My Sweet Wild Dance

By Mikaya Heart

This is the true story of one woman's search for truth, her personal evolution from anger to joy, her determination to walk her own walk, and her spiritual awakening. Growing up in conservative Scotland in the sixties, she escaped her family, and against all odds became a barefoot hippie, a radical activist, a lesbian, and an outspoken feminist

• Language: English
• Publisher: Leavitt Peak Press
• Release date: May 14, 2024
• ISBN: 9781964462042

Mikaya Heart

Mikaya Heart grew up in Scotland and is now based in Hawaii, where she spends a great deal of time alone in her garden. Her intimate relationship with Nature enabled her to survive a troubled childhood that left her deeply disillusioned with the status quo, and she dropped out of university at the age of 20, choosing to be a barefoot hippie instead of a research scientist. Wanting to be independent of the big corporations, she studied organic farming, building, and mechanics. She has traveled around the world on a limited income, and her adventurous lifestyle has helped her to embrace every part of herself: to defy convention, turn scars into strengths, and always live life on her own terms. She is a kitesurfer, an award-winning author, a change-maker, and a spiritual mentor, helping people to learn to operate from a place of trust instead of fear. Her authenticity, her radical wisdom, and her deep awareness of spirit make her a compassionate and powerful guide for all who choose the truth. Ever since she studied shamanism in the eighties, she has been leading journeys of consciousness and teaching classes on the true nature of reality, enabling her students to participate in the awakening on this planet by taking responsibility for their personal power and wisdom. She is presently studying the first 27 dimensions with her own teachers. www.mikayaheart.com

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Copyright 2024 by Mikaya Heart

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotation in a book review.

ISBN 978-1-964462-03-5 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-964462-04-2 (Ebook)

Inquiries and Book Orders should be addressed to:

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Acknowledgments

This book was many years in the writing, and I don’t even remember everyone who was involved. Thanks to all of you who were willing to help, most especially: Shay, Kay, Barbara, Sage, Tine, Jesse, and Dayana.

And I must also acknowledge all my teachers throughout my life. Since that includes everyone I have ever met, I’ll just mention a few people: my mother, my father, May Burns, Jesse, Maggie, Cindy, Caryn, and Dayana Jon.

I extend inexpressible levels of gratitude to all the non-human beings who take such good care of me, providing invaluable assistance, and enabling me to triumph over all manner of challenges.

Thank you!

Preface

This is a true account of my own life. However, in this world, truth (with a small t) is very personal. Therefore some individuals may believe my truth to be lies. That’s OK.

A great deal of this book is about feelings. Since feelings don’t relate to past, present and future, I have used the present tense. The first half, which occurs in the U.K., is written in British English. Since the second half occurs primarily in the U.S.A., I have used more American English.

In general, I have changed names. I could say that is to protect the innocent, but really, those concepts—guilty and innocent—are meaningless in this context.

Some characters appear only very briefly, and what matters is how they affect the protagonist, whom I have named Chris, at that time period. To assist in the flow of words, I have sometimes given these transient characters the name, John. You will find a number of Johns in this book.

This is a story of how one woman forged a path through life’s jungle. It is not intended to make statements or judgments. It has no moral. My hope is that some of you will find it as fascinating as I did, and perhaps the trail that she made will help you on your way.

Prologue

It is a gorgeous summer in Montana, and I spend my time doing what I enjoy. I ride a horse who belongs to some friends, sail a small catamaran on the lake, and paint the four houses at the retreat center where I am staying. This last occupation pleases the retreat center coordinator, but it makes her very nervous to watch me balance at the top of a long ladder. Since I enjoy being up the ladder, and I’m confident that I will be fine, I don’t appreciate her anxiety. Don’t watch me, I tell her sternly.

What if the ladder slips? she asks in a concerned tone.

Well, then, you’ll find me standing there beside you, I say. Just envision me healthy and happy. That’s the most helpful thing you can do.

When the wind is up, I run down to the lake and rig my little catamaran. When I’ve had some experience sailing, maybe I’ll be able to buy a boat big enough to live on, and small enough to sail single-handed on the ocean. I love the sensation of the water carrying me, and I love to watch the light on the water’s surface, in its endlessly varied manifestations, depending on the amount of wind and sun. I’m looking forward to the time when I can get out on the ocean, far from land.

