the time and the likelihood that at least some of the women felt profoundly unsafe around men due to personal history. I could allow for all of that, but it didn’t make screwing up the courage to face the unearned anger, scorn, and disdain every week any less of a challenge.
The publication of my post resulted in an email conversation with a female reader who, having also read some of my poetry (including this one), said:
I wrote something, encouraged by the directness of your poems, and even though I don’t want to share it as ‘me’, I would like to share it anonymously. The idea came to me that this could be something that would fit well with your mission and would allow you to address the topic you addressed here further, on how it’s important for women to understand the impact they have on the men around them who had nothing to do with their abuse trauma …
Writing this has been a big healing milestone for me and an anchor point and I wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for your e-mail. Thank you!
With her permission, I’m posting her poem below (anonymously per her request). Beyond its personal significance for the author, this poem is a wonderful example of how an open-hearted dialogue, in which men and women hold their own space while allowing space for the other, can lead to significant new insights and better understanding of self as well as of the other. As such, it is a welcome antidote to the deeply held antagonism and bitter power struggles so rampant nowadays in what is commonly known as the gender wars. It serves as a much-needed reminder that a healing conversation between men and women is still possible, especially if we are willing to identify and take full ownership of our personal histories, projections, and fears.
Here is her poem. It is untitled.
I already knew that love was foreign to you. Yet mom always said you are a typical (normal) man and so for a long time I believed her. I knew that getting on your good side meant being rational. I knew that the closest thing you knew to love was respecting someone because they were able to win. I tried hard to win. Yet the better I got, the more I was losing. I got to a point where I realised I didn't want to compete with you for approval. I didn't want to try so hard to get your 'positive' attention. I started to understand that it wasn't normal that I had to try so hard. I started to understand that you are not a typical, nor normal man at all. All this time I'd expected all the men in my life to be like you, and so I let them get away with being cold and rational, just like I expected. I was pushing away all the good men out there, because I didn't believe they really existed. Sometimes I was mean to someone and I didn't understand where it came from. Or I didn't realise I was being mean at all. I had forgotten that I was maintaining two different versions of you: version one was the man who did what you did. Version two was the man who did what you should have done. I waited a long time for version two to materialize in you, and all that time, I was angry at all the men out there because I believed that deep inside, they were all a version one of you. I was confused. I needed to be confused to survive the insanity. So I saw you everywhere, except in yourself. Now that you are you again, all the other men can again start morphing back into who they truly are. No longer version one of you. I am sorry for all the pain of those projections that kept me safe from my own fear of the truth. incest. ~AnonyMiss.
Photo credit: David Jewell. Used by permission.
new element
subatomic love particle
cosmic elucidator
translucent crucifix
transfixion illuminator.
so many years
broken and torn
now I am ripe
now I am born.
A little background on this post: I originally wrote this entry on 02/28/13, but was feeling a bit too vulnerable then to share it. I read through it again this morning for the first time in over a month and felt a bit sorry that I hadn’t posted it. So here it is, a bit out of sequence in terms of specific time and feeling, but still relevant in terms of my motivation for writing it.
I’d like to thank everyone for the encouragement and supportive suggestions shared in response to my blog post from yesterday (“Caught between the road and the sky”). I’ve been struggling with the issue about which I wrote for a very long time. It has deep roots and there are times (like now) when I feel as if I will never resolve it.
I know I’m not alone in having longstanding core issues that challenge and confound. Unfortunately, I still often find it far easier to extend my patience, compassion, and understanding to others with their own issues than I do to myself with mine. Try as we may, sometimes we simply cannot see ourselves and our own situations fully and clearly. At those times, we need others.
I learned to survive during childhood by internalizing everything I could because my perceptions and feelings were not welcome or safe, and by relying on myself because I couldn’t trust others to be there when I needed them. Old habits of survival learned and practiced under decades of duress can be hard to shake.
