You know, I think this is obvious, so I don't mention it, but sometimes I get reminded that I need to get this out there.
Yes, I am brilliant.
Yes, I am broken.
Yes, I am both, both brilliant and broken.
There is a term for that state, a myth I have understood since I was very small. It's called being the "wounded healer," and every human culture has that archetype somewhere in their mythology.
I am brilliant because I am broken. Being broken keeps me open, aware of my own feelings and the feelings of others. That awareness of pain and joy, of where the sharp edges are keeps me brilliant, because I have the instinct, intution and insight that comes from shared pain.
I am broken because I am brilliant. Being brilliant keeps my way illuminated, and that means I tend to see things, see connections and disconnections that can easily be missed when they are left in the shadows. Anyone brilliant enough to see between, see though, and see below will always see where things are not right, wher suffering occurs, where people act out of pain & rage, out of stuffing & greed.
I drive down the road and see all the shiny new cars and while I can tell them apart, I have real trouble seeing where they are different. It's just not something I see.
But I look at the faces of people and I see such a range of hearts, such a river of connections that it moves me, moves me deeply.
I know that many people are the other way. They understand the symbolism of cars while the faces of the crowd around them blur together. Cars don't need, don't bleed and don't feel pain.
I have a gift and that gift has a price. I can't imagine how you can be exquisitely attuned and sensitive and also be compartmentalized and defended, easily sloughing off the routine slights & insults of everyday modern & mechanical society. I try to strike a balance, but that balance is always off, always tearing, always wrong, because right is hard.
Am I sick? Sure. Am I a healer? Sure. It's what I do, but more than that, it is who I am. I am a wounded healer. And being a wounded healer means that you are never simply one thing or the other, but rather that you are liminal, on the limina, in the doorway, both and neither, all and nothing, at the same damn time.
I am deeply connected to what is important at the same time I have fallen off the grid.
I am strong minded at the same time my weakness opens me to pain.
I am lucid & lyrical at the same time I feel no one understands me.
I am out & naked at the same time I stay hidden.
I am the queerest person Kate knows because I am not just wildly indvidualistic, I am also conservatively tame at the same time, which makes me queer in the doorway, double queer.
I am terrfied and fearless, desiring and cleansing, intelligent and emotional, female and male, potent and impotent, grounded and flying, here and beyond, all at the same damn time.
This is the myth of the wounded healer, one who rises above by going below, one who bleeds from the heart while touching the godhead. This is the mythical creature who can help others with their healing because they know the path of pain — the path of transformation — so well.
I remember a pyschologist who recently transitioned, and a client was somewhat surprised when a husky woman answered the door. She offered to give the woman another refferal, but the woman looked at her for a bit and then finally said "No, no. I think there are things I can learn from you."
That's what makes us so compelling, and that's what makes us so scary, because it is obvious that there is so much to learn from those who are in the doorway, and it is also obvious that once we go though that door, we will have to see our life (and our rationalizations about that life) in a new way forever more, both brand new and exactly who we always were at the same time.
I know how I play small and sabotage my own power. I also know how I fly free and walk with giants at the same time. That's what I do. I'm a wounded healer, one of the very many who have always existed and who only sometimes have been valued as seers, teachers and catalysts.
It's always obvious to me that I am one of those minor wounded healer types, so I assume it is obvious to others. But unless you have come to understand those types, maybe by being one yourself — like Ms. Rachelle — I guess it's hard to understand those types.
I am living in eternity; I am living in a hovel; I am beautiful beyond measure; I am a bloody human mess.
I am me.