Awakening Darkness: Elgin State Hospital 1969-1972 A Rite of Passage (Ceremonial Memoir(tm) Amidst a Medicine Wheel-South)

J.M. Seis vision is to allow others to experience the beauty and power that is born in what we may consider our darkest experiences. She redefines how writing can become a ceremony of healing. Seis created a new genre Ceremonial Memoir (TM) in order to transform a challenging time in her own life. A thirteen-year old girl in the process of discovering her sexual identity is placed in a state mental institution by her religious parents in 1969. Awakening Darknessis a story told by a young girl to her adult self. Decades of silenced experience erupt from an unheard past. Although many traumas occurred during that time period a story of healing and transformation rises from the ashes. J.M. Seis takes us through a labyrinth of loss and redemption in her own life as a healer who has dedicated her life to ease suffering. She empowers the true self emerging out of darkness acknowledging literal experiences symbolic meaning and mythic interactions. She brings to light the influence and guidance she gained from the Dark Mother Archetype and how important it is to reconnect the dark and the light aspects of the Divine Feminine in human consciousness. Awakening Darkness is a first person account of a gay child in a mental institution. Seis also portrays a feminist awakening by a young girl in a violent male dominant society where abuse of power is rampant. Along with the photos and drawings this book illustrates a time in the history of mental health rarely written about.