I still expect, much of the time, that if I open up about a problem or share a fear or weakness, no one will be there. I still tend to expect that the help I need will not be there when I need it, and that I’ll have to go it alone, because that’s been my experience for so much of my life. I also learned, very early on, that any help, support, and attention I received typically came with a price. Receiving help, support, and attention meant paying up now or owing a debt. Most of the time, I paid by giving up part of myself, as that was all I had to give as a child. I’ve not shaken this pattern fully either.
I do my best to be brave and clear in both my life and my writing, but sometimes, despite my most heartfelt efforts and intentions, I feel weak and confused instead. I aspire to freedom but find ways to trap myself. I am sometimes as stubborn in my desire to quit as I am in my refusal to quit. I’ve been experiencing all of these states lately in some very deep ways, and I’m frustrated with myself, with my inability to be smarter, to make better decisions, and to solve my own problems.
For all of these reasons and many more, I appreciate the fact that I have allies, witnesses, and supporters out there (most of whom I’ve never met) as I continue to make my way forward in what mythologist Joseph Campbell called “the night sea journey … where the individual is going to bring forth in his life something that was never beheld before.” It’s a long trip, often lonely, sometimes dark, and it’s good to know that you’re with me.
Photo credit: David Jewell. Used by permission.
My video reading of the poem “easter” from my book Iron Man Family Outing is featured today on the Beyond Meds website, accompanied by a short written reflection on the poem and its role in my developing view of my father over the years. Click here to watch and read.
My poem “fused at the wound” from my first book, Iron Man Family Outing, will soon be appearing in a new book called The Human Magnet Syndrome: Why We Love People Who Hurt Us by Ross Rosenberg. Ross is a counselor/psychotherapist and the owner of Clinical Care Consultants in Arlington Heights, IL. In the introduction to his book, he writes:
This book is about real-life relationships — common everyday relationships — that many of us have experienced, but wish we hadn’t. It is also about codependents and emotional manipulators and the ubiquitous “magnetic force” that brings them together into a lasting dysfunctional romantic relationship. The reader will learn why codependents and emotional manipulators are always attracted to each other and why, despite major personal and emotional upheavals, they remain together.
I’ve found over the years that “fused at the wound” is a poem that seems to resonate very strongly with many people, both men and women alike, and I’m pleased that Ross has chosen to include it in his new book. You can watch my video reading of the poem and read some additional background about the circumstances of the poem’s creation here. For more information about Ross Rosenberg and his upcoming book, visit his website at humanmagnetsyndrome.com.
I’m also pleased to add that this isn’t the first time that another author has chosen to include an excerpt from Iron Man Family Outing in his or her own book. Last year’s book Tough Guys and True Believers: Managing Authoritarian Men in the Psychotherapy Room by psychologist John M. Robertson included two poems from Iron Man Family Outing (“learning to breathe” and “release”). The 2009 book Drinking the Dragon: Stories of the Dark Night of Soul by psychotherapist Patricia Ariadne featured several pages of excerpts and related commentary on material from Iron Man Family Outing, including selections from the following poems:
I’m happy to see so much material from my Iron Man book making its way out into the world in new contexts that allow more folks to see it. As I wrote some time ago on the Bio page of my website:
It’s always been my intention and my heartfelt desire that my work would provide transformational opportunities for others as well as for myself. I’m thankful to have the chance to reach new people and, hopefully, contribute to their growth and healing in some way.
Sincere thanks to Ross Rosenberg, John M. Robertson, Patricia Ariadne, and everyone else who’s shared something I’ve written, for helping me extend the reach of my work by incorporating some of it into your own.
I’m making my first appearance today as a guest blogger on Jungian author Jean Raffa’s blog with a video poem and commentary titled “Falling Through: One Man’s Fear of Feeling” about my fear of feeling and expressing grief, sadness, and pain. Here’s Jean’s introduction to my post:
In keeping with my latest theme of the wounded masculine, I’m pleased to share this piece by guest blogger, Rick Belden. Rick is an author and a poet who has struggled to get in touch with his feelings throughout his adult life. As you’ll see in this post, he’s learned how to use his creative imagination to heal the wounds of his childhood.
