The Tiger and the Swan

Authors note: I wrote and illustrated this story over 15 years ago. I never really did anything with it except to send it to one publisher and read it to the Quaker Friends Sunday School, and to my elementary students in Washburn, WI.  Some recent events made me decide to share this story.  It was written by my younger self, but I still like the lessons.   Enjoy and share if you want to, print it if you like.  It is a gift to you if it is a story that speaks to you. 

 Every year, in the special place where land and water meet, mother ducks wait patiently on their nests, while the earth springs to life all around.

   One lucky mother duck was the proud parent of three handsome yellow ducklings.  But there was one egg left in her nest that didn’t stir at all.  Mother Ducks are loyal, like mothers should be, so she continued to wait, and wait, and wait, for the big egg that sat perfectly still. 

     One morning, mother duck felt the earth rumbling beneath her.  Up she jumped!  Lo and behold, the big egg was bobbing and twisting and crackling and crumbling.  Out came the most horrendous looking duckling she had ever seen.

   “Looks aren’t everything,” she mumbled as she pushed the big duckling out of the nest and into the farmyard.  Every creature, big and small, two and four legged, feathered and furred, laughed and laughed.

     “Well, you are rather unusual,” she took a critical look at the strange creature that had hatched in her very own nest.  “Could it be that you are not a duckling after all?”  

     A big tear rolled down the duckling’s face.  It didn’t make him look any more attractive.  But if mother duck could have seen his heart breaking, she never would have said such words.  

 Sometimes people, and animals, don’t understand just how much words can hurt.  The words the duckling heard that day caused so much pain inside he ran and ran.  He felt that if he could run fast and far enough he would run away from the pain.  When he was too exhausted to move another inch, he collapsed at the bank of a deep and dark lake.  Too tired to keep his eyes open, he dreamt a strange and beautiful dream of big white birds breaking through the black sky of night.

 That deep dark lake seemed to call to the Ugly Duckling, so he stayed there for days.  And the days turned to weeks and the weeks turned to months.  All the while he spent his time hiding from wild dogs and raccoons and searching for little bits of food here and there.  When a young bird is all alone in the world, life is a hard thing to hold on to.  Still, something made this brave duckling hold on, even as the days grew shorter and the north wind snuck up behind him.

     It was one of these cold dark afternoons when the duckling saw a flock of big white birds fly overhead.  Their calls pulled at something deep inside of him.  As they flapped their powerful wings, he swam out further and further into the deep dark cold water.  As the birds disappeared over the trees, he noticed he was much further out than he had ever been before.  Paralyzed with fear, he floated in the icy water as it slowly froze around him.  That night he dreamt he was being called away to a warmer place.  He was so tired of fighting to stay alive, so tired of being cold and lonely and hungry. 

   You can imagine the duckling’s surprise when he woke the next morning and was still alive!  Standing over him was the strangest looking creature.  It was bigger than any dog he had ever seen, and its thick coat of fur was covered with flames of orange and yellow.

     “I should run away from this fierce beast,” he whispered, but the warmth from the strange creature melted him right out of the ice, and he was no longer afraid.

 And that was the beginning of a most unexpected friendship.  Who would have ever thought that a tiger and a duckling would enjoy each other’s company?  Perhaps when a duckling does not realize that he’s not a duckling, and a tiger does not realize that she’s not a tiger, perhaps then they don’t know any better than to like each other.  The rest of the winter did not seem cold at all, as they traveled and played together.  Every night they would snuggle together for warmth and dream.  

When it seemed as if spring would never arrive, the warm sun melted the last icicles from the roof tops and crocus bulbs poked their little heads out of the muddy ground.  Duckling and tiger danced and spun and rolled on the soft earth laughing.  The friendship these two shared had caused them to forget the hardships and fears that brought them together.  And, it seems, they had also forgotten what they were running from in the first place. 

  That is why the young girl under the tiger skin felt brave enough to peel away the heavy fur that had covered her all winter.  Duckling gasped as his furry friend slowly transformed into a young lady.  She sat him down, and began to tell the duckling an amazing tale.  

  “One day,” she began, “there was a beautiful woman in a big house with a handsome husband.  She thought her life was perfect, as she filled it with all the things she felt she was missing.  Then one day she discovered she was going to have a baby.  This, she believed, would make her life even better.  One night the woman had a dream.  She dreamt of big red birds, breaking through the black sky of night.  The next day her baby was born.

