A picture speaks a thousand wounds

by Lian Brook-Tyler

This is a rediscovered photograph from many moons ago, from when I was helping out a photographer with his portfolio.

I’m around 18 here… Almost still a girl.

Although I’ve shared others from that shoot, I’m not sure I’ve ever shared this one before now.

Reluctance and pride all mixed up with clothes that weren’t mine, and a body that I was in the work of claiming as mine.

Awkward, unsure, with no idea of my power but with a strangely sure sense of self, which somehow landed with others as confident, aloof, even snobby.

I look at this photo now and I can see all of that and more. Maybe we were all right.

(There’s a story to the rips involving a jealous boyfriend - I understand that much better than I did then too.)

As we embark on The Inner Child Quest in UNIO, it feels timely that this should show up now… Because many of my greatest childhood wounds are actually from my teen years.

A sacred wound that told me that being a woman felt dangerous, *was* dangerous, before I’d even become one.

But now,

I sit

at the feet

of trees, story-tellers and poets,

I find an old photo,

I see the girl becoming a woman,

(in spite of herself)

and I lift her

close to my heart

and I say

holy

holy.

♥️

Inspired by the poem I read in ceremony, The Healing Time by Pesha Joyce Gertler

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