6. Willy, Willy !

August 2021 is drawing to a close. Jackie experiences moments of solitude and reflection. Willy, her cat, provokes uncontrollable reactions in her, leading her to question the mental programming she inherited from her mother. Her body changes, and with it the memories of key moments when she was a prisoner of the fear of being herself. She hears the voice of the Ancestors, those of the land she lives. She wants to understand their language and become part of their tribe. Music by Rahul Popawala, North Indian Alleys.

Transcript

Yoni,

My Sacred Space,

Chapter 6.

Disclaimer.

This is a survivor's diary.

Her experience is unique and personal.

In sharing it,

She reveals the path she took to open up to life after a series of extraordinary ordeals.

It's not a recipe to be applied,

But rather the chronicle of her gradual awakening.

Dear listeners,

What the narrator says may affect sensitive people.

If you are experiencing difficult emotions,

Seek the help you need without any delay.

Yannick Villeneuve,

Author and story healer.

August 18,

2021.

New notebook.

Phil told me yesterday that I had the life every woman dreams of.

And he's right.

At first,

I didn't understand what he meant.

In my head,

I have nothing.

But in his,

I have half his belongings.

We both know that from a legal point of view,

If anything were to happen,

His children would be entitled to show me the door.

They won't do that,

And Phil won't let me down either.

So according to my lover,

I'm living the dream life.

That's true.

I'm at the point where,

With no strings attached,

I can do what I want.

I have a restaurant,

But with only two customers.

I have gardens,

Trees all around me.

I write,

I read,

I meditate.

I take care of my business,

And I try to do the most with the least.

This is how we can afford the loss of my salary.

Be wise,

Cook like the Chinese,

Garden,

Transform,

Buy basic products,

Make your own bread and eggs.

I've managed to make a soup that will give 10 lunches for $4.

Who can boast of cooking local and organic food at that price?

I no longer depend on processed products and brands.

Wow,

I feel like grandma.

I had a dream last night.

Here it is.

My book has been published and has met with some success.

It helps people to see life when there is none.

This success will lead to new activities that will bring in income.

These financial gains will serve to take the pressure off Phil.

He'll need to work less so he can devote more effort to the sanctuary.

Together,

We'll gradually transform our land and improve our poultry farm.

I feel that this movement has begun.

Sitting on my rock meditating,

I send this dream into the underground network.

The universe will fit in with the rest,

With the setup to speak the language of restaurants.

Humbly,

I continue my work of making the beautiful out of the ugly.

I've been through so much to get to this point.

So much that sometimes I forget where I came from and how bad I was.

That's when social medias bring up a memory,

A picture of the old Jackie lost behind her armor,

Numb.

The one we saw succeeding,

Going far in life and making something out of it.

But this Jackie just couldn't do it.

She was hidden under the covers,

Under tens of thousands of excess calories,

Smothered in unreal obligations.

Now I can talk to Nkwakwesem,

To the river.

She reassures me about the times ahead.

She told me on Saturday that she'd seen others.

She cleaned me up afterwards.

I went inside her.

Her flow could pass from edge to edge of my body.

I no longer had a physical boundary.

I was porous and translucent.

The river cleansed everything and brought the debris away.

August 19,

2021.

Are you becoming a cowish?

My cousin asked me during our last conversation.

Yes,

That was my answer.

I wish to learn to speak the Salish language,

That of the Sikhs,

The people who populated the region before the train arrived,

Full of white pioneers.

I confined in her that I'd like to learn this language to preserve it.

I'd like to understand its legions,

Learn about the way of life of these ancestors.

I want to communicate with the river and the trees in their mother tongue.

I want to learn as much as I can about what I feel inside me on this sacred land.

I tell her about my withdrawal from society,

My book,

The spiritual bond I'm developing with our aunt.

She thinks I'm weird and original.

After our phone call,

I feel I'm becoming multiple,

With many facets,

Like a cut stone.

