Prologue

Jonah tells me I should have been an ax murderer, what with my Lizzie-Borden-in-the-making kind of childhood. “Instead,” he says, “you’re a miracle. You make all discussion about whether genetics or environment determine a person’s character moronic and irrelevant.”

If you had become an ax murderer, he says, the psychologists who studied your case would simply “tsk” their tongues, shake their heads and conclude, “Well, what else could she have been? Fascist dictator. Raging psychotic. Check one or all of the above.”

“Add what’s occurred in these last years, and you should at least be a broken, embittered human being. Instead,” Jonah says, “you’re this loving, compassionate, wise, powerful woman. You’ve not only endured a lot, but you’re thriving. Who you are clearly isn’t about genetics or environment; it’s about the evolution of your soul.”

Now, granted, Jonah is a bit over the top when it comes to going on about my attributes. He is my life partner, after all, and loves me more than I thought it possible for another human to love anyone, let alone me.

But he is right. I am a miracle, or maybe I should say, I’m a person to whom miracles happen regularly—a miracle magnet. I’ve experienced Lazarus-rising-from-the-dead kinds of miracles, help-when-all-seems-lost miracles, and other varieties, too. Some come like shock waves, reverberating through my whole being. Others drift by like a gentle breeze, so imperceptibly glancing across my face that I almost miss them. At times, I’m looking for them. Often, they’re looking for me. I could be a poster child for miracles, I’ve experienced so many.

I’m not so deluded, however, as to think they occur to me because I’m somebody special. I happen to believe that miracles are available to everyone daily—including the ax murderers. We just have to keep our eyes and heart open in order to see them, have faith that they exist and invite them into our lives without question when they appear.

We need to do that even when miracles don’t look like what we think they should, or they’re not the ones we asked for, or they aren’t certified by the Catholic Church. Even when we don’t think we’re good enough to deserve them, or we think that surely, we’ve had our quota of miracles for this lifetime.
All I know is that without them, without the infusion of grace and life force that accompanies them, I wouldn’t be alive or functional. Worse yet—I might actually have ended up as one of those other possibilities for my future that Jonah mentioned.

I didn’t always know this. I didn’t know that I could actually feel so much aliveness, gratitude, joy, and love—or that I would ever experience so much choice in my life, because Jonah is right about something else, too. He’s right when he says I’ve gone through a lot. I’m not whining. This isn’t a “woe is me” sort of tale. In fact, while I don’t always live up to it, I’m a big proponent of the anonymous quote: “Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.”

But if I were an outsider looking in on my life, I’d say, “Gee, no way I could survive that.” Yet I did survive, and more than that, I learned to choose life fully. Not only the good and fun parts, but all of it. I shock even myself when I say that I tenderly hold a space inside me where I bless each moment, person, tear, and smile. Each trial honed me with such exquisite precision to know, accept and offer the gift of my life, the gift of me.

Both miracles—and horrors—have served as guideposts and gateways on a journey that led me again and again deep into the underworld of the ancient goddesses, Inanna and Persephone, my spirit sisters. Slowly, with the help of many allies, I clawed and dug and was lifted out repeatedly to live in the land of kaleidoscopic seasons and shades of light. Here, now, I learn to breathe life into a new kind of power in myself. At its heart, this power centers on acceptance of what seems unacceptable, forgiveness of what seems unforgivable, love, compassion, healing, freedom, peace, connection, respect for all life and co-creation with Great Spirit.

I dedicate this story to the child that I was—in particular to the 3-year-old, the 7-year-old, and the 15-year-old of me. I dedicate it to all the children who are and were and will be. The child that was me was saved over and over again by the stories that she read, that were read to her, that became part of her and coursed through her veins like lifeblood. She longed to the depth of her soul to live to tell stories that would touch others, but didn’t dare hope she ever could. Her own voice was silenced so completely, turned inward, a giant cork stuck down her throat. I give you your voice back, my sweet one. I invite you to speak here as you wish in the telling of this tale, to speak your own stories in your own way. Be as loud as you want.

So—“fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night,” as Bette Davis says in All About Eve. But I promise you up front: We do find the Holy Grail. Its liquid heals my parched throat and rekindles the fires of my thirst. The thing is: There is no ending here, happy or otherwise.