Although I didn’t know it as a child I found an alternative family to the one I was born into. That one, my birth family provided me with nothing a family are supposed to. Love, care, boundaries, guidance and safety. I was alone apart from my little brother and my cat, Georgie. There were no safe adults. But I found comfort else where. I looked back as an adult and found I became attached to Nature in a very passionate and strong way. Everything that Nature gave me saved me from the isolation I suffered. So, I escaped into it. I grew up in houses that had big gardens, tended to in a meticulous manner. I would get lost wandering the garden whenever I could, spending long periods of time listening to the birds sing, looking for insects, having ladybirds land on me in the Summer and lying in the grass gazing at the sky. I loved flowers and there were many different kinds, colours of every hue, also a huge rose garden that I would sit in on the dirt, looking up at the roses smelling their wonderful scent. I found enormous comfort from this and believe now I internalised it and carried it as a place to return in my imagination, so I could survive. Nature was always there, I could return to her in my mind and she would not leave me lonely. She was safe. I went on long walks as well across the countryside where I grew up. The fields and hills of The Cotswolds in Gloucestershire are beautiful and I roamed them with my Grand mother every week. Without my constant contact with the natural world, my ability to submerge myself in it I really do not think I could have survived the way I did. Nature met my longings. I know the sadness of the fact it had to be this way for me, but I am so grateful to the natural world for giving me this, when people failed so miserably.
During my time processing trauma in EMDR therapy I came across a story from one of my child parts that told me of a terrible assault I suffered, along with another small group of children. My child part continued to reveal this story to me after I had processed it with my therapist and told me more of what I had survived. This is their tale.
The Owls, my watchers.
In a field of wildflowers dancing in sweet Summer grass, buzzing with the hum of bees and warmed by the hot sun, there once stood an old barn. It was strong and solid, a home to many creatures, mice, rats, foxes and swallows nesting high up in the beams. Two barn owls made their home there too, watching the seasons come and go. The golden heat of Summer, the dew of a Spring morning and the biting winds of Winter.
The owls were guardians of each others souls. Together they were guardians of the barn. Two quiet watchers from above. Seeing all that happened in the barn until the day it burned down. The fire which engulfed it came from nowhere within a storm’s lightening bolt. In a crack of light it was taken suddenly, without mercy. Striking swiftly and cleanly, the barn was brought to the earth. Crumbling, falling, ending. The owls left serenely, flying off to safety settling in an old oak tree. As the barn started to smoulder and burn they watched it collapse in plumes of smoke and orange flame. The air was filled with the smell of burning hay for days, the blackened earth steaming. In the barn’s place after the rain fell, the field beneath slowly recovered its green softness. Flowers of all colours began to grow and bloom, covering the earth with their delicate beauty. The owls watched as the earth transformed itself after its scorching death, returning to its natural state.
The owls lived in the oak, nesting. They spent their days and nights resting, flying and hunting, returning always to their place of safety high above the field of flowers. The old barn held dark secrets the owls had seen a long time ago. They were secrets of children’s suffering. When the barn burned down all of the secrets were released in the fire. Set free upon the air to create the stories of children. This was a purging only a storm could bring about. From destruction came life, as small wild flowers grew in the place of burned earth. Sweet green grass gave a home to animals and insects. Wildness spread out from the earth. She staked her claim.
Small children were the secrets in the barn the owls guarded. No one knew them, except the owls. No one saw them but the owls. The children who suffered did not know the owls were there watching over them. Being invisible is what created such suffering and pain for the children. Yet within Nature which is wiser than people, there were witnesses to the unspeakable. Some children survived the barn, some did not. Those that did, well I am one of those. I know no others like me who did, but they are out there, somewhere. I hope they know joy. I hope they can hold the feelings of pain belonging to the children they once were and give themselves tenderness and love. I hope that despite the overwhelming suffering they survived that on some level they can feel they were not alone. There are many ways to build connection other than a birth family. For this survivor out beyond the loneliness of growing up in and surviving an abusive family is the forever oneness of the natural world. It is here I found and continue to discover my hope and salvation.