The more surfaces polished,

The more light it reflects.

I want my stone to have thousands.

Just like the books my cousin and I loved so much as children,

I wish to create a series like the Martin Albums.

It might look like Jackie with the Salish,

Jackie's fishing,

Jackie's gardening,

Jackie's cooking.

I have so many stories to write.

My cousin,

By calling me Kawish,

Has given me another facet.

I want to transform this term,

Which was intended as an insult,

Into my own definition,

That of the white-skinned squaw dancing the pangra.

After all,

Isn't white all the colors of the rainbow at once?

August 20.

Kawish.

That word keeps looping around in my head.

I take it as a compliment.

I'm integrating the spirit of the Sikhs' ancestors.

It's opened up a new dimension to why I feel so at home here.

The ancients are close to me in the forest,

In the river,

And in the rocks.

When Phil and I go swimming in these hidden places,

We leave our civilized clothes on the riverbank.

Walking barefoot,

I feel the spirits,

And when Phil goes off to fish,

I expose myself to the sun and hear the river singing to me.

She makes me understand that the trees also schemed to arrange my return here.

They made me get up from my office chair back east to bounce here.

I have a magic forest to protect,

A culture to learn.

The sociologist in me is happy.

My readings have not been in vain.

Everything is in everything.

Since the sturgeon's full moon,

I have been feeling the temperature change.

The heat is over,

And the cooler weather has returned to give the forest a respite.

Unfortunately,

The spring has dried up,

And I have to drink the water from below,

The tap water.

Willie now asks for the door to go out and come back in.

He's about to turn one,

And I've chosen August 26 for his birthday.

He's brought two friends home without bickering.

He's like a teenager standing in a group with his buddies.

He realizes for the first time that there are others like him.

What a big boy.

I'm still living the dream life,

The one everyone's looking for,

With a family,

A plot of land,

A cat,

A duck,

Chickens,

And plants.

I hold in my hands each and every one of the seeds of the vegetables that make up my plate,

And my mason pots.

It's there,

My creative power,

And I'm going to keep on sowing it,

Sowing in the earth,

In the gravel,

In the wood,

In hearts.

I want to sow all the time.

I will continue to make my way without compromise.

I want to show that you can be different and happy,

Even if I come from a black hole.

The more I think about it,

The more the cowish suits me as an archetype.

August 23,

2021.

Full moon,

Meditation.

I went for a walk in the cavern of the heart.

I walked deep into the valley of the shadows.

I made circles that became rounder and rounder.

I saw spirals all around me,

Starting from the mycelium,

Going into the air,

Into the water.

I burnt old things that were no longer useful,

Transforming them into something new,

Useful,

And beautiful.

I feel less and less need.

The elders have also called me by the voices of the river,

The trees,

And the animals.

They told me I deserve it.

I've always struggled with this overused expression.

I didn't understand it because I was still in the dark.

I could only see my family drama,

My life stifled in a house prison.

I went through years of searching,

Unhappily pulling in all directions in search of my own.

I was lost for so long.

I wrongly believed that you had to endure to deserve.

I had it all wrong.

Merit is the universe's reward for my good deeds.

These gifts,

Health,

Love,

Joy,

Good relationships,

A home,

And healing,

I've earned because I've taken action.

The more I do,

The more I deserve.

If my book deserves to be published,

It's because I wrote it.

It's because I've given myself this discipline.

I've finally made my story my own.

I've made it tangible outside me.

I've become the observer of this little girl,

No longer its victim,

Frozen and frightened like a deer in front of a car's headlights.

August 25,

2021.

Really quarreled with the neighbor's cat.

I was outside with my hands full of lettuce and plantain.

As soon as I heard the cats streaming,

It was no longer me reacting.

It was my mother.

