I grew up silent. I often wonder at the roots of my silence, as my preference for retreating and just watching is so strong. I am quite sure I was born this way. In addition, the family code of “if you don’t have something nice to say, say nothing at all” runs deep in my genes and I grew up afraid to ask probing questions—it was safer to just watch and listen. There was a certain skill the women in my family had of deflecting pointed questions in such a subtle way that I felt seen and ignored all at the same time. It left me feeling rather invisible, and even safe.
Another kind of silence pervades our family history. I had always heard West Virginia was a “border state,” but until I dug deep into my family history, I didn’t understand how this meant conflict, contradictions, and a hard-won independent streak for families as well as whole communities. My mother’s ancestry was literally split brother against brother in the Civil War. My dad’s father’s family were lumbermen. They came to West Virginia from the north, part of the wave of industrialists stripping the mountains bare of their virgin forests at the turn of the previous century. My dad’s mother’s calling card from her teens gave her address as Charles Town, Virginia, even though it was fifty years since that part of the world had been incorporated into the new state of West Virginia during the Civil War. Little wonder this code of silence ran so deep. No one wanted to open up the old wounds.
I kept the silence too, because that was how I was raised, until I couldn’t any longer. The silencing I experienced was subtle and even unconscious for the most part. It was modeled. No one yelled at me to be quiet—perhaps because I was born quiet. I always heard I was a “good baby” (meaning I didn’t cry), and that my mom bragged that she didn’t have to hold me all the time. Looking back now, it feels like I have been silent for lifetimes, and that my voice was literally dying, like there was a literal constriction in my throat—and perhaps there was because I developed thyroid disease at age fourteen.
After dozens of centuries of female wisdom being suppressed and obliterated among all our European ancestors, I sense that my mother, grandmothers, and their grandmothers had long ago learned the only way to be safe was to keep their heart wisdom to themselves. Sharing it with other women was particularly unsafe because the oppression of women was most successful when we were turned against each other. Silence became the way to survive, which included being silent in the face of atrocities as well. In my own family history those accepted and rationalized atrocities included the laying bare of the land with mining and logging in the name of progress, the horrors of the wars, and accepting racism and social “orders” so our own security and our place in the world was not jeopardized.
My teenage rebellion in high school only led to a new kind of silencing. The initial release of inhibitions with alcohol and marijuana quickly morphed into suppressing my already suppressed feelings. And ten years later I was coming home from work to several glasses of wine. What had been a rebellion became a suppression, one widely condoned by a culture intent on keeping me numb and fueling the economy.
I remember my mother teaching me how to make a great apple crumb-top pie, as well as how to fold my dad’s underwear in great detail—a skill she seemed to think important for a happy home. But I also remember her telling me, sobbing, after my dad left her when I was nineteen, that she didn’t know who she was. All she knew was how to be a wife and a mother. She felt so lost that she tried to kill herself with an overdose. But she did know one thing evidently that I did not, until 50 years later. She told me I was a writer, and that I needed to write.
Bleeding heart is one flower that has almost always been in my gardens, and they literally have pushed me into committing to my writing. When I heard their message: “Pull up your skirts and show the world your passion!” I knew that keeping safe and silent was no longer an option.
Bleeding hearts emerge from the dirt barely thawed from the dark of winter, with seemingly delicate fronds that quickly push up out of the soil and soon bear the buds of their first blooms. Like a young maiden naively sure of the beauty of the world, they have no fear of the frost. They love the early spring light of the sun that is not yet strong and teases them out of the ground with promise. Like the ancient virgins, they are sure of themselves, sensuous and regal.
The original meaning of the word virgin was simply young woman, not married, and hence whole unto herself. Like them, bleeding heart literally brings us the wholeness of their vibrant hearts, with unbridled passion. Their pink and white heart-shaped flowers hang naked, visible for all to see, leading us into spring. It takes a tremendous heart to lead the way, allowing others to find their own courage to follow along. The root of the word courage is “cor,” which is the Latin word for heart. Courage originally meant “to speak one’s mind by telling all of one’s heart”, and this is what bleeding heart was leading me to do. To ferret out and follow my heart’s desire would take courage indeed.
