Emmett’s Mom

The Iceland apartment by @stephents3d

Post #4/5

I am pleased to announce that I have destroyed this book, page by page and taken something that sought to hurt me and turned it into a beautiful journey of the self.

I bought 'The Dark Goddess, Dancing with the Shadow' at a used bookstore and found in the very first chapter the same rhetoric used by abusers in the Pagan and Spiritual communities. I bought it so that it could not be found by someone who did not know to read a book like this critically, and for several years it has been on my bookshelf, waiting for something to be done with it.

There is school of thought, especially in my communities, that books are perfect and immutable. That they cannot be wrong, that they should not be destroyed. If we are to move forward, we cannot hold any art, word, or man without fault.

This book, in particular, was repeating harmful language and perspectives that were outdated even for the time that it was written, but still extremely present in modern communities. And it would be laughable if I had not been witness to the manipulative nature of these things.

The nature of erasure poetry is that it both obscures its original message while also bringing attention to it. I remove it, I remove its power, I bind it from harming others and I turn it into something beautiful- but I also reveal its role and bring it out from the shadows.

And I end this piece on the message that if we are to improve in any stripe, we must act and we must use the skills we have to speak out when we can no longer be silent.