 “Everything went well for the mother and her child.  She was a very proud mother and she loved to show off her baby to anyone who would look.  Even as her child grew older, she took her into town to make sure everyone could see with their own eyes that she was even more lovely than the day before.  That is, until something very strange happened.  One morning when the mother was helping to dress her child she noticed long red marks on her back.  She could not understand how they got there or even how long they had been there.  She was sure the people would be shocked, so she insisted that her daughter keep her back completely covered at all times.  The young girl soon learned to be ashamed.”

  “Shame kept that girl hidden inside her parents house for days.  And the days turned to weeks and the weeks turned to months.  She longed for the fresh air and sunlight.  Afraid to be recognized, she covered herself with the biggest heaviest thing she could find, the fur of  the Great Bengal Tiger, that her grandfather had hunted in India.   First she wore the fur out into the yard.  Then she wore it down the street.  When she finally went into town, the people stepped aside exclaiming, “Let the Great Tiger pass.”  She herself began to forget who was underneath the heavy fur.”

    “But your friendship has helped me to remember,” she whispered, as she pulled the fur off of her head and felt the cool breeze soothe her neck.

   Duckling looked at his dear friend without her tiger fur.  All he could recognize of her was the soothing sound of her familiar voice.  She seemed so small and pale, and yet strong and beautiful.

     “You’re no tiger!” his voice came out squeaky and strange.

     “And you’re no duckling.”

     In the warm reflection of his friend’s eyes he saw himself for the first time.  He was a beautiful white swan.  Only in his dreams had he ever imagined a bird so lovely.

  The young swan felt nervous and the young woman rose from the riverbank, leaving her fur at a bundle at her feet.  

     “Where are you going?” he pleaded.

     “I am going home,” she replied.  “And you have somewhere to go too.”  She gestured to the sky, where a flock of swans were returning to the lake.

     “But how will I live without you?” he was beginning to cry. 

     “You will fly through the sky and swim over the water.  With me you would always be stuck on the shore.  I will come back every spring to see how you’ve grown.  Promise you will look for me.”

    The two friends made a promise.  And every year, in the special place where land and water meet, they keep their word. 

Aftermath of Speaking Out: What Breaks Us, What Puts Us Back Together.

With every new painting I essentially say the same thing, "I Am Here."

This blog has become a public platform for some very personal topics.  I am driven by the belief that our most personal stories are in fact the most universal.  Everyone has their own way of making peace with life.  And that peace brings us closer to our truth. In truth we have no grand illusion to blind us from the incomprehensible mysteries of life. In peace we have no outside pressure to cause us to fool ourselves.  In my life I have found that true peace can only come from my own individual search and the lessons I learn, which come from a life of searching.

In the process of I confronting my past and facing the fears that had held me prisoner,
I revisited old letters, journals, and now I am revisiting another older painting.

Those of you who have been following my blog already know that a little over a month ago I wrote about my experience of domestic abuse, and the years of harassment that followed.  I was driven by a need for freedom, and I knew by speaking out about my personal experience I would be opening Pandora's box, in a sense.  I had no idea how it would all unfold.  What I was doing was opening a dam that had been holding back my own flow for far too long.  I felt strong enough to ride the tide and let it take me where it would.  A deep and hard earned appreciation for the logic of intuition in this life, a trust in life itself, was the only faith I had to go on.  I can tie these things in to my paintings, because it is often and sometimes only through painting that I understand my deepest feelings and thoughts.

The month that followed that post was tough.  I ended up filing a harassment/stalking restraining order and a few days ago, I won that in a hearing in a local courtroom.  The order is for four years and it doesn't guarantee my complete safety, but it secures my freedom to express myself in my own blog and other public forums without being harassed, frightened or bullied.  The fight for those rights meant going to court where I could legally and safely stand up for myself.  It was an essential step in the process of putting my pieces back together after being broken apart so many years ago.

Sometimes the events of our lives fracture us.  In my case, I had split into two, and each half co-existed.
A sense of detachment, a shadow self, prevented my connected self from fully participating.  

Healing, as I now understand it to be, is not a return to what we were before.  We cannot stay in one place and we cannot go back.  What we move into is our choice, but so often we go through life unaware and half asleep.  We make excuses, we blame, we escape into distractions.  Being fully awake means to acknowledge all the sides of ourselves, even those that have been neglected, disavowed and overlooked in the struggle to keep up, move on and live life in the world as we know it.

