On Ending the Vicious Cycle of Abuse & Violence

I am honored that my friend Oceana has asked me to send her story called Generational out to the world. I think our friendship has helped bring her out of her cocoon. I know other women that have used the butterfly to symbolize their flight to freedom from an abusive relationship or marriage while others have used it as a medicine totem to help overcome and heal their pain.

I recently had to comfort a woman that had a history of being a witness to abuse, some it personal. I've met to many other women who have needlessly suffered from the same thing. After reading Oceana's story, I told her that one of the main unheralded butterfly goals was to find a way to end male dominator culture. Its about time that I focused some energy on that issue and this email is the result. I see it as the root cause of almost all of our global human problems. That connection is seen throughout historic, anthropological, archeology, and mythological records. If you ask me I'd say that when the Goddess returns, she'll be flying on butterfly wings.

I would like to nominate this woman for the International Forgiveness Day Award. My butterfly family is welcome to check out their website at http://www.forgivenessday.org and to write their founder Bob Plath at rwplath@forgivenessday.org and suggest the same thing.

If any one of you can suggest a group that we can partner with to work on ending abuse and other forms of violence in our society, as well as helping its victums, please contact me. The Department of Peace also focuses on this issue. That is why we need to help get our representatives in the United States Congress to pass it.

According to Congressman Kucinich, the Department of Peace shall be empowered domestically to address all forms of violence within our communities. It will advocate on behalf of women victimized by violence, as well as address the problems of domestic violence, spousal abuse, child abuse, and mistreatment of the elderly. In collaboration with community and neighborhood organizations, including the schools in our communities, the Department of Peace shall assist in the establishment of community based violence prevention programs. It shall endeavor to create new policies which are responsive to the challenges of drug and alcohol abuse, and of crime.

Please see the info we have on this on our projects page and/or visit http://www.house.gov/kucinich/action/peace.htm

Many blessing to us all,

Butterfly Al

Generational

The child speaks:

I was born into the light as light.
I trusted. I loved. I was open.
Awe and Wonderment were my friends . . .
and then I turned four.

I knew in order to survive
I had to give up 'myself'
And follow the orders
Of my birth family.

There was no psychic room for me.
I became a castrated doormat
without thought or questions.

My father was passive
I learned men are weak.
My father was emotionally distant
I learned to close my heart

I was my mother's projection
And she hated herself.
She was an out-of-control controller . .
And didn't know how not to be.
I learned not to trust

My mother had no time to love me.
She was too busy cooking/ baking
Ironing/ sewing/ cleaning/ yelling.
Rage and ignorance covered her heart.
She never took time to grow up

I felt dismissed
Lonely
Shut down
Riddled with fear
I had no likes or dislikes

No center or sense of self
I was empty, shy, afraid to speak
My spirit was shattered

To be accepted in my family
I was expected to honor a specific role.
It was the - only- role - I - had:

Marriage/ motherhood/ pleasing husband.
Pleasing me didn't count.
It was considered selfish and unimportant.
Self-pity was my best friend

I was a virgin and sexually molested.
I married the violator
(to cover up shame and humiliation).
I married the violator because I liked his mother.
I married the violator to escape home/ work/ school.
Five years and two children later we divorced

I was rudderless for decades.
Individuation did not exist.
Empowerment did not exist.
Choice did not exist.

I was submissive to my warrior mother
Indifferent to my passive father
Non-existent to my popular sister
Neglected by my womanizing husband
Overwhelmed by my single mothering

My self-fulfilling prophecy:
Ugly - stupid - nothing
Directed my life.
I was filled with impotence.

Regret number one:
I did not love myself.
I was taught that was narcissistic
And the real treasure
Was in pleasing other people.
Guilt became my comfort zone

Regret number two:
I did not open my heart to love.
I learned feelings were meaningless
And intimacy a waste of time.
It was more valuable to have a glued-on smile.
Low self-esteem was my leader

Regret number three:
I did not create a life passion.
I was taught it was wrong
To focus on my own life.
My purpose was in being insignificant.
Powerlessness was all I knew

My worldly potential was not touched

Shutting down at the age of four
Was a split-second child's experience
I let it rule my life

The myth of the child:
I am not worthy
I am not enough
I am not lovable
I am without value
Femininity equals failure

The truth of the adult:
I am worthy
I am whole
I am beloved
I am rainbow fullness
Femininity equals wholeness

Following rules do not create excellence.
Being genuine opens the door and unlocks the mystery
to the inner chambers . .
An explosion into the juicy, hidden treasure of Self

My psychic veil has lifted.
Underneath - the precious four year old shines.
As skins of 'old cocoon thinking' are shedding
Converting into Butterfly Radiance

