Violence
A short memento of a long, merciless pain of betrayal.
Cappi
Come, my child,
Come, rest in the temple of self,
Where you sought salvation,
Where your tears made oceans,
To journey to God.
Come, child,
Come to the temple of God.
I don’t know how to begin this piece. I spent decades hiding the pain of this memory, burying it so deeply in the file cabinets of my brain that I almost forgot it existed. I suppose that was my way of coping with the grief of losing my power over my self-image.
How does a person deal with a trauma to their dignity?
I thought it was acceptable, in a hushed and unspoken way, for a female to be violated by men. So, I stayed silent, pretending nothing had happened. On most days, I found solace in telling myself that they didn’t know what they were doing. But you cannot calm the storm felt by the 8-year-old child, the 11-year-old child, and the 21-year-old woman. How did I repeatedly become a victim of sexual brutality? Because I trusted my company. I trusted the men in authority—the very men who were supposed to educate me, nurture me, and love me as their daughter or sister. They violated my body. Knowing that there was a time when I loved these men—like a grandfather, a big brother, a lover—became my deepest wound.
I stayed silent, fearing people would think I am lying, fishing for attention or sympathy. They might see me as a naive, uninformed individual who made herself available to be violated. Oh, how ashamed I was of myself. How deliberately I decapitated my own sense of self.
Hiding the trauma only created tornadoes in moments of my life that could have been moments of peace. One doesn’t only suffer the physical violation; it shatters the entire human system. The body remembers, the mind remembers, and even the soul carries that weight. How does one get away with the audacity to harm another human in such a manner? Only they know. Maybe they want to experience their darkness, or maybe their darkness wants to experience them.
So much time passed in my silence, with tears bleeding through my eyes in solitude, because I could neither forget nor forgive. At first, I couldn’t forgive them, and then I couldn’t forgive myself. But on my healing journey to self, I now notice the ease that comes with sitting in awareness of this pain.
The divine within always reveals messages, even in our darkest moments. I have come to believe that nothing happens randomly; even chaos has its own order. When one searches for the deeper meaning of pain, one can discover the message hidden in the silence. For me, it was an inevitable path to find my inner oneness, and those painful events played a small role in rocking my boat, forcing me to navigate the waters of my soul. By embracing both the darkness and the light, I found that healing is possible, even when it seems distant.
When you see through the lens of oneness, you find the courage to forgive—not to justify, but to understand. You recognize the brainless, disconnected state in which people act out their darkness. You no longer blame anyone, not even the moment itself. You sit in peace, and thank yourself for having the strength to rise up from the ashes, burned but not broken.
Some days, I still find tears rolling down like a river, flowing freely and undisturbed. Yet, I have found the courage to forgive them and, importantly, to forgive myself. But I suppose that one can never fully forget such events. There is no cure for a violent memory, only the hope of forgiving the act and accepting its aftermath. And to cross that bridge, one must ask the divine within to walk alongside them.
So why speak about it after all these years? I guess the remedy to heal the soul was to speak my truth— to set the child in me free, the one who had been kept a prisoner as a wound.
I searched for the key to this freedom in the arms of men, in another continent, in the power of material success, under the mounting bricks of responsibility, in the act of healing others— yet none had it except me. The maze always led home.
The deeper I healed, the more I understood how each act of violence toward my mind and body had shaped my reality. So now, I am creating a reality free of this pain, free from the disease of such trauma. I am sailing with the wind within, empowered by the compass of my being.
The air feels lighter;
I no longer struggle to breathe.
The stars look so bright tonight,
And the ground so stable beneath.
Is this what life feels like,
When all its burdens are released?
Comment: The ‘Cappi’ piece draws inspiration from Banisteriopsis caapi, the sacred vine of the Amazon rainforest, which is integral to the traditional spiritual medicine of Ayahuasca. The name ayahuasca is derived from two Quechua words: aya, meaning "spirit," "soul," or "ancestor," and huasca, meaning "vine" or "rope," translating to "vine of the soul" or "vine of the dead." The spirit of Ayahuasca is one of a grandmother, abuela Ayahuasca is compassionate yet a firm teacher.
In this painting, I represent that Grandmother Spirit as a nurturing presence, carrying me on her back, reflecting her protective guidance and the profound connection I have with her, illustrating how her love and care have allowed me to flourish again as her vine. A reminder that we are all connected in this comical dance of life. I AM.
November, 2024