You can read the full article here.
Photo credit: David Jewell. Used by permission.
a desert a wasteland cold. something terrible thousands and thousands of crude wooden crosses the skeleton of a child nailed to each and every one close your eyes and imagine this imagine your own child in this place imagine yourself. winter winds whip the bones of these children rib cages frozen in fear decades ago rattle but keep their secrets still. between the bones there is ice inside the ice there is fire within the fire there is a secret the secret that keeps them here. each child was brought here by an adult a trusted friend brought here exploited split open left here left to hang in this bitter wind and commune with ghosts. the child never had a choice. these children have families that love them dearly blind families that will see no evil deaf families that will hear no evil dumb families that will speak no evil. families that cannot believe a child's body knows the difference between fantasy and reality ... are you sure you're not making this up? families that cannot believe their beautiful children could have been taken away ... but you were such a happy child! families that cannot believe this could ever happen to their own children ... not in this family! families that cannot believe the words sexually abused could ever describe their own children ... no secrets in this family, by god! it is not too late for these children they await resurrection and salvation they ache to be healed but cannot do it alone fathers mothers brothers and sisters lovers spouses families and friends they need you. take them down from these crosses trust them welcome them into your heart love them hold them close and warm their coldest places hear them feel their fire and honor it believe them. one secret at a time one child at a time believe them.
I’ve created a playlist on my YouTube channel (rickbeldenpoet) for the video readings I made a while back of poems from my second (still unpublished) book, Scapegoat’s Cross: Poems about Finding and Reclaiming the Lost Man Within. The seven poems included in the video series are:
You can watch me read these seven poems in sequence using the player above, or you can click here to select and play individual videos directly from the YouTube page for the playlist.
PDF versions of these and many other poems from Scapegoat’s Cross are available on the “New Book” page of my website.
a liquid black cloud spreads its fingers across the family sky like ink from a squid filling an aquarium tank blotting out the sun turning everyone and everything the color of a funeral shadow blue. a virus infects the family tree twisting the future obscuring the past spreading from generation to generation feeding on the children turning the adults into monsters or rendering them mute. a parasite enters the family bloodstream burrowing into hearts and minds anchoring in tender bodies protecting and propagating itself with a trance forget forget forget. I will not forget and I will not pass these nightmares on to anyone else. I'll pull those black fingers down out of my sky I'll dig this virus out of my roots I'll burn this parasite out of my blood. I'll hunt down every last trace of this psychic infection this evil rot that was injected into me when I was a child and I'll haul it out into the daylight where it can't survive. I'll scream it out I'll vomit it out I'll drag it out of me any way I can tooth and claw root and branch blood and bone until I've purged it from my life and cleansed myself completely. I reject the conspiracy of amnesia and silence that allows this systemic scourge to thrive unchallenged in secret in dark and helpless places I reject the family commandments thou shalt not remember thou shalt not feel thou shalt not tell I will remember I will feel I will tell I'll take back my life from this shadow blue plague and if that makes me an outcast a traitor in the eyes of the family then so be it.
About the artwork:
The art that accompanies this poem is a mixed media painting called “Virus” by the very talented Canadian artist Staci Poirier. Staci created her painting as a both a response and a companion to my poem. You can read more about Staci here and see more of her artwork here.
Painting and poem were featured earlier this year on the Good Men Project website with a “zoom page” for the painting where you can view larger images of various sections to see some of the marvelous detail.
The artwork and poem also appeared together in the Fall 2012 issue of the Jungian journal Depth Insights, which featured Staci’s painting on the cover and includes some additional background from her about materials used to create the art as well as some of her thoughts on the themes that are being expressed.
Depth Insights is also available as a free PDF with painting and poem presented side by side on page 8.
It’s been a great pleasure to be a part of this poetry-and-art collaboration, and I’ve been very happy to see my poem and Staci’s art presented together in multiple places in such an elegant fashion.