Riding horses is not so different from sailing. You’re sitting on top of something that is much stronger than you, and predictable only within limits. Considerable skill and coordination are necessary so that you remain in constant communication with what is beneath you. Sonny is a thoroughbred who won a lot of races before he had an injury that permanently removed him from the race course. He still loves to run. Sometimes he’s nervous, to the point of making me feel like I’m sitting on a bomb, but if I let him run as fast as he wants, he calms down. He covers the ground so quickly that it’s hard to find safe places where I can really let him go. The most amazing thing about him is that if I fall off, he stops, and waits, quite still, until I get back on. What a wonderful trait!

John, his owner, is pleased that I’m exercising him, though he gets anxious about my falling off. One day when I come home, I tell him about the dog that scared Sonny. He shied so fast that I came right off and he went running away without me, but as soon as I called him, he came back to me. I’m very delighted with Sonny about this.

John’s focus is elsewhere. He says, You’ve got to stop falling off.

It’s fine, I reply, I landed on my feet.

Yes, but you won’t always land on your feet.

How do you know?

Well, it just stands to reason, you can’t always land on your feet!

Hmmm…you’d be amazed how often I can land on my feet. I take off Sonny’s saddle, and remove the blanket, soaked with his sweat. His gorgeous black body is a perfect tapestry of muscle. I run my cheek down his neck, filling my nostrils with the scent of horse. I think, the next time I fall off, I won’t tell John. True, he’s only concerned for my wellbeing—but that kind of worried concern only invites tragedy. And I’m not into tragedy, I’m into joy.

Chapter One

I’m sitting with my mother on the bench outside the front door. The cat, a tortoiseshell quite like the one I grew up with, is curled between us and I’m idly rubbing her head. The sun is shining, though not, of course, as strongly as I’m used to after ten years in California; still, strongly enough for Scotland in April. My mother is sipping her lunch-time drink—gin and tonic. To my right is a hydrangea, just like the one that sat there thirty three years ago, when I first saw this house, at the age of six. In front of us lies the gravel driveway, and then the curving edge of the lawn, that I once cut with our noisy old lawnmower, long gone to a well-deserved grave. Past the lawn is the holly tree, and then the handsome beech tree that I used to climb. Even now, from an adult viewpoint, it seems like a big tree. The rope that once dangled from its first fork, ten or so feet above the ground, is gone, and so is one of its huge branches, cut to make light for ornamental shrubs that grow beneath.

Beyond the beech tree is the stone wall that marks the division between our garden and the field that I once trudged over on my way up the hill to go fishing. This year the field’s green surface is dotted with white sheep, heads down, busily munching. Other years I remember it brownish red with newly ploughed earth, or golden in the late summer with yard-long stalks of ripe wheat, rustling and rippling in the breeze.

The cat purrs and stretches. It’s so nice to have you here, Christine, says my mother, with a warm smile. I wish you could visit more often. I know she means it, and that knowing touches me deeply. It wasn’t so very long ago that I believed she wished I didn’t exist. I’m well aware that if I visited much more often than I do, I would get heartily sick of both my parents, but in this moment, I too want more time with my mother.

Yes, I wish I didn’t live quite so far away. I hope you’re going to be able to come over to California.

Well, it looks like Kay is really serious about taking me. I must say, I do really want to see where you live. It’s so hard to imagine a place when you’ve never seen it.

Kay is my mother’s sister. She and her husband have plenty of money and they’ve offered to pay my mother’s fare to the U.S. My parents have lived in high class poverty since before I was born. My father always refused to take any job that involved working for anyone else, and the living he makes from badly written books and training gundogs is still meager.

I notice how gray my mother’s hair is, and how lined her striking face has become. She leans forward a little awkwardly, elbow resting on knee, drink clutched in her right hand, while her other hand absently strokes her cheek. She seems more ill at ease in her body than she used to be…she has lost her poise.

I take a deep breath. Mother, do you mind if I ask you about how your brother John died?

She looks startled, but quickly regains her composure, saying, Well, no, of course not. That was all such a long time ago now. What is it you want to know?

Well, how exactly did it happen? How old was he?

Didn’t you ever hear the story? She sounds surprised.

Only that he was accidentally shot. I refrain from saying that no one ever told me anything when I was growing up. Oblique references were the norm, and questions were discouraged, to put it mildly.

