Freedom is a Story We Tell Ourselves

Wedged between the East and the West, lost in a nowhere land of my own, I stood witness to the illusion of choice that pervades cultures: Freedom was a story we told ourselves.

The following is an excerpt from my upcoming second book The Song of the Mystery: The Foundation for Human Belonging.

“A wedding day, for just one day, before also joining the gathering of women, joining in the giving and receiving of recipes of servitude. I can still taste the dust of bones, of cement and death. I can still see so many of the women in these gatherings as headstones, cemented into a fixed distortion. One day, I was to be the newest sacrifice, the next headstone. The only tales I heard were musings that distracted from the depth of their own being, stories that chased away the heart’s calling. No one spoke of their death. No one spoke of life.

When in a collective of men and women, the gathering meant I had to serve the patriarchy. The conversations among the men were of the world, a world I wasn’t allowed to be a part of. Neither a woman nor a man, I was often in between, transformed into a scullery maid fetching endless cups of tea.