“To act with a whole mind, body, and spirit, is to act in harmony with power.”

                                                                                                -from The Prophet by Chuck Dickson and Steve Downs

Hi, I’m Darlene, aka Whispering Wind

I’m a writer, artist, and educator from rural Appalachia. I grew up close to nature, close to family and close to Creator. As Dolly Parton sings in her song, “Coat of Many Colors”, “although we had no money , oh, I was rich as I could be….”

My mother made our clothes, grew our food and taught us how to make what we didn’t have. My father was a dreamer, a storyteller and an artist, carving things out of cedar, the sacred wood. I roamed the hillsides and hollers of a forgotten little swath of Kentucky’s river, hill and cave country, growing up close to the natural world, feeling connected to all things she offered. Sometimes I felt as if the wind whispered to me, as if it called my name and always said, “I love you.” I knew it was my Creator. My father told me (as his mother had told him) that God speaks to us through nature. I felt harmony with the natural world, harmony with God, close to my parents, my grandparents and my siblings, especially my big brother, Johnny.

 TRAGEDY

However, when I was fourteen my tower of happiness came crashing down and it continued to crash for five straight years. My brother had gone swimming with a cousin and some friends. The phone rang, my dad answered and the look of grief, horror and disbelief on his face as he collapsed in a fit of hysteria have pierced my memory ever since. Even now, when I remember that moment, my eyes well with tears. My brother was dead. My family’s world fell apart. My parents plummeted into grief and my mom’s heart would fail shortly thereafter. The joyous childhood I had known came to a screeching halt and nothing was ever going to be the same again.

Between the ages of fourteen and nineteen I watched my grandmother, my brother, my mother and my grandfather make their transitions into non-physical form. I battled anorexia and an inferiority complex that would plague me for years to come. Somehow, I believed that if I had just been good enough, perfect enough, well-behaved enough, if only I had done the right things, made the right grades and said the right things, then maybe I wouldn’t have seen so many people I loved die. I became a people pleaser, afraid to hurt anyone, afraid that they would die, too, and I would be left with the memory that I was “mean” to them.

My anorexia wasn’t about feeling pretty or being beautiful; it was about feeling like I wasn’t perfect enough, deserving enough. It was about blaming myself. It was about dealing with tragedy upon tragedy and somehow, in the midst of that I got married (at sixteen years old) and felt guilty for leaving my siblings and guilty for not knowing enough to keep a good house. Guilt and grief were running the show and when I went to church, I did so thinking that I had to perform so God would love me, because surely somewhere along the way, I had messed up and didn’t deserve good things to happen to me.

I LOVE YOU!

Then one day, in my twenties, I was standing in a barn door on a rainy day, crying, disapproving of myself, upset with myself for just not being “good enough.” The cool air that comes with rain showers stung my face and I felt–a peace wash over me. The breezes seemed to whisper to me , “I love you. I accept you. Unconditionally.” I recognized that voice as the same one I had heard so often as a young child, the voice of my Creator. And so began a journey that would take me out of grief, out of guilt, out of condemnation, out of religion and into spirituality, a journey that would remind me that I am loved and because I am loved, because I am accepted, I can accept others, no matter how different they are than me. I am still walking this journey, this pathway. I have not yet arrived to the place I one day will be but I am a far cry removed from the young woman who never felt good enough no matter how hard she tried.

THE WAY

We live in a world where millions of voices are shouting at us, telling us where to go, what to wear, how to think. There is so much noise, but deep inside us there is a longing to be connected to the universe, to our Creator, to each other.

There is a “way” of balance, peace, and harmony, of spiritual growth, mental clarity, physical health and longevity. All of these things are connected and that’s what I discuss in this blog.

I hope you will journey with me as I explore ways to be healthy, spiritual, mindful, connected, creative, alert and alive. It is my wish that we learn together.

I know this piece is vulnerable, but maybe in our vulnerability, we help each other. Maybe in this world of everyone living “perfect” lives on social media and shouting to be heard, it’s good to hear a whispering wind that says, “I love you–unconditionally. You are enough.”

I hope you will walk with me on this journey and visit me here often. We are all human, not perfect in ourselves, love, the genuine acceptance and appreciation of each other, is what perfects us. Love is the way, the only way.

 

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