She sighs. He was twelve. He’d been out shooting for the day with a friend of his, Peter, one of the Kerrs from Easthame. As a matter of fact, Peter still lives at Easthame with his wife. I just heard the other day that he’s been sick. As she talks, I watch her profile, noticing that she has the same mobile lips as I do, and they reflect her tension in just the same way. Anyway, they had two guns, a shotgun and a rifle. When they came back in for the day, Peter sat down and read a book while John cleaned the rifle. After he’d done the rifle, he picked up the shotgun to clean it, and Peter got up, and started to take it from him, saying it was his job to clean it. The gun was loaded and it went off into John’s throat. He was killed instantly.

Where were you that day?

Well, actually, I was the first to see the body. She laughs a little, flicking her left hand, a nervous gesture that’s become a habit. I was nineteen, already engaged to your father. I was cooking in the kitchen. Mother—your grandmother—was upstairs at a Women’s Institute meeting in the drawing room. Peter came into the kitchen, white as a sheet, and said, ‘I think I’ve killed John.’ Of course I didn’t believe him… she laughs again, so I said, ‘You’re joking!’ and he said, ‘No, I’m absolutely serious, come and look.’ So I followed him down the hall to the gunroom, and there was John, lying in a pool of blood. She swirls her drink in its long stemmed glass, flicks her free hand, and looks at me, smiling.

I’m frowning. Jesus. What did you do?

She gives another nervous laugh. Well, I did just what I shouldn’t have, really...I ran up to the drawing room, threw open the door, and said, ‘Mother, come quick, John’s been shot!’

I don’t ask why she shouldn’t have done that. Of course his death would have been made public, but the family should have been in charge of when and how. That’s supposed to be one of the prerogatives of the upper classes, to be able to doctor and control public access to the truth.

I can imagine all the ladies from the Women’s Institute crowding to the door of the gunroom behind my grandmother to see the gory sight. No doubt it was the crowning glory of their boring lives.

My mother continues. The worst thing was all the hoo-ha afterwards. Father was away at the time, of course, and he blamed Mother because, he said, she shouldn’t have let the boys use guns without supervision. I roll my eyes. My grandfather was not a man who took his share of the blame for anything if he could avoid it. He would never have made sure the boys had supervision. He never had time for his children, and anyhow it’s been a tradition in this family forever, that the sons are allowed to use guns from a young age.

And then the worst thing of all was the hate letters! Now she sounds quite outraged, and her face twists as she looks directly at me.

I’m surprised. Hate letters? From whom?

Well, as soon as it was in the papers, they came pouring in, from all kinds of people! ‘Serves you right for letting your son use guns!’ ‘What do you expect if you teach your children to hunt?’ You know, all that kind of garbage. Can’t you imagine how awful it was, to have to deal with all that nonsense on top of John’s death? Poor Mother. Honestly, it must have been so hard for her.

I nod somberly, thinking it must have been very hard for my mother too.

Where was Arthur at the time? Arthur is my father. It’s one of those arbitrary rules of the upper classes, that you don’t call your father Dad, or your mother Mum. The alternative is Daddy, which I can’t stand, precisely because it is a word loaded with class.

My mother shrugs and smiles again, this time with a rueful edge. He was in London. We were engaged to be married. I phoned him up right away, of course, and he said he’d get the next train up, but he didn’t manage to get here till four days later, after the funeral.

Why not? I can’t imagine what could have delayed him for four days.

He kept getting drunk and missing the trains.

I’m walking on the beach with my father. He strides along, shotgun over his arm, the cold sea breeze whipping his kilt around his bare knees. You only notice him limping when he runs. The dogs are ahead of us. I hope they don’t flush any duck; I don’t want to deal with dead birds. The waves roll gently up the sand a hundred yards to our left, and ahead of us the river widens as it meets the sea. My father’s been mouthing off about the latest book he’s writing, forecasting its fantastic success. He always has something to say, and most of it is bullshit. But I have learned to guide the conversation into interesting arenas, and these days he respects me enough to allow me to do that. I seize my opportunity.

I wanted to hear the story of how you got shot, I say.

Oh come on, you must have heard that story a dozen times, he says, raising his expressive eyebrows in my direction.

No, I’ve never heard the full version. Why do my parents think I know about these things?

