What hides deep within us are all the things we don't want others to know about us, and even more, what we don't want to know about ourselves. Until we face what we've hidden Behind the Mask, we live in fear of being seen We, also, live with the devastating effects of unconscious, fear-based protective patterns that rob us of the birthright of a fully lived life. Dr. Sandy uses the same style of writing in this second book of the trilogy, The Meaning of Three, as in her first book, The Mask. This unique style merges non-ordinary personal autobiography with transpersonal understanding for changing and transforming the human experience. To bring healing to physical, emotional, and spiritual wounds, all the way down into the DNA and beyond, Sandy embarks on journeys into her childhood, into past lives, alternate realities and into the organizing principles at the very core of us. In the end, she comes face to face with her own personal version of the worst of the worst, something that we all carry, whether we know it or not. In her own process, she provides a path for readers to find their own healing.

THE MEANING OF THREE: BEHIND THE MASK

By SANDY SELA-SMITH

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2009 Sandy Sela-Smith
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4490-2317-1

Contents

DEDICATION.............................................................................................viiACKNOWLEDGMENTS........................................................................................ixFOREWORD...............................................................................................xiiiChapter One The Shadow Knows..................................................................1Chapter Two A Most Disturbing Memory..........................................................19Chapter Three A Most Disturbing Dream...........................................................31Chapter Four The Decoding Device...............................................................47Chapter Five Confluence of Three Stories.......................................................65Chapter Six I Hate What You Made Me Become....................................................73Chapter Seven These Boots Were Made For Kicking.................................................95Chapter Eight The Dungeon.......................................................................119Chapter Nine The Forest, The Box, and The Forklift.............................................133Chapter Ten Going Back to Go Forward..........................................................145Chapter Eleven Back at the Beginning.............................................................183Chapter Twelve A Hole in the Side of My Face.....................................................193Chapter Thirteen The Boat..........................................................................215Chapter Fourteen Three Levels of Abuse.............................................................229Chapter Fifteen The Long-Avoided Passageway To The Worse Of The Worst.............................257Chapter Sixteen Dealing with the Residues of 2009.................................................271Chapter Seventeen The Rest of the Story: Overcoming the Worst of the Worst..........................297Chapter Eighteen The Rest of the Second Story: Caring for the Causes of Cancer.....................315Chapter Nineteen The Rest of the Third Story: Owning My Place In The Universe......................329Epilogue A Deeper Understanding of Three...................................................357

Chapter One

THE SHADOW KNOWS

In a vain attempt to present a perfect image of ourselves to the world, it is not uncommon for us to hide what does not fit that image of perfection behind the masks that we wear. Then, we live in fear that what we have hidden will be exposed, leaving us unloved, unaccepted, and forever alone. We blind ourselves with half-truths and lies not just for others to think better of us, but for ourselves, as well. However, no matter how much we try to hide, we can be sure that deep inside us the Shadow knows.

So many more years ago than would seem possible, my family participated in a ritual that provided a sense of normalcy when normal would never have described the life I lived as a child in the far north country of pre-statehood Alaska. Before TV found its way to our town, radio was the main source of news, information, and entertainment, and sometime in my young childhood, my family got our first radio. The wooden console, made of polished Cherry wood, housed the radio that was taller than I by a few inches, and it had a mesh cloth that covered a very large speaker. It had an open back that provided access to the many lighted tubes and wires that we children were not allowed to touch, though I speculate I must have touched them because I knew from experience that those tubes were very hot. On the upper part of the radio was a glass "window" that revealed a panel with little numbers and marks to designate the frequencies of various stations that required very careful turning of the dial to achieve as static-free a reception as possible.

After dinner, on those special nights, we children assembled in the vinyl-floored playroom to listen to our favorite radio programs, one of which was The Detective Hour. As the designated time approached, we pulled up our chairs and gathered around as our father turned on the radio and tuned into a program that always began with an eerie organ prelude to help listeners conjure images of shadowy corridors in haunted houses, or dark city streets, wet with toxic rain dripping from awnings and forming rivulets that flowed into steamy sewers in the even darker back-alley ways. And then the sinister voice of Orson Welles began to speak with slow, determined words-as only he could speak-using deep theatrical tones that sent shivers down the spines of millions of listeners, as he said, "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? ... The Shadow knows!"

All the time he spoke, if you listened very carefully, you could hear what might have been the rustle of a trench coat or maybe the sound of footsteps that seemed to be walking someplace towards that evil. This was followed by wicked laughter that sounded as if it came from someone who had lost his mind; maniacal enough to chill the blood of anyone drawn into what lay ahead. The laughter was accompanied by a swell in the dissonant sounds of the organ, like the music played in old-time films to warn the listener that something terrible was about to happen. This led into the story that would touch our imaginations and keep us all riveted to the glowing lights from inside the radio box that magically brought the sounds from what seemed like another world into our home.

For one night each week, my family listened to a story that nobody even thought of pretending we weren't hearing, and at the end of the program, the evil people were caught because The Shadow knew! He exposed the evildoers to the rest of the world, at least to those fifteen million or so of us who were listening throughout the country back then. While The Shadow exposed the wickedness of the evil hearts of men on the radio program, a part of me knew there was no one who could expose, much less bring to justice, the people who inflicted much more evil onto children, such as myself, in our town, and no radio program back in the 1950s would have exposed the depths of evil that lurked in the hearts of the abusers. I suspect, that even as the 21st century has moved into its second decade, there is still a reluctance to accept the existence of the kind of evil that was too much a part of my early years. Our culture would prefer to believe that extremely wicked hearted evil is exceedingly rare and belongs only to the few truly perverse among us and on CSI programs or horror films, but not in their own lives, or the lives of people they know. However, my experience has caused me to hold quite a different perspective.

* * *

From outside observation, we seven looked like a model family, not unlike television families with whom many of us grew up, some of which started out as radio programs and became TV shows later in the 50s and 60s and watched as reruns in the next 30 or 40 plus years, such as the Andersons on Father Knows Best, and Ozzie and Harriet. Later there were The Cleavers from Leave it to Beaver and then Sheriff Andy Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show, the Brady Bunch, the...