When the reality of my own life became too painful to face, I escaped.  This does not mean I became bipolar.  I chose, not knowing it was a choice, to sometimes not "be here" while going through life.  It can best be seen as stepping back, letting life unfold but being somewhere else in your mind.  So many of us, the childhood dreamers, know what I mean by this.  My mental escape became more extreme, and a convenient hiding place when unwelcome emotions surfaced.  Fear, anger, anxiety, sadness... they were unwelcome.  What happens when you push these away is that their counterparts, joy, love, peace and bliss also move into a murky space where thay are inaccesessable.  Because the pain of the loss of my son drove part of my self into a private and safe place, the other parts of my life missed knowing all of me.  I can feel regret, for how long it took to see what had happened, but regret is a backwards road full of pitfalls.  This is life, it is messy.  It is a series of questions that just lead to more questions.  But it can be entered into everyday with open eyes and a recepetive heart.  That is the truth of life I had missed by escaping.  

In the past four years I have become increasingly withdrawn from the relationships in my life as I entered
into a "cocoon" phase.  This was a necessary step towards understanding my own boundaries
and gaining the self reliance and acceptance to assert these boundaries.

What I now understand as the "cocoon" phase, a time of intense introspection and hermetic isolation, has been a wonderful experience for me.  It required many hours at the easel.  Although I had to pull away from the world in order to access my subconscious and begin the healing process, my family and most friends have understood and given me the space and freedom required to turn inward.  There I found the strength I needed to see my own life with open eyes.  The confidence I gained from these recent years has been exactly what I needed to recognize what a violation the harassment and stalking have been.  The courage I had gained made it possible to assert my rights without further fear of retaliation.  I know I have to live my entire life knowing safety is not a guarantee, this person who violated me may at anytime act out of anger.  I have prepared myself for this possibility, and a big lesson for me was that 90% of that preparation is mental.  Our minds can be our strength or our weakness.  It takes a strong heart and a disciplined mind to face a dangerous world.

As I paint this autobiographical painting that I started three years ago, I give form to all of these abstract ideas.  The gestation of my heart in it's cocoon phase, the splitting apart with two significant events, the birth of a child and the death of another.  The incubation of a self-realized identity that arises from the wounds and divisions caused by violence.  The images all arise, situate themselves in the context of a human figure, and I organize them.  I highlight some while glazing over others.  I reflect on their existence.  I acknowledge their purpose in my life.  A swan symbolizes the unseen world, the parts of life where intuition and trust are needed most.  A pair of eyes peering out from my brain, the self reflection and honesty needed to repair.  A grieving mother, a watchful mother, and a hand with a weapon.  A victim, a protector, a survivor.  A heart, a mind, a past and a future.  All the pieces that are put back together, a familiar but transformed and unified version of self.  

Being awake inside of oneself is the now the only option.  It is a the key that unlocks the cage,
the prison so many of us live in.  A cage with a key that has always been there.

 With every new painting I essentially say the same thing, "I Am Here."  It seems an odd thing to do.  I wonder if it's really what we are all doing, all of the time, and I have just found the way that works for me.  I don't feel a great sense of belonging to any particular group, religion, race, social caste or political organization.  As I grow older the purpose for my own existence becomes something that only I can unlock and live.  More social people might think it seems lonely.  But I'm not lonely or unfulfilled.  Those who seek validation in fame or riches would be disappointed.  I have a roof over my head and I eat three healthy meals a day.  I paint, I live my life and I face each problem that presents itself when I'm ready.  It feels like an integration of the broken parts, and it brings me great peace.

At this point in my life the studio is my workplace, my place of therapy, my place of peace.
I am happy here and that is never something to take for granted.

Healing and Art: The Truth Will Set You Free

"The Way Home"          Finished Painting

Sometimes life is stranger than fiction.  Life certainly gets interesting when you are truthful with yourself.   Somewhere, deep inside our subconscious, where no one else can give you directions, where no teacher dictates right from wrong, where no dogma, definitions and simple answers can exist, there we can find the truth.

I began a strange and very interesting journey this month when I decided to write about my painting, "The Escape" in a post titled "Victim no More, Silent no More." (03/10)  Circumstances beyond my control compelled me to write about my own experience of domestic abuse and the therapeutic way it appeared in my art, revealing to me my suppressed emotions and memories.  Writing about the painting, I exposed myself to public scrutiny with my own issues, many of which have been subjects of pain, shame and fear.  I could not have foreseen the encouragement and insight that would bless my life as a result of the simple act of telling my story.

A close up from "The Escape"    There is a struggle and conflict in my heart and my mind, as I give away my power.