With all her fear of seeing those she loves suffer,

With all her desire to protect others beyond her capacity,

And her desire to stop the bickering,

All the bickering,

I saw my hand open the door shout to Phil,

The war is on,

Throw the salad and plantain on the entrance carpet,

Slam the door as I ran toward the precipice in front of the house shouting,

Willie!

Willie!

Willie!

All at 6 a.

M.

The cats came back up and I saw my Willie speeding past me,

Galloping with the no-tail cat at his heels.

They chased each other to the neighbor's house.

All of a sudden,

I came back to myself.

What a loss of control.

I saw again the memory of my mother running at full speed until she lost her shoes to rescue my younger brother who had decided to take the road in front of my family's house on his tricycle at the age of three.

I'd never seen my mother run before and I swear she was going fast.

Luckily,

A truck driver managed to slow down the traffic on the regional road so that my mother could grab my brother by the sweater and push him out of danger towards the ditch.

If it hadn't been for the truck driver's intervention,

The boy might have been hit.

I remember the discussions between my parents that followed this incident.

There was talk of fences,

Danger,

Incessant heavy truck traffic.

On the one hand,

There was my father,

An advocate of freedom and anti-fence,

And on the other,

My mom,

Who wanted to protect everything,

Even by going against nature.

I've inherited this programming.

As soon as a tension arises,

I take charge and responsibility for it.

I have to look after myself,

Step back and put up a line for my own protection.

Just as my father did after this incident catastrophe,

He went to the local hardware store to buy gold spray paint.

He drew a line on the asphalt and it was now forbidden to cross it on pain of punishment and losing access to our bikes for the summer.

I was so fearful that I followed the directive to the letter,

Feeling watched by a god who would punish me if I ever broke the rule.

But not my brother,

Who amused himself by putting the wheel of his bicycle outside the zone with a side-long glance and a little smile,

Waiting for the thunderbolt of punishment that never came.

It's past supper time and I'm all alone.

Phil is still working on a guard for the fire on the west bank.

I know he'll be back late,

So I've cooked something in the oven.

Not that I'm hungry,

But I thought it would be nice to have a hot meal to eat when he gets back.

I find the time long.

I catch myself imagining life if I were alone with my notebooks.

I realize that I don't really know solitude.

I haven't lived long without a lover or a roommate,

Without someone to talk to about my day.

I realize that all the attentions and desires I have for others I should use for myself.

I find it strange to think like that.

August 27.

I'm sitting on my favorite rock in the sunny garden.

It's Saturday and as the fire never lets up,

Phil has gone to work.

I find myself without any means of transport,

And I realize that I'm ending a third week without having gone shopping in town.

I hadn't thought of it as a challenge,

But I'm going to try to make it to a month of complete autonomy.

I got on the scale this morning and saw a figure below my ultimate goal,

Below all my projections,

All my dreams.

When I look at my body,

I see the area I still have to work on.

It's my legs.

Over time,

I've turned them into two anchors to keep me from blowing away.

I want to go from the working horse to an agile,

Wide-tailed deer.

The pangra will bring me lightness,

Agility,

And speed.

I can let go to the rhythm of the music.

I no longer need to weigh myself down.

When I was 14,

My father told me,

You'll never have Tina Turner's legs.

I already had varicose veins,

And the skin on my thighs and hips had exploded from eating cupcakes.

I was padding myself to make sure no one would love me for my body.

I understood the danger of being small and pretty,

Had eaten enough to become what my ex-boyfriend called a chubby beauty.

I'm reminded of another childhood memory.

For the New Year's Eve party,

My mother's family was holding reunion with buffet and orchestra.

I asked her to sew me a full skirt,

Which would rise as I turned and danced.

I wanted it to ride up to my hips as I spun faster,

Without realizing it,

And asked my mom for a whirling dervish skirt.

Once at the reception,

I remember practicing my dance steps before the orchestra had even started,

And I recall being stopped in my tracks by an ant who told me that I couldn't dance like that,

My skirt was lifting too high,

And it wasn't pretty.

