Sacred Wound

“As seed making begins with the wounding of the ovum by the sperm,
so does soulmaking begin with the wounding of the psyche by the Larger Story.”
Jean Houston

The four preceding ideas that have been presented as Cornerstones for Building a Community might wound your reality. They might violate your way of perceiving community or individual responsibility within a community. They might wound your way of seeing yourself.

I often discover that my reality has been wounded when I try to continue my old way of being. If I can’t go on as I was, my reality has been wounded. When my reality has been wounded, penetrated by a possibility - then nothing is quite the same. I can’t put my old shoes back on; they no longer fit. Truth wounds illusion. Hope wounds despair. Friendship wounds isolation. Reality is never safe. My reality has been wounded. It has a sacred wound and, therefore, a new reality has the possibility of being conceived.

Sometimes this conception has nothing to do with my apparent choices. My complacency is broken by an uninvited outside revelation and life is never again the same. Sometimes I invite the process that will bring me my sacred wound. The wounding can be gentle, even seductive - an idea seduces me. I court it and call it. I send it flowers. I slip into bed with it and lose myself in its embrace. I make love to it. Reality is violated. I am never again the same.

Even now, I yearn for a time when I was not so aware that I have chosen my life and my work. I would like to indulge in not thinking well of, and revel in the juicy complaints and truths that don’t have the same windy force when I simply acknowledge the simple good intention of others who may choose to do things differently from me.

My old shoes don’t fit. The new ones aren’t comfortable. My way of seeing the world has been violated by these ideas. Some of my ways of getting my needs met no longer work for me. My excuses have holes in them. I have been touched and, therefore, I am changed. These four ideas haven’t damaged the integrity of who I am but they have impacted the pathology that was my identity.

These ideas break the circle of known reality, they are a wound. Change begins with wounding. Creation begins with wounding. The egg is wounded by the sperm and life begins. Concept, conception, the conception of a self, self-concept.

We each enter this community wounded. Our individual wounds are a part of who we are and of our unique vision of the world. They are a part of our becoming and a part of our mythic journey, the great story that we live. Our wounds, although unique, don’t set us apart from each other. They are one of our common bonds. They are a piece of our common heritage. We all have stories of pain and heroism. We all can define ourselves by the violations to our soul, the impact on our bodies, or by betrayals that have wounded our hearts. Our wounds are unique, but that we are wounded is not. It is because of them rather than in spite of them that we each enter this community as whole beings.

Sacred wounds — Jean Houston says “The wounding becomes sacred when we are willing to release our old stories and to become the vehicles through which the new story may emerge into time. When we fail to do this, we repeat the same old story over and over again.”

Sacred wound — a cornerstone. We have stories of victory that have made us who we are. We have stories of pain that have made us who we are. Some we will tell and some are never told. The tragedy is not that we have experienced pain, but that we allow it to eclipse all that follows it; that we keep it ever present and our lives unchanged by all of the experiences that follow. What if we were to make our wounds and ourselves sacred by sacrificing them and opening ourselves to the greater story, the story of all that we have become and all that we are becoming.

But, what is that story? We will only know when we create it. So, step. Step into your larger story. Live that story fully, knowing that you will again be wounded and you will again be healed.

“Work as if you don’t need the money.
Dance as if no one is looking and
Love as if you have never been hurt.”

Back to Main Cornerstones Page