The Flower in the Wound

There are three roads in life, according to some of the old traditions! Three ancient colors mark the way: The red road is one of blood, iron and fire. It is the way of a warrior, refining the edges of our being, bringing us close to anger and passion, so we may learn how to flow alongside those energies and guide them into creative pursuits, as we find commonality and camaraderie with brothers and sisters and discover that the blood and waters which flow in our body, flows in them too.

The white road is one of bone, ash, and milk. The Great Mother's milk, nourishing each of us, the experiences of every being throughout time recorded in the bones of our ancestors, and ash, the remains of what has been purified through fire. This road takes us to the light of consciousness, to the forces of creation itself, and shows us that life, at its essence, is a journey of purification; the wounds of the ancestors are carried in our bones and affect us on many levels, each unintegrated hurt from the past, still causing pain in the present, until we integrate and transcend the wounds, and they are alchemized into something else.

The black road...ah, the black road. The journey into Shadow and death. This is not the morbid journey into death that modern Western Society generally sees. This is a dive into the grit of life, into the fact that every one of us carries a share of the world wound, that of separation. And ironically, that can lessen the sense of separation between us; if we can stand to be with another's wounding without trying to fix them or make things different. This road leads into the origin of everything, the deep, black emptiness of space out of which all emerges: the baby from the womb, the tree from the soil, the galaxy from the cosmos.

My dad was a big, gruff man who joined the army when he was 20 and soon after married my mum, who was a Red Cross nurse at the time. I don’t think he had a clue what it would be like after three sons magically appeared. Men often desire more space as they grow. Space to read, space to relax, space to do what they want to do without the responsibility for other humans, especially children. And the more wounded you are, the more space one thinks one needs. We can get grumpy when we don’t have space. We’re afraid of that grumpiness; we’re afraid of our own shadows, really. We’re afraid that the savage monster within will erupt through our chest cavity and tear into the people around us. So, as Thoreau so beautifully expressed, “All men live in quiet desperation,” and my dad was one of those men.

His father died in the worst Air Force accident in Australian history, when the unsecured load that his plane was carrying slid to the rear on take-off and the plane flipped and exploded. His childhood, as far as I can gather, was a lonely one, and devoid of affection, as many kids at that time were. The adults in that era had lived through war, and many were damaged. The language of emotion wasn’t known and few expressed their feelings. So, wounds went unshared, were pressed deep down in the belly and rarely allowed to rise to the solar plexus, let alone the heart, where they would find sanctuary and healing. Just think: barely a foot away from the place where much emotion is suppressed, there is a place of salvation. The sanctuary of the human heart; where so much transformation occurs. Because it lets it all in, you see? It leaves nothing out and its field extends to infinity and beyond…when the fears in the mind don’t enclose it in a fortress of high walls and guardian archers, ready to fire on any demon that comes close.

My dad’s demons were many, I suspect, so his fortress was rock solid. He drank a lot to sedate the enemy, and smoked a lot to appease them. Unfortunately, demons require constant attention and have ravenous appetites. They are hungry ghosts after all…and they are old! So old! All the unmet desires of the past ten thousand generations; the unacknowledged hurts; the scars of battle; the imprint of terror in another’s eyes as they let out their last breath at the behest of our sword. Every rape, murder, torture, imprisonment, burning, beating, humiliation, shaming, stoning, stealing…they all left a mark in human flesh and bone, which then gain a will of their own, a longing for freedom from the pain of that past event that plays over and over until, some courageous soul comes along to break the cycle of imprinting, and look the demon in the eye as we listen to them speak. Not to be swayed by them, but to really hear their story and then welcome them into that space of our heart. That’s all they’re looking for: to be loved. That is all everything and everyone is looking for. Love!

But when you don’t know that these demons are just the ash of old, unintegrated events, they can appear pretty terrifying, so we find ways to keep them tame, tied or asleep. My dad tried all three, but putting a cork into an active volcano only works for so long. After some time, small annoyances become an irritation, irritations become anger, and anger erupts into rage. This is the blunt stretch of the red road, I believe; before the blade has been sharpened and refined, it bludgeons and batters, creating an awful mess of everything and is rarely discriminatory in who it maims. By the time I was 5 years old, a riding crop was the preferred tool of discipline. It was brutal. My brothers received the same, although my older brother doesn’t remember it happening as often as I do. I suspect that one son would not stir the demon cauldron so much that it couldn’t be contained. But two, and then three?