It was probably a way of protecting myself from the stares of the men present,

But this sudden stop in her comments made me feel dirty and guilty.

As a result,

Dancing was over,

And I accepted that it was dangerous.

It's so easy,

Even without meaning to,

To imprison someone with a few gestures and a few words tinged with fear.

I was able to collect water from the spring again.

As I set off on my walk,

I met some neighbors coming down with their dogs,

Who urged me to go and check as they'd been able to fill their bottles.

When I got to the usual place,

Nothing was coming out of the hose I usually use,

So I went back up to the source of the spring.

From there,

A thin trickle of water was running out.

I hurried back to the house to grab my 20-liter container,

And I jumped in the side-by-side.

I filled it to the brim,

Thanking the spring to be back.

I continued the meditation.

This time,

I did it live,

Still with this application I love.

I'm working in-depth on my throat chakra.

What a progression since the first time I put my hands on it.

Instead of feeling strangled by uncontrollable sobs,

I could feel an opening bigger than my throat.

I opened my eyes,

And as I was outside,

I drank the blue of the sky to transmit it to my vishuddha.

What a liberation.

I'm so proud of my work.

Last Sunday in August 2021.

Temperatures in excess of 25 degrees are forecast,

And if the picture is anything to go by,

It's the last heat of the summer.

I dressed in my most summery clothes,

Pink camisole,

Yellow shorts,

Sandals,

And straw hat.

Phil is still building the fire guard,

And is being paid time and a half.

I quickly calculate and realize that he will have earned in two days the salary I would have generated in two weeks working in a restaurant.

It's easy to see that the world doesn't run smoothly.

Women and immigrant workers are the first to suffer from a system that,

Because of the lack of manpower,

Is cracking all over.

I think we're going to see a major wage correction,

And for the first time,

It's the little guys who are getting the big end of the stick.

I walk through the gardens,

And I reach the level of the fava beans plants.

I sowed my rose as soon as the snow melted in March,

And I didn't harvest anything.

The young plants were bombarded with harmful sun rays during the heat dome in June.

They never recovered,

Remained small,

And those that produced fruit gave me stunt-twisted pods with nothing in them.

I make the analogy in my mind with my mother's traumas and my own.

Once exposed,

The initial programming is deviated,

And the plant or human cannot produce what it was meant to do in the first place.

Even if time passes and the organism recovers,

And the organism recovers,

The flower,

Fruit,

Or child thus produced will never be whole.

I'm struck by the power of intergenerational trauma.

Like the deformed,

Fruitless pods,

I develop all sorts of deviances,

Even repeating behaviors that didn't belong to me.

It becomes essential to heal,

Understand,

Forgive,

And recover.

I need to get the energy flowing where it didn't want to go,

So that I no longer remain in my trauma,

In my samsara.

I have the capacity to accept the unacceptable.

I only understood the surface of my story,

But thanks to the intuition and my research in the forest below,

I grasped the full depth of where I came from.

Accepting the unacceptable,

Accepting all the horror of life,

All its darkness,

And inevitably plant a new garden the following spring,

Whatever the cost.

I have to turn over my manure,

Fertilize my soil with it.

The mycelium knows how to do the magic.

I trust it.

My mission as a human being is to sow,

Plant,

Water,

Take care of,

Harvest,

Transform,

Preserve,

And start again.

Every spring,

I have to make a new garden.

No matter the illnesses,

Lies,

Failures,

Climatic threats,

I have to invent a garden for myself.

If I want life to return,

The plant must emerge from the deep darkness,

Bursting open the husk of its seed to connect with the microscopic roots to find the water and nutrients that will give it the strength to emerge from the earth,

Pointing towards the sun.

I have to find peace by pulling out the weeds.

I contemplate the atomic force contained in each seed.

There lies the magic.

To accept the unacceptable,

I must transform myself again and again until the last beat of my heart.