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Lois's Story

areneedowns

The Power of Song

By Lois McCullen Parr



Image Description:

A hand-painted mask with a swoopy grey hairline, blue forehead & eyebrows, green nose, pink cheeks & lips, sparkling sunshine & rainbow fabric crown, and a sparkly auburn ribbon through the mouth that is lifting up.

 

The Story of My Mask:

At a leadership retreat called “Cultivating the Mystery” last fall where we explored archetypes, I found it easy to identify my dominant one, the “warrior” – confront injustice! I worked furiously at creating a collage for my warrior: so easy! I can win this! Words! Power! (Oh, yeah, the shadow of that warrior? Cynicism.)


It was much more difficult (and this was the exercise) to identify how I could be served by the “innocent” – the one who trusts, who is optimistic, who has faith. I wandered on the self-examination path in my journal, discovering the relationships between my faith, my Dad, my gender, my warrior-shadow. My mask explored the ways in which I’m like my Dad (whose archetype was the “innocent”), and ways in which I’ve rejected that innocent – especially aware that in myself I trusted the “masculine” qualities and not the “feminine” ones (for my Dad was so soft & tender).


Meanwhile, at this retreat, I kept feeling prompted to teach/lead songs...and I did. I trusted the retreat facilitator, I trusted the group, I trusted myself. We sang.


For The Laundry Line’s prompt, I kept returning to my mask, because the practice of working on it went deeply into my body – and my White cisgender queer woman’s soul. She is calling to me now to discover where/how to “extend my voice” in this moment in movements for justice.


I am hopeful for the courage to respond to that call, to build community, to trust that our resistance song can nourish a more just future.

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