Behind the Masks
The Crone is a symbol of inherent wisdom. Although the Crone is the harbinger death, she is also responsible for birth and new life. She is our archetypal midwife.
~ THERE IS NOTHING TO HIDE ~
I started wearing makeup in my late teens. It allowed me to create an illusion of appearing to be more than I believed myself to be. Comments like, “you look so much better with makeup, you should wear it all the time”, led me to believe that makeup made me more acceptable and that my story of how I saw myself was true. Makeup soon became yet another mask to hide behind.
At the age of 29, I read a book that inspired me to ask myself a big life question. That question was the beginning of what I call, ‘The Journey Behind the Masks’.
MARCH 1990. EDMONTON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. MOVING AGAIN
Dear Journal,
Today is a big day. At the end of this day we will be on the other side of Canada and I will begin fulfilling my childhood dream of living in Newfoundland. It feels like I am on a big adventure and about to step into a whole new world. On the drive to the airport this morning I made a big decision.
You remember two years when I asked myself who I was hiding from? I remember the certainty of my answer. I was hiding the real me from everyone around me. If they really knew me then they wouldn’t accept me. I wouldn’t belong and, as you know, my greatest fear is of being abandoned and being all alone, but I was curious about how much I could express myself and still be accepted. I decided to take baby steps to express my individuality. The first step was reclaiming my birth name and using a hyphenated birth and married name. The next step was to have more holes pierced in my ears. Then I made my own clothes so I could choose the styles and fabrics that I felt best expressed who I thought I was. Through all of that I was accepted. Now I am ready for a bigger step. I am no longer going to hide behind all this makeup. Just now, in the airport washroom, I removed my makeup and emptied my makeup bag into the trash. When I looked at my refection in the mirror. I felt naked and vulnerable. Who is this woman without makeup? Will she be accepted? And now the most frightening thoughts keep popping into my mind. What if I am hiding from myself? What if I don’t like her? What if I can’t accept who she really is?
Thank you for listening.
Love and light,
Karen
JULY 1995. MARINE ATLANTIC FERRY. ANOTHER MOVE
Dear Journal,
Here I am on the ferry, being gently rocked by the ebb and flow of the waves. I enjoy leaning on the deck rail and feeling the sea breeze on my face, my eyes follow the water until it becomes one with the sky. It feels expansive and I feel like I am one with the ocean and the sky. It stirs a memory of another experience where I had this same feeling. I was laying on the ground in Gross Morin Park looking up at the star-filled sky and I realized I didn’t know where my body ended and the sky began. I was one with the sky and the stars. Just as that night in Gross Morin Park, I am now asking myself the same question: “Who am I?”
Being on the ferry provides the perfect opportunity for reflection, and in the past couple hours I’ve been thinking a lot about the past five years. There were a multitude adventures and experiences that resulted in magnificent memories. Those adventures involved many first experiences for me. Learning to run, learning to cross-country ski, swimming on a Masters swim team and teaching the art of calligraphy, as well as a number of the related arts in the schools and at the college in the evenings. I studied design and learned to quilt my own designs. I created pieces of art that brought joy to their buyers. The people I met were diverse and they expressed their own individuality in a multitude of ways. There is absolutely no doubt that I was accepted. Many forgot that I was a ‘come from away’ and wanted to know when I would be returning home.
Now once again I step into the unknown. I know there are new opportunities awaiting me but I feel sad leaving this beautiful life I created within a community I feel a part of. I have a feeling that it is time to close ‘the arts’ chapter of my life. I feel uncertain as to how I will I express myself if not through art? It feels like death and at the same time it feels like there is something pushing upward to be birthed. I keep having glimpses of myself in a leadership role and having opportunities to expand my leadership skills. When these images pop into my mind I feel afraid. I don’t see myself as a leader. It feels uncomfortable to give them space and I find myself pushing the images out of my mind.
Thank you for being here for me.
Love and light,
Karen
MARCH 2022. HALIFAX. THE WOMAN BEHIND THE MASKS
Dear Journal,
The moon has expressed her fullness a plethora of times since I arrived in Halifax in 1995. What a journey it has been. Leadership actually did become the focus of my life and once I embraced my fears and learned the difference between being ‘responsible for’ and ‘responsible to’, it felt natural to be a leader.
So I ask myself, do I now know the woman behind the masks. Well, I know who I am not. I had my identity all tangled up in story — an intergenerational patriarchal story. I was stuck in story and survival consciousness. I liberated myself, and now as I write this, I smile, and remember taking a big, bold step into living from a deeper level of consciousness.
Oh 2016! The year I went to Australia to support K through her transition into motherhood over a three-year period. I had the freedom to utilize all my life wisdom and to serve in a way I had never served before. I chose to be called Grandmother. Five-and-a-half-year-old E now says it so clearly and perfectly — and I love it! Every time I hear her call my name, I am reminded that my purpose here is to serve as a wise woman, a crone, a story-listener, a story-keeper, a guide, a way-shower and as a midwife of the soul. In my remembering the archetypal Grandmother, K and E are remembering as well. This ancient powerful feminine archetype is rising through being remembered.
As for the woman behind the masks, she remains a mystery to me. What I do know is I feel free, alive and unlimited in the mystery and I no longer need to know who I am, nor do I want to be defined. For me, being defined is like living in a box. I just simply enjoy being and I trust that what is being expressed through me, supports my Soul path. I am free. I am an unlimited being.
You are a faithful friend.
Love and light,
Katharina
SELF-AWARENESS QUESTIONS
Can you identify a mask you hide behind? For example, your body, your clothing, your story, your job, your silence.
What to you need to have to come out of hiding? For example, space, acceptance, permission, to be safe.
Why are you hiding? Who or what are you hiding from?