A Sustainable Healing

We live in a world where there are all sorts of pockets of healing happening, independent of each other, seemingly unrelated.  The ecology sustainability movement has proven, unless there is a deep, systemic change in a culture's attitude toward ecology, all the "band-aid therapy" in one green area will not truly bring about a fundamental change. An example of this would be the conscientious organic farmer who does everything "right", but whose crops year after year are subject to the Monsanto GMO seed from his neighbor's field flying into his cultivated fields to sow and multiply themselves.  It's a beautiful thing the way nature does this, unless it's Monsanto's nature.

So it is similar in other types of healing.  A man might heroically struggle his entire life to heal from domestic violence or sexual abuse sustained as a child and is still left with subtle dysfunctions, further layers of the trauma. It never ends (so it seems). Part of the healing that is very related to any individual's healing and which is so difficult, is the healing of the culture.  If the culture isn't healed, the systemic dysfunction suffered by those in the culture is insidiously maintained (see the Iroquois Nation story in Forgiveness) .  There are hundreds of examples of this.  The recent disclosure of the sexual abuse of at-risk football players at Penn State over a ten year period, covered up and complicitly supported by layers of the administration (the Catholic Church priest abuse tragedies are an exponentially larger parallel). The subtle and insidious misogyny present in practically all cultures exhibited in myriads of ways including genital mutilation, the establishing a narrow standard of beauty in a culture for females to esteem toward, unequal pay scales based on gender, the objectification of women and girls through sex trafficking, sexual abuse, pornography and even fashion at large and the attempt at dictating women's health practices through law.

One can't just dispense of the perpetrator(s) in any of these instances.  The culture at large is the perpetrator, in subtle and insidious ways. That means you. That means me.  In the latter case of the sexual objectification of women, all females on the planet in some way suffer this disturbance of prejudice.  Even when it is oblique and not direct, it nonetheless impacts the female gender across the board, because it is all energetic transference. Similarly, a man is not exempt from his gender counterpart's suffering, as all females are his mother, sister, wife or daughter, it impacts him as well. We need a sustainable healing.

It's overwhelming to begin to consider my part in these large scale dis-eases. One of the things that actually gives me hope is this current sustained economic downturn; for once the knee-jerk reaction by the culture to band-aid a financial crisis so we get out of the immediate discomfort is not possible (prior bailout-cards having been used).  So we are sustaining the pain. And before long when the money still isn't flowing and people are forced to adapt and re-adapt, they begin to find another way of living, one that is more sustainable for themselves and the culture at large.  The greed and avarice in the culture that promote and manipulate fiscal ethical boundaries starts to starve, not being able to prosper or thrive in the economic desert conditions. People out of work have more time on their hands and less money. They start being creative, they start thinking outside the box, they have down time, rethink their priorities; this slows and magnifies their impressions and because of this, they have more evolved responses.  Their consumer habits are curtailed and tend to be less superficial.  They painfully at first begin to do what they previously have avoided at all costs: change their habits, and perhaps their beliefs.  This creates a ripple effect within the culture. This might not be very conscious, nor intended.  But sometimes a healing starts externally and moves inward.

When we start to consider our relatedness to the historical and deeply painful life altering events such as objectification of women and complicit coverups in all the abuses mentioned above, what happens? Where does our awareness go?  Do we leap into denial? Start to justify, separate, distance from these seemingly far away happenings? Become overwhelmed? Break down the causes and relationships into neat reasoning, categories and boxes in an effort to understand? Or possibly, we become righteous, fingerpoint or hide in our familiar and comfortable anger and disassociation.  How can we possibly contemplate our own relatedness to these atrocities?

All healing is gradual and in increments.  All healing is centered in awareness. To begin to hold the notion that I am related to everything is to strengthen an attention that is greater than myself. To hold this, or stand in front of it, even when most of me is rearing or can't begin to understand the relationship is Something.  Cultivating a tolerance for discomfort in oneself appears mandatory.  Not knowing without dismissing or disappearing is crucial.  Holding the thread of interest while suspending reaction is how we make our way toward the truth.  Soon we begin to notice the choices we make that in a small way, make us complicit.  Perhaps the programming we watch, listen to or have a peaked interest in.  Maybe we begin to see our culpability in the small or large prejudices that compound further that which is present in the larger culture. The smallness of these tendencies begin to lose their innocence.  Conscience strikes.  A shift is possible.

All healing is gradual and in increments.  All healing is centered in awareness.  A sustainable healing is possible.