The jewel that opened my heart?
Self-forgiveness
The light and I again share the same heartbeat

O. Rachael August (c) 2002 oceana813@attbi.com

Subj: 1. what do think? 2. Are you able to put my work on your web page and your network? Oceana
Date: 02/13/2002
From: oceana813@attbi.com
To: bflyspirit7@aol.com

Though I have been a poet since the mid 1970's the muse left me without as much as a flutter months ago. Recently, I've been involved in a workshop based on the work of Joseph Campbell and his book, Reflections on the Art of Living. This work has to do with looking at the myths we unknowingly create and believe into our life. We often end up basing our existence on these illusions. With this realization my heart soon butterflied. Words tumbled out. Generational is the result. Enjoy!

A Note from Alan

Let's play what Norie Huddle calls The Best Game on Earth. The cover of Butterfly (Huddle Books) states that historian Arnold Toynbee observed that the 21 civilizations he studied all collapsed for the same reason: their inability to adapt to changes taking place either within them or surrounding them. Like Joseph Campbell, Toynbee noted the importance of myth in shaping the future of a civilization. For from the myth springs the vision of new possibilities. Each nation, each culture tells such an overarching story about itself. But when great changes take place, a new myth is required. Butterfly is the myth for our times. It was published on Earth Day 1990 as a tale of great transformation to help usher in the "Butterfly Era" of global civilization. This butterfly theme was featured in the June 2000 edition of Noetic Science Magazine.

A Brief Butterfly History

The recent evolution of the butterfly as a metaphor symbolizing humanity's conscious evolution to a more loving and cooperative state started over twenty-five years. After the first Earth Day, Trina Paulus came out with Hope for the Flowers and used the butterfly to illustrate a better way so that we caterpillars would stop crawling all over each other to get to the "top." What's at the top anyway? Trina got millions of people thinking about transformation in a new way. On June 26, 1997, Trina joined us at the United Nations Earth Summit+5 for a butterfly release and ceremony.

Then Norie Huddle advanced the transformational theme to usher in what she termed the "Butterfly Era of Global Civilization" in her book, Butterfly, published on Earth Day 1990, and told me Trina's book was an inspiration to her and got her thinking about transformation. In Butterfly she writes:

"The caterpillars new cells are called "imaginal cell." They resonate at a different frequency. They are so totally different from the caterpillar cells that his immune system thinks they are enemies...and gobbles them up--Chomp! Gulp! But these new imaginal cells continue to appear. More and more of them! Pretty soon, the caterpillar's immune system cannot destroy them fast enough. More and more of the imaginal cells survive. And then an amazing thing happens! The little tiny lonely imaginal cells start to clump together, into friendly little groups. They all resonate together at the same frequency, passing information from one to another. Then, after a while, another amazing thing happens! The clumps of imaginal cells start to cluster together!..,A long string of clumping and clustering imaginal cell, all resonating at the same frequency, all passing information from one to another there inside the chrysalis."

"A wave of Good News travels throughout the system-- Lurches and heaves...but not yet a butterfly."

"Then at some point, the entire long string of imaginal cells suddenly realizes all together that it is Something Different from the caterpillar. Something New! Something Wonderfull!....and in that realization is the shout of the birth of the butterfly!"

Happy Birthday Butterfly!!!

"Since the butterfly now "knows" that it is a butterfly, the little tiny imaginal cells no longer have to do all those things individual cells must do. Now they are part of a mult-celled organism-- A FAMILY who can share the work."

"Each new butterfly cell can take on a different job.----There is something for everyone to do. And everyone is important. And each cell begins to do just that very thing it is most drawn to do. And every other cell encourages it to do just that."

"A great way to organize a butterfly!"

And a great way to organize a butterfly movement!

In February of 1998, Barbara Marx Hubbard released her new book, Conscious Evolution, and advanced the butterfly theme to new heights. In her book she writes:

"As people started waking up, they became imaginal disks in the body of society. The environmental movement, the antiwar movement, the Apollo space program, the women's movement, the civil rights and human rights movements, new music, transcendental meditation, yoga, and mind-expanding substances all encouraged a young generation to act as instruments of social change--striving to birth the still-invisible societal butterfly. And often when new leaders did step forward, they were attacked by society's immune system fighting to maintain the old social order of the caterpillar: Witness the assassinations of Ghandi, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr."

The latest development that encompasses all the above and explains the butterfly phenomena in detail is in a book written by Joanne Lauck called The Voice of the Infinite in the Small. You will have to read this to believe it. Both Norie and Joanne are butterfly writers.