The Very Sad Tale of Monsters in Our Town
Channel: Capri-Omni
Date: 2013-05-25

The word "monster" comes from the Latin for "omen" or "sign": -- monstrum (the root of the words de-MONSTR-ate, and MON-i-tor), and originally referred to livestock or humans born with a variety of physical deformities, since the ancient Romans believed such births were omens that the gods were planning on punishing the people with an even greater calamity. ...It was only natural, then, that people would want to hide their "monsters," and pretend they weren't born at all, in hopes that the gods would forget which village was next in line for punishment.

Fortunately, our understanding of the world has evolved in the last 2,000 years or so, and (most) people no longer believe that disability is a punishment for sin. *Unfortunately*, the underlying belief that "It's better for Society as a whole if the Disabled remain as invisible as possible," persists. The responsibility of overcoming disability's stigma (divine mark) is still piled onto the shoulders of the Disabled, themselves. Social, educational, and economic segregation continues to be the norm, even two decades after the passage of the A.D.A..

A note on the metaphor of the "forest," here: ordinarily, I think of the "enchanted forest" as a positive place -- fertile, and imaginative, where the Self is discovered and transformed.  But, in thinking about all the iconic places where monsters are found in our popular culture... "The closet" is taken, And both "under the bed" and "in the basement" have the connotation of the monsters still being held and protected in the bosom of family, which, sadly, has not been borne out by history for many Disabled.So in this context, the Forest represents the social Terra Incognita where folks are simply forgotten.