In the original painting, I appear in several forms.  One of these is a dog.  I allowed myself to be treated like one.  This is how it feels when you have lived through an abusive relationship.  And so many of us stay, like a dog that returns to an owner who beats it.  It is a dehumanizing experience, and looking at it as a part of my own personal history filled me with shame.  I think of myself as a strong woman.  Because I had memories of allowing myself to be treated in this way, there has been a fundamental disconnect in my own definition of self.  It lead to a certain lack of honesty in everything I did.  It split my self image into two parts, the one I cognized and the one I suppressed.  In the original painting I am the dog, but I am also a bird fighting the dog.  The figure who represents my abuser has his fingers in my head.  The suppressed self image remains in this passive dog-state without power and without a real form.  It is skeletal.

In reworking the painting the fingers get pushed out of the dog's brain and the dog and bird metamorphose into a new creature.  This new image of self is not perfect, but whole and united, with yet to be realized powers.

When I approached this part of the painting and saw what I was denying to myself, I started to remember parts of my life I had pushed aside and buried for so long.  Some were horrific acts of physical and sexual violence.  Others were moments of shame, when I supported my abuser and his actions with my silence.  When I met him I was 20 years old, and I was a naive and idealistic young woman who was in a state of constant rebellion from the world I was raised in.  I grew up with privilege, but I knew the world was unjust and was unable to accept it.  I spend so much of my teenage years battling my father and anyone who considered themselves a realist.  In my mind accepting the world as it is, unequal and unfair, was nothing short of treason to a higher sense of justice.  My youthful idealism met many obstacles head on, and an undeniable one was the injustice of my own middle class childhood in a world where many have so little.  My childhood starkly contrasted the world of poverty and violence my abuser came from.  His pain pulled at my guilt as much as his violence transformed my innocence.  That was the initial dynamic.  He showered me with praise and adoration, while reminding me of my shame: my birthplace in an unjust world.  When his behavior shifted from "sweeping me off my feet" into violence, rage and blame, I was left mute and paralyzed, like the dog on its back in my painting.  I was dependent on his affection as the only redemption for my guilt.  If I left him I only proved him right, life was easy for me and hard for him.  I did just that and I never found a way to address that fundamental conflict in my mind and heart.  How quickly and easily I went from rebellious teen to submissive victim, never leaving either completely healed.  It has been a truth of myself I refused to admit.  It has been the suppressed spilt.  I couldn't bear to see myself with that kind of unflinching honesty.

Facing my fears means facing shame, regret, and things I haven't wanted to believe about yourself.
It has made it possible to transform.  The transformation helps me feel courageous, powerful and honest.
I am becoming a person my idealistic teen self would have looked up to.

Since I started writing about this experience I have received vicious backlash from my abuser, I have been able to finally get a temporary restraining order signed and served, I have found inner strengths I didn't know I was missing, and I have been reminded, over and over, that I am not alone.  I have been added to a directory of healing artists, been highlighted in the local paper's e-newsletter and been asked for permission to share my stories with social workers and their clients.  I have sometimes stayed home, too tired and confused to face the world.  I have established healthy boundaries in all areas of my life.  My paintings have reached a deeper and more dynamic level, acknowledging the dualities of dark and light without judgement.  I have found a voice within me I didn't know could be so raw and honest.   I am moving beyond the classifications of abuser and abused.  We are all victims until we heal our own internal divides.  Only then can we understand healing in the world outside of us. 

I have never mentioned the name of my abuser and I never plan to on this blog or any public forum.  And yet he has revealed himself.  I was unable to get papers served by the police, but he showed up to confront me and was surprised by a Sheriff with papers.  The ironic and fateful way my story keeps unfolding as I do nothing but tell it with candor has given me a new faith in justice and fairness.  I do not accept injustice, but I am waking up to the realization of the divide, that creates it.  I can live without hidden shame and suppressed pain.  I can be my best, and that is what we owe to life, and to the world.

Everyone has a gift. Nurture It.

"The Escape" is now "The Way Home"

This painting is still in progress, but I felt the urge to write a short but hopefully sweet post reflecting on where I'm at in the process.

 Since posting the post "Victim no More" I have been asked if I need therapy, a guru, hypnosis… I appreciate the concern actually, all caring questions from caring friends.  But it seems to me what I need to do is just to continue painting.  When I'm painting the questions present themselves, the memories arise, the emotions resurface.  And a visual language I have spent over 30 years developing helps me to see these memories, feel the emotions and begin to process answers to questions I have until now been too afraid to ask.  It feels like a miracle.  It is certainly a gift.  I am incredibly grateful.