I think my dad was angry at the way life was turning out; always worried about money, and doing a job he didn’t really enjoy, like most men back then. He went into the army because it promised a lot and he wasn’t guided to discover what he loved to do. He fell into a marriage with someone he perhaps didn’t even know if he loved or not. He was charming in the courting of my mother, I was told. But once the ring was on, all charm dropped away. He wasn’t taught what he had to do after the courtship to maintain a relationship. And being a military man, he needed orders from an authority, otherwise the army begins to lose focus and get unruly. And dad did that best with whisky, when he would become so drunk, he’d be unable to stand. It’s difficult to see a powerful man brought to the floor by his own unresponsive muscles.

I remember when I was about 4, woken in the early hours of a morning by a thunderstorm. I walked to the top of the stairs and sat on the top step. The lightening flashed and lit up the whole house, and I saw my dad in full dress uniform, ceremonial sword at his side, lying, curled up next to the bottom step. He couldn’t make it up the stairs to bed, so he passed out right there. My small mind didn’t have much understanding of it back then. But it is my first memory, and it had a mythical impact on me, somehow. The soldier, returning from the battle of the day, celebrating the victory of getting through another day in life, with beer and wine and food, and then falling into the arms of oblivion, where not even dreams parade before the inner eye, let alone the deep sadness and disappointment of the little boy inside.

I think the little boy that I was in that moment, could sense the little boy in my dad, and had some whispered conversation with him, the way little boys do when they are talking about something very serious and very important. And perhaps he conveyed to me that his soul knew, before it came into this world, that he would end up beating his rage into my body, and that he was distraught about it, even though he knew it was required on some plane, to pass on my share of the world wound, so that I could break the cycle and choose something different. He knew all this; he knew I was equal to the task; and it was excruciatingly painful for his soul to do so. It was the greatest gift he could have given.

Now, I don’t condone physical abuse, nor abuse of any kind. But if humankind is to thrive, we first need to own our wounds. And they belong to all. This life is not an opportunity to count up the transgressions of each person and record them on a scoreboard. This is about realising that we have all played in a part in the wounds this world has suffered. We are molded by every person who crosses our path, and we mold them too, even with the lightest of touches, with the fewest of words, we profoundly affect other beings. And some carry lightness with them, to lift others up on the white road. Others carry the heaviness of trauma, to bring others down to ground, to be with the earth beneath our feet, and feel the suffering of others so deeply that they are penetrated by it, thereby becoming sensitive and empathetic, and learning that behind every rageful action or remark, there is really a cry for help.

Dad was too proud to ask for help openly, but I think that when my mum left him with me and my brothers, it broke him a little. I often used to imagine him sitting on his single bed in the officer’s mess accommodation for servicemen without families, staring down at the floor and wondering what the hell was going on. I imagine that he was the loneliest man on Earth in that moment. And the loneliness rose enough to stir some of the bubbling potion in the cauldron of his belly; enough to create some alchemy, and for him to retire from the army, find a new home, and draw another into his life, who was medicine for his soul. Someone earthy and real, who grounded him and helped him find some stability, companionship and happiness.

The wound he left me with, was heavy, and I carried its lead weight for several decades, until I began to see it in a different way. I saw that the physical and emotional scars that his whip or hand left me with, had given me the grit to face so many uncomfortable things in life, that had strengthened me, taught me, helped me to grow and learn and become who I am today. I am loved by my partner and my friends and family. And I love them and love to see them happy. I have done so many amazing things – seen the sunrise from Mount Sinai, dived in the Red Sea, sat in the silence of deep, mountain caves, slept atop Welsh mountains, steeped in ancient folklore, listened to the howl of wild wolves, spent a monsoon season alone on a jungle farm on the Thai-Myanmar border, lived in a mountain-top village in the Alpujarras mountains, walked the old forests of Britain, and watched lightning storms on a lake island in Sumatra, while giant vampire bats took flight as the evening light faded. Yet the greatest thing I have done, is to open my heart. To see that each wound, each hurt and upset I ever received, I was not a victim of. They weren’t things that happened to me. They happened for me.

Dad was not a bad man by any means. He was hurt. And he knew he would not succeed in healing himself before the end of his short life. So, he passed me and my brothers the baton, and gave us a beautiful gift. Each wound inflicted, tore a hole in that armor of the heart, until eventually, the walls and tower fell. The archers became a welcoming committee, and they stand at the place where there were once gates and drawbridge, and they usher everything in. So whenever I am low, or some event has just brought me down or made me feel small, I often sit on some steps, remember the little boy at the bottom of the stairs in full dress uniform and ceremonial sword, and I open my heart to the feelings and thoughts surrounding the event. Invariably, I feel it rise, and revel in relief…as if to say, ‘At last. Freedom. Thank you.’

This is the flower in the wound.