In traditional flower lore, bleeding heart is a symbol for speaking freely about one’s feelings. Yet the term “bleeding heart” has become quite a derogatory term in our culture and refers to one who feels “too much.” We are often shamed for letting our feelings show and this is how burying our feelings becomes a big part of our silencing. Feelings can be dangerous—they awaken our passions—something bleeding heart knows intimately. How else can we know we are alive?
The call to dance with bleeding heart is short-lived because they are an ephemeral… a magical sounding word that means transitory, fleeting—and in the plant world this means that they die back in the heat of the summer. The passion of this flower is for the bright new light of spring and its cooler days and nights. Their faint delicate fragrance is equally fleeting, only shared when we put our nose right next to their flowering hearts. They step aside in late spring for the bolder stronger plants that draw their primary strength from the summer sun. Bleeding hearts draw their strength from their roots sunk deep in the dirt of their mother’s womb—the earth. Returning to the dirt for the next nine months, they nurture the new hearts they will bring into the world the following spring.
Hanging at the tip of their graceful stems, are small heart-shaped flowers with a larger arrow-shaped structure that hangs down. As they mature, the arrow shape splits in two, opens as if it is pulling up its skirts, exposing the delicate inner blood drop bleeding from the end. Rather than protecting their hearts from fear of the spring frost, they are bursting with love, seeds, and gratitude ready to be shared with the world. Their abundant joy and exuberance naturally protect their hearts, emanating from their roots firmly grounded in the life-giving dirt.
On a sunny day as I was sitting with these bleeding hearts, in a bit of a meditative trance, images of May Day and Beltane dancing came into my mind’s eye. There were festively dressed girls with garlands of flowers in their hair, lifting their skirts, dancing barefoot in meadows and gardens. They were full of the confidence of youth, with cheeks blushing, and the excitement of spring. A sensual flirtation with all of creation and the scent of desire were in the air. Then a message came into my being.
I heard Bleeding Heart say: “Let your passion and exuberance overcome your fears of sharing your heart. Your very life force will protect you from giving away your essence. It is time to dance. Pull up your skirts and show the world your passion! Be full of courage!”
I knew these images and messages had come to me from the bleeding-heart flowers, not just my imagination, and an aliveness opened inside me that brought me some of the deepest joy I have ever known.
As fleeting and naïve as they are, bleeding heart knows intimately the unbridled passion of youth—that passion that I tasted as a teenager. I remember my young heart, flush with the sureness that only comes from the lack of experience, so eager to share my heart with all the world. Yet I had very few examples in my life of how to know and follow my deep longings, of how to authentically use my own voice. The terror of criticism, rejection and not being accepted, and the silenced women in my DNA, overrode my young heart and kept me silent. I had very few roots in the dirt to guide me with deep wisdom, like the bleeding heart flowers do.
Bleeding heart let me know it was time to bring forth what I held
deep in my own heart. Unrestrained passion is what the bleeding hearts embody when it comes time to burst out of their roots each spring. My winter season had simply lasted longer than it should have—it was time to break loose from the cultural and self-imposed boundaries around my heart.
Who else would guide me on my journey? Once my heart began to crack open, I heard the voices of so many flowers, most of whom had been with me for much of my life, waiting for me, guiding me even when I wasn’t aware, much like my grandmothers had, in their silent way.
I connected to so much in your story and saw myself reflected there. From the silence, to thyroid disease, to rebellion turned self silencing with alcohol, to the openness of my youthful heart drawing inspiration to open back up now. Beautiful, thank you.
"Sharing it with other women was particularly unsafe because the oppression of women was most successful when we were turned against each other." WHEW!