If you have a gift, all I can say is this: continue to exercise and develop it, even if you feel short on time and energy.  Just a little when you have time is better than nothing.  Some years I only had a few weeks out of the entire year to wholeheartedly attend to painting.  I'm so glad I did.  Nuture your gift, let it be important.  The unique way your gift will reveal its meaning and purpose in your own life will someday be clear.  Have faith.

The Healing Power of Art: To Look Without Turning Away

Painting in Progress.  The Escape is becoming a new painting.  I'm still not sure  of the new title.

I posted my last post ten days ago.  It began with the phrase "Victim no More,"  and when I wrote it I knew that would happen, but I didn't know how.  As I move along, I have learned if I try very hard to be honest with myself, my actions will continue to lead me in a direction that helps me to be the best I can be.  It is a destination that is far from the attainment of perfection; it may never lead to material success, and it will not make everyone like me.  What I do believe is that unflinching honesty to oneself is the only reliable guide in a fluid, ever-changing approach to life without a roadmap.

Sounds simple, but it's been the most challenging approach to life that I have found.  And it is the most rewarding,  if what you're striving for is to feel fully alive and present in your own life.

Anyone who read my previous post knows I recently opened up and told my own personal story.  As a survivor of a very violent and traumatic relationship in my early 20's I have struggled to regain my strength and power throughout my adult life.  Painting has been a vital tool that has helped me to understand my subconscious thoughts and suppressed feelings, and communicate them first to myself and finally, to my family, friends, acquaintances and even strangers.

There have been consequences to telling my story.  There was immediate retaliation from my abuser, in the form of comments.  I have been feeling exposed, both emotionally and physically.  Many of my fears have surfaced, not only in my painting, but in my life.

Facing my fears one by one and looking at them  long enough to understand them completely.

In the center of the painting I have discovered my fears, as each one unfolds.  I have been afraid of being physically harmed.  Being verbally attacked in such a public way by my abuser was not something I predicted, but it has always been a threat and a fear.  I was afraid I would be seen as a weak person for having even been in an abusive relationship.  (I was afraid I would be judged in so many ways.)    I was afraid of remembering what I have pushed aside.  I was afraid of so many regrets.   I felt ashamed, scared and anxious, but I wrote down my story and I posted it publicly.  And the fallout has been huge; for ten days every single one of those fears has sat down in front of me and beckoned to be seen. 

As I painted the visual manifestations of my fears I felt each one acutely.  I tried to see them through to their worst case scenario.   It was exhausting, but they are losing their power over me.  I am seeing the strength in vulnerability, the courage in taking chances and the power in honesty.  I have begun to realize that certainty is an illusion sought out by fear.  I have also learned that fear cannot be escaped by running or hiding.  As I paint, I literally FACE MY FEARS.  And they become known to me, and I regain power over each one.

      In order fully own our own lives we must fully participate.  To do this well we must
have boundaries, and our boundaries are our own to define and defend.

Boundaries have always been an issue for me.  I would venture to guess anyone who has been in a relationship where they were physically violated has boundary issues.  But just as challenging for me are emotional and psychological boundaries.  In the past few years I have begun to realize and assert boundaries, often with very little grace and a lot of clumsiness.  It's a learning period.  I intellectually understood my abuser had no right to contact me, by phone, email or Facebook comments.  But in order to emotionally understand that truth I had to feel my own boundaries.  This took time.  When I began to publicly tell my story I took a quantum leap in boundary setting and my balance was very shaky at first.

Fortunately for me I have had a few really strong foundations in place.  I have a solid relationship with a supportive partner who understands me.  I have friends who cheer me on, even if we have moved to different places and rarely see each other.  I have family members who support my choices with respect and love.  And I feel more and more safe.  Safety is never guaranteed,  but I am secure in my preparation and planning for what I consider "worst case scenarios."  If I felt isolated, alone or ill prepared, I would not have told my story.  Speaking out can, at times, be dangerous.  Each person must decide carefully.  It is not realistic to think it is always the right thing to do, but when the time is right, it is a choice that can give victims ownership of their lives.  That is what it has done for me.

Returning to my own life I weep tears for the times I have been emotionally absent.
There is a bittersweet blend of sadness and hope in seeing your life with clarity. 

Although I am learning that my boundaries can enable me to be vulnerable in many areas of my life, up until now I used the creative process to feel things fully and give those feelings and experiences form.  This has been my lifeline.  It is one of the most valuable things I have to offer from my life.  I know how to tap into emotions I have vaulted up and left in darkness, experience them in the present and give them symbolic form with line, colors and shapes.  A lifetime of thinking through pictures is now making so much sense.  It has led me to where I am, and I am excited to continue discovering what there is to be known in this life, through the visions in my paintings.