The Wounded Child

A SoulCollage Card by Dori King

In August I attended the “Images of Light and Shadow” workshop with Varuna and Seena at Mt. Madonna. This workshop had the most profound effect for me of any workshop I have attended. During the workshop I began to open to the mystery of the shadow, the mystery I have closely guarded all my life. I began to peek into the shadows and bring them into consciousness and respect. It was like wanting to look into the sun knowing I will damage my eyes if I look too long yet daring to glimpse the fiery glow.

I began writing about the experience when I returned home but could not shape my words around my deep feelings, so I decided to bring out my intuition and create a SoulCollage card. This is the card that emerged.

Without any explanation, I shared my card with my ex-husband, Bill, who lives in Florida. Bill in turn shared the card with a friend who is a poet. Bill’s friend, John Scott, has never met me, knows nothing about my life, and is not familiar with SoulCollage yet was inspired to write a poem about my card. Usually, in this special card section, we have only the writing of the artist about the card. However, in this case the card is intuitively “read” by a stranger, a poet, who opens up a deeper, hidden meaning in the card, one which I recognize to be true. It takes courage to allow another person to enter one’s private domain and speak to us from their perspective, but in this case it was worth the risk. I will share with you first the poem by John Scott and after that my written response to him.

John Scott's Poem

What being is this? Who’s tender
Feet in mid-air they are planted,
Who sees this world from upside down—
And definitely slanted.

How sad eyed little child in bow
All dressed up prim and proper;
Is she a casualty of someone’s rage,
Stuffed in the breach as fodder?

Look now to the stoned scones
Piled up nice and high;
Reminds me of the towers built
By tribe, to God the sky.

What of the shimmering columns
By some temple nave;
Could there have been a centurion
And she a Christian slave?

This to the artist’s work and the
Growing branched leaf of life,
Good health – grow old in wisdom,
Free from trouble ‘n strife.

By Scottie (Reproduced with the poet’s permission)

Dori's Letter

Dear John Scott,

I am so honored by the profound poetry you have written telling the story of the SoulCollage card I created. I am not one to procrastinate writing anything, much less writing to acknowledge someone whose beautiful poetry has so honored my work. What is the problem here?

The problem is in responding to your insightful writing, I must come face to face with my wounded child. I have, for her lifetime, safely and quietly hidden her in the shadows…and now I must take her from behind her hiding place. I have to talk to her, hold her, listen to her, comfort her. I have to know her and honor her. Thank you for beginning my wounded child’s walk down the healing path.

This is like going to the far interior of my soul not knowing what I might find there. In order to grow, to go forward walking with God, something must change, some ineffable something … or nothing happens. “Change me,” Ed Mayes writes in a poem. “Change me into something I am.” SoulCollage and poetry like yours reinforce the transforming experience of change … changing the shadow into light.

Your “intuitive process,” John, in writing about my SoulCollage card is truly amazing. You have stepped into my Spirit World and shown your humanity and grace.

Blessings,
Dori King