Opening a Can of Sacred Worms.

                                                    Mother and Child, reunion - an etching.

 Opening a Can of Sacred Worms.

Today, I opened a heavy door I’ve walked past for years.
It slammed shut with a gust of wind,
and the thud echoed through me.
A signal, perhaps.
A quiet command: “Now. Return.”

The book in my hands opened to page 182 —
C.G. Jung’s essay The Psychological Aspects of the Kore.
Just three pages in, and something deep stirred:
a familiar ache,
a silence long kept,
a recognition of the wound I’ve always carried —
my relationship with my mother.

To know her is to know myself.
And so I write — not to accuse or to glorify,
but to see more clearly the place where so much of my soul’s journey began.

What follows is a letter —
part prayer, part confession, part release.

---

Dear Mother,

I don’t even know where to begin, but I must begin —
because this has lived in me for too long,
and I can no longer carry the weight of silence
without speaking to you,
without speaking to the part of me
That was shaped in your shadow and your light.

There is love here, and also grief.
There is longing, and also confusion.
There is anger, and also forgiveness —
Though I’m not sure if I’ve arrived there yet, or if I ever will.

What I know is this:

I missed something.
I missed the warmth, the safety, the open arms.
I missed the feeling that I was seen —
not just as a son,
but as a soul.
I waited for you to see me, to know me,
and I think part of me is still waiting.

Maybe you gave all you could.
Maybe life dealt you a hand
that left little space for tenderness.
Maybe your own wounds were too deep to let love flow freely.

But I still feel it, Mother.
The absence.
The ache.
The quiet hunger that no one else could ever quite fill.

And yet…
I want to understand you.
Not as a role,
but as a woman.
As a daughter, maybe,
who was also once small, scared, and searching for love.

I want to say I forgive you —
But more truthfully, I want to say:
I see you now.
I’m trying.
And by seeing you, I hope to see myself more clearly.
To reclaim the parts I lost or rejected
because I didn’t know how to carry them.

I am not writing this to make peace with the past.
I am writing to make peace with myself.

Thank you for what you could give.
And may I now find what you could not.

With truth, with love,
Your son.

---

There is more to be said,
but for now, this is enough.
This letter is a step —
into the underworld of memory,
and perhaps toward the spring of something new.

To anyone carrying their own unspoken letters —
You are not alone.

May we all find the courage to meet the places within us
that are still waiting to be seen.

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