Really? Well, all right then, if you insist. You know I was in command of a tank. It was one of those old Saracens, piece of junk, I can assure you. Somehow or other we managed to keep it going. Anyhow, after we chased the Huns out of North Africa, they shipped us over to Italy. That was ’44, and the Italians were already pretty beat, but there was a lot of cleaning up to do. After we reached shore we were advancing inland, and it was incredibly slow going. Boring as hell, sitting inside one of those tin cans for hours on end, let me tell you. There was a long line of tanks, one behind another, for miles, and we’d just move a few yards at a time and then sit for hours. Eventually, I decided to get out and have a look, see what was going on. So I climbed out and looked around, ’course there was nothing to see, so I was about to climb back in when someone let loose with a machine gun. I dropped to the ground and all but the last two bullets missed— he pauses to look at me, adjusting his cap —you know, the last couple of bullets in the belt usually go high because the gun kicks up at the end. The gunner was aiming too low to start with.

I nod as though I know what he’s talking about. We’re getting close to the river and soon we’ll have to turn back.

Anyway, they got me in the thigh. So there I am, lying on the ground, bleeding like a stuck pig, and I can’t pull myself up to get back in the tank. I had a helluva time persuading my sergeant to get out and help me back in! He was terrified, damn fellow. He snorts with disgust. But he finally did, I’m glad to say.

How typical of my father to risk getting killed because he was bored. And the truth is I would probably do the same thing. I’m too like him to be able to lead a regular kind of life.

And then once he got me back inside, he tried to tell me, with a smirk on his face, that he was in charge now! ‘No, you’re damn well not,’ I told him, ‘as long as I’m in this tank, I’m the one who’s in charge!’

What happened next?

Well, once we got to Naples, they put me on a ship back home. He starts into one of his favorite subjects, how the doctors made a mess of fixing his wounded leg, and he really should sue them. Reaching the river, we turn to walk along the bank towards the sea. I’m trying to imagine how it must have been for him to go through such a nightmare. My father was one amongst millions of men who went through World War II. A whole generation of kids...he was nineteen when he joined up. Of course you’d have to learn not to feel your emotions. The daily horror of the war…inexpressible.

I interrupt his monologue on how the doctors messed him around, to ask, How long was it before you could walk?

I was on crutches for months. Then I went to the stables in Devon where I met your mother, and the minute I started riding, I was able to walk again. He laughs. Of course, to begin with, I had trouble getting on the horse. But it didn’t take me long. Damn fool doctors, they said I’d never walk again. Hah! This time it’s a triumphant snort. I was fine until I went to work in London. Then I started falling down. It was very embarrassing, I’d be walking along in my business suit, wearing a bowler hat and carrying my brief case, and all of a sudden my damn leg would give way and I’d be sitting on the sidewalk. People thought I was drunk. Truth is, the only time I didn’t fall down was when I was drunk!

He starts into a rant about the beneficial effects of alcohol. I know better than to mention the times I have known him to fall down when he was drunk. Considering how many times I’ve seen him drunk, there weren’t so very many when he fell down.

At the edge of the shore itself, we turn back towards the parking area, with the waves licking the sand to our right. It’s too sheltered in this bay for the sea to get fierce. We stride along together. He’s nearly seventy, and he has half the muscles in one leg that everyone else does, but he still moves along as fast as ever. I remember the times I ran to keep up with him as a child. I feel a fondness for him now, a grudging admiration for his willpower. I can’t remember a previous time in my life when I didn’t hate him.

There are so many things I want to throw in your face. I want to destroy you with words about the past, just as you destroyed me with words in the past. Needing to play those horrible games where I was always the loser, you treated me like a plaything. I was an easy target. You never tried to deal with the resentment and anger and pain and fear and grief that fueled your cruelty, you just emptied it out little by little on me and my sister, and later, when we were gone, on my mother.

It amused you to watch me struggling to understand and comply. When I asked a question, you purposefully distorted your answer (if you bothered to answer at all) and I relied on other adults to set me straight, if I was fortunate enough to find out that you had lied. You framed a horribly twisted view of the world, and of who I could be in it.

