Outside my kitchen window are two towering fir trees. The types with dripping boughs that the wind woman swirls and sways through with a particular swagger, a sultry swish of her hips, also solemnly. Our kitchen is on the second floor of a small but tall house built on a sloping hill that was once a carriage barn. Holding a cup of coffee and looking out the kitchen window into the fir trees is intimate due to our proximity. It feels special to look into a tree near its top when one is typically used to looking up at trees.
This week, I have had the grace of staring into the black eyes of a large brown and white speckled Bard Owl who has made the fir tree out my window their resting place. I also had the grace of looking into its partner's eyes when they were nestled together. I watched them bond. Which looked a lot like kissing. That day, I wore my Athena owl earrings. Two pairs of little golden owls perched on my earlobes.
It may be dangerous to admit that one believes in signs as a way to know life. I believe in signs, meaning the flash stories that objects, beings, and occurrences symbolize outside their rationale. People are addicted to facts as a bedrock for rational action. It is unimportant if signs are valid in a way that can be proven. What is important is how one is in relationship with their knowing and what the resulting action is.
God told me to kill…
The army told me to kill…
The giant spider told me to kill…
The tarot card, the color red, the number 3…
God showed me to love…
My mother showed me to love…
The oak tree showed me to love…
The tarot card, the color red, the number 3…
I often debate the concept of free will and wonder if it exists, knowing that the idea of the one I (singularity) is not true. I understand that we are made of much more than oneself. I'm not talking woo-woo. Your body is host to many other living organisms with their own agendas! Ultimately, the debate of whether or not free will exists does not negate a personal responsibility for navigating life toward goodness. But the questions of free will, and guiding personal beliefs, are entangled with questions of justice.
From childhood onwards, I have been chewing on the concept of justice. As an adolescent, I wanted to study law at Harvard as a criminal defense lawyer. I felt called to defend people as I could connect the crumbs of a life that led to an atrocity that was not solely the individual's responsibility but felt collective and interwebbed with fate. I gave up this pursuit early when I learned that our justice system was a bureaucracy of lies; speeding tickets turned into parking tickets, where one is encouraged to plead guilty is a perfect example. The other more harrowing notion was that as a criminal defense lawyer, there would be times I would have a client I knew was guilty, and I would be tasked with defending him, which felt equally criminal and a social injustice. Justice is challenging to understand. I have wondered what letting go of justice as a concept would be like. Does nature act justly?
I am unsure that nature acts by human concepts tethered to a human language, but we can observe consequences in nature, which is perhaps a way of understanding justice.
This summer, I took a class on fairytales. It was a simple three-part class instructed by Dr. Sharon Blackie, an expert in folklore and fairytales. She taught us the purpose of fairytales as well as the standard structure and motifs found in fairytales. One discomforting element in all fairytales is punishment, which is often cruel and violent. I asked Dr. Blackie to share more about the inclusion of punishment as I tend to be a "turn the other cheek" girl, and as mentioned above, I often have a bleeding heart for the offender. Dr. Blackie looked sternly at me through the zoom camera and said matter of factly, "There are always consequences. One must understand that." Her response was not a balm to my query.
I have speculations about why I lean towards the wrongdoer with compassion, but nothing concrete. It could be that I grew up with a father who was sometimes a monster due to his mental illness. It could be that nothing felt fair to me as a child who grew up impoverished. It could be that I watched my younger siblings collect bruises on their butts for the fault of being children who quarreled.
But, there is something else, something less understood by me, which is that I have felt undeserving of my anger when I have been harmed. I tend to rush to find an excuse for another's behavior and expel my anger by quickly turning the anger on myself for being angry. If I turn the other cheek, if I help the other, if I understand the other, I am good, and so is the other person. As I write this, I see these behaviors as two sides of the same coin. One side is rejecting my righteous rage, and the other is seeing the other through compassion and empathy. Let's call this my conflict coin.
My husband gifted me a ring made from an ancient Greek coin with the face of the goddess Athena encircled in roughly hammered gold. It's majestic. When I wear it, I feel powerful. Athena is the goddess of war and wisdom. She is the symbol of democracy and justice. She is often depicted with an owl, a sword, and a shield. Athena had a relationship with the Furies (where we get our understanding and the word Fury from). The Furies were spirits of anger that rushed around and whispered into Athena's ears when there was wrongdoing. They had the power to destroy people by unrelenting anger that turned to insanity and, ultimately, self-annihilation. Athena essentially made a deal with the Furies to take it easy on her people of Athens by installing a moral code and helping people feel guilty about their wrongdoing. In this way, the Furies encouraged just governance for self and others' behaviors.
I learned the story of the Furies last year (almost to the date) when I was blown over by a betrayal. One that metastasized as I turned my coin over and over between rejecting my anger and sympathizing with the offender. My conflicting beliefs left me immobilized, meaning without conviction for confrontation. Eventually, the wounding disappeared into the depths of my fascia and fell into the black hole where trauma resides near my gallbladder.
Last week, I had an EMDR session. I have recently begun EMDR treatment as recommended by my primary doctor to help heal PTSD and trauma. I noticed a pattern as we pulled early memories from my sacred internal vessel, and my eyes swung back and forth, following the white wand with the orange tip, an EMDR magic tool. In my life, I have been maliciously hurt by others' behaviors directed towards me without cause other than my being a female who was described as pretty, talented, artistic, and intelligent. In the few instances where I confronted the perpetrator, I was gaslit. I was not defended or advocated for by anyone. Instead, I was asked to take personal responsibility for the wrongdoing or find a reason for forgiveness without being given room to feel righteous anger. This history contributes to my conflict coin.
My conflict coin is common cult trickery. (Has anyone watched the series on Netflix about True Flames?) A typical exercise is used in almost all cults, churches, and self-improvement groups. In True Flames, it's called the "Mirror Exercise" It's an exercise of mind fuckery that disempowers people by erasing their innate sense of harm, wrongdoing, trespasses, you-name-it, and replacing it with a belief of personal responsibility that then tasks the victim with "doing the work" to self-improve.
Athena had an owl by her ears, perched on her shoulder. The owl is a symbol of wisdom because it sees all movement in the dark, can turn its head 360 degrees, and is calm and patient but also swift, and violent.
This week, I was called to address a conflict. One that triggered all those soft, squishy innards of mine. The owls appeared out my window. I knew they were my Athena owls. They were not there to show me how to turn my head or how to see in the dark. I've mastered those moves as one side of my conflict coin. They were there to show me another side of wisdom: defending what I am tasked to protect.
This week, I signed myself up for conflict coaching. In my meeting with the coach, I told them I was not there to learn how to empathize but to create and defend boundaries with humility and righteous anger. In other words, I am ready to learn to be a goddess of wisdom and war.
I still am still not quite a believer of painful punishment as justice. However, a conscious adjustment to a relationship may result in consequences that can feel painful to one or both parties. Sometimes, a healthy adjustment comes with a crack and pop.
What are you tasked to protect that is precious to you?
Let us imagine justice as a healthy adjustment.
You are precious.
What you love is precious.
What you create is precious.