Writing my first book was an incredible challenge, but I did it, step by step, moment after moment. I loved the experience of seeing it develop and what others said about it. The feedback that flowed in and what others began to share with me about their own stories. I believe that the very idea of sharing our stories has gradually become the way forward. For us each to speak out about our challenges and our wounds is the new spirituality.
To let us each know where we have come from, is the story of our souls journey. Where we began and where we are going.
My book was part of a huge beginning for me, I did not care that its grammar was somewhat ‘wrong.’ It was my story and I wanted to share it, somehow my soul knew it had to.
Preface
It was time to go home, to leave Ireland, I was forty-nine years old. I had been there for seventeen years. Since my fifth child was eight months old and my youngest was not yet born. I had left England in a green and blue painted bus, no home to go to, just a desire to re-create myself and my life. This I had achieved.
Here I was packing up my belongings, my history, my work and my children’s home. Leaving a time of incredible transformation behind. A time where I had discovered myself; healed my childhood from abuse and uncovered who I was in relationship. Most importantly letting go of who I really did not want to be.
Filling my boxes with books and paperwork I came across some old journals that I had written over the years. One, in particular, leather bound small book that was full of writings and poetry. It was many years old and I began to read it. Flitting through the pages to begin with, but then sitting down amongst my box’s to take a more in-depth look.
Here was the story of what seemed like a different woman embarking on a relationship with a new lover. It spoke of the dread she felt, how she was somehow compelled to be with this man and yet all the signs showed her that it was not right, she was not being treated with respect and was hurting deeply. But she could not stop herself from allowing this relationship to run its course. Deep inside something was calling for her to learn from its shadow.
I lifted my eyes from the journal for a moment. Here was the story of my lack of self-esteem that had developed in me as a small girl which had motivated dysfunctional relationships and maybe by investigating my childhood and writing my story, I would discover its roots. I was going home. To where it all began.
Poetry like the river, runs through my veins,
Opening my mind to new stories yet to be told.
Words like mirrors
Reflecting back to me life and her mysteries,
Unspoken yet heard.
Through promises of gentle nurturing,
Wisdom in its most angelic form,
Poetry is the mistress’s language,
Of love, of passion, of celebration,
A language of heartache and sorrow,
A golden treasury of deep, forgotten lakes unfolding onto a page.
Caroline Carey
Caroline Carey Writings, Prose & Poetry 