You honed laughter into the cruelest weapon. You knew how to use laughter to pull the rug out from under someone’s feet. You used it to put people down, to take the power out of their arguments. You laughed at me when I was serious, whenever something was important to me. You laughed at me when I was right, so that I felt like I must be wrong. You laughed at me when I was unhappy, to show that my unhappiness was unimportant. You laughed to make a lie out of what was true. You laughed when you felt unsafe. You laughed to cover your feelings, as a ruse to distract everyone from the awful truth of your humanness. You laughed out loud, long and loud and harsh, discordant and drunken. You laughed at pain: your pain, my pain, the pain of the world, all of our pain. You laughed at everything so that nothing could be important enough to cause you pain. You laughed with hatred, and you laughed fondly, belittling your fondness. Your laughter had no humor. It was a disguise, an ambush, a barrier.

It’s taken all your energy all these years to prevent your own healing. And you have never understood what enormous strength lies in vulnerability. Your world view has kept you stunted, and you’ll die stunted, a puny bitter caricature of the man you could have been.

I know that insistent need to find someone to blame. You taught me well. I know exactly how to belittle and undermine, to say one thing and yet to convey quite another with a tone of voice that cuts to the bone, that slices out someone’s self-esteem with quick quiet sweeps of the razor’s edge. I was more subtle than you, of course. I learned to be subtle because I had promised myself I wouldn’t be like you. So then when my desire to destroy got out of hand, I had to pretend that I wasn’t doing what I was doing. Besides, I had no children to bear the brunt of my sadistic need, I had to find my victims elsewhere, and they often refused to put up with my inhumane treatment. They weren’t tied to me the way I was tied to you.

I’m staying with my sister, Elizabeth, for a few days before I go back to the U.S. She and her husband own a farm here in Perthshire. It’s beautiful, but freezing cold. I’m glad I live in California, where there is hot sun and much more open space.

I’ve been out of touch with my sister and brother for the last twenty years. It’s interesting to meet them again now. My sister’s husband, Simon, treats me respectfully, which I don’t normally expect from Scottish men. My sister smokes cigarettes and talks constantly. In the evening, I sit at the kitchen table with her, trying to comprehend her view of the world. It’s not easy, since, like my father, she is an artist at making drama out of the simplest story.

How do you get along with David and Diane? I ask. My brother is recently married.

Oh, they’re all right. Diane’s a bit...you know... she wrinkles her nose a little and flicks the ash off her cigarette. Did you like that casserole we ate for dinner? I could heat that up for lunch tomorrow if you want. I have to take the boys to Perth in the morning, but I won’t be long.

I couldn’t care less about tomorrow’s lunch. I try to steer her back to the subject of interest. Wait a minute, Diane’s a bit what?

Oh, you know...

No, I don’t.

Well, they’re both so smartly dressed all the time. They come out here wearing white jackets and then they get all upset because the dog jumps up on them with muddy paws. Honestly, what do they expect? Why do they wear white jackets? They’re such city people. She leans forward conspiratorially, lowering her voice. And they’re mean with their money. They’ve got plenty of it, for Christ’s sake. Their lifestyle is so posh, they’re downright snotty. They’re yuppies!

Sitting back with an air of triumph, she takes a drag on her cigarette. Not wanting to argue, I say, Well, yes, I see what you mean, they are kind of yuppie-ish.

Now Elizabeth’s on a roll. She nods vigorously. Yes, that’s what they are, they’re yuppies. And you know, they’ve really alienated Mummy and Daddy. Did you know what David said to Daddy the other day? She tightens her lips and folds her arms, so that I know I am about to hear something really shocking. He told him he drinks too much! Can you believe the cheek of that?

Suppressing the desire to laugh, I say, Well, he does.

Well, maybe, but who the hell does David think he is telling him that? He’s got no business telling Daddy how to run his life!

Later, we are talking about my mother’s health, and out of the blue, Elizabeth puts down her cigarette, saying, Did you know that Mummy was considering leaving Daddy when I was pregnant with William? Oh, that reminds me, I must get William’s clothes ready for tomorrow, he’s got rugby. What are you planning to do tomorrow?

"Wait a minute, when was she considering leaving him? And why didn’t she?"

Well, she asked me how I would feel if she left him, and I burst into tears. I was eight months pregnant, and I was just feeling really...well, you know... She rattles on for a minute or two while I remain silent, not trusting myself to speak. I am furious. She could have encouraged my mother to free herself from the impossible man she had married. Why hadn’t my mother asked me what I would feel about it? I would have helped her!

I know why she didn’t ask