“The hurt of one, is the hurt of all.  The honor of one, is the honor of all.” – Native Code of Ethics, via The Sacred Tree [1]

We’ve all experienced pain. Some superficial, like a cat scratch.  Some super deep, like a child who has been emotionally neglected by their parents.  Some even deeper, such as whole cultures who have been nearly erased, marginalized, euthanized, cast aside, by another culture or empire. 

We’ve all experienced healing.  That cat scratch heals with time, as our bodies inherently know what to do when our skin has been cut.  The neglected child who grows into a strong, mature adult can heal their emotional trauma.  The mature adult mind can concentrate while a strong heart can forgive.  The mind can visualize the traumatic past moments between the child and parent while the heart can feel into the true essence of the situation and see that the parent was just passing down their own trauma, unconsciously, to the child.  The heart and mind work together to see, feel, understand, love, forgive, and grow.  This type of healing is intrinsic to us as well, but it takes a little more conscious effort compared to the ability of our body to heal a physical wound.

But how do entire cultures, ethnicities, and races go about healing the pain of being colonized, subjugated, eradicated, commoditized, repressed?

I took a long pause in writing this to reflect on that question.  I thought I knew at first, but I really had to sit with it to find an answer.  I feel it is complex and I will compound on the metaphors used earlier -- the scratch and the childhood trauma.  I hope the information in this piece can empower you with the knowledge of how the healing of one can touch us all.

The body intrinsically knows how to physically heal itself, given the correct natural circumstances.  Humans can consciously heal themselves of emotional wounds through the use of compassion, introspection, understanding and forgiveness.  The frequencies of love and compassion know how to heal and mend energetic riffs.  However, both the physical and emotional pathways described before assume one thing: that the trauma has ceased.  It is very difficult to heal the wound that persists.  The first step to healing is to stop the trauma.  We are just at that step now in the modern racial equality movement, the Movement For Black Lives, Indigenous, and all People of Color.

This is step one.  Which is a great place to be.  It may not always look pretty on the surface, but remember an ugly scab will leave behind smooth, clean, healed skin.  It has begun.  Finally.

Now, on top of the physical wounds and the emotional wounds, there is another level to account for.  When dealing with a large group of people like a race, ethnicity, or culture, there is an energetic container for that.  Like your body is your physical container and your emotional body is your individual energetic container (this is a very simplified analogy, just to help make this point).  The group container is a coalition of ancestral lineage, you could say, like your blood-family, just much, much larger.  We shall call this the group energetic container.  It’s much more complex and encompassing than the individual containers because it contains ALL of the group/culture/ethnicity/race individual’s containers throughout time.  Yes, ALL of it.  Throughout ALL of time.

One would logically suppose that if enough individuals within a group container would heal their individually-experienced-yet-group-collective wounds (like the trauma of ethnic oppression for example), then the group would be healed as well.  I feel this is basically true, but it is an overly simplistic equation.  It implies that every individual’s healing equally affects the group container.  I feel that that is not necessarily the case.  I do feel it is true that, automatically, an individual’s healing positively affects their group’s energetic container.  It’s just that all individuals are unique and their healing will have unique effects on the group container.

Every individual is representative of all the aspects of humanity that make them, them.  Whether it be family, tribe, country, region, personality archetypes, race, culture, sexual preferences, ethnicity, gender preference.  All the positive achievements we make, are also achievements for the things we represent.  The opposite is valid as well, that negative acts reflect on the things we represent.  It’s not always fair, but that’s just the way it goes.  Also remember, that at a soul level we chose the exact body and life circumstances that make us, us.  So it goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway since I already said those words, that everybody is unique and has a unique background and emotional-energetic wounds from their unique background.  (Also remember, we ALL have wounds.  That’s the way the world is set up right now.)  Thus I feel it’s not true that every individual’s healing has the same effect on their group container, because they’re not equal, but rather beautifully unique like the individual.  Certain individuals healing their individual emotional wounds will have a greater positive effect on the group container. 

The possibilities of why this is true are vast.  Immensely vast.  One way would be that if the individual’s family were deeply involved with or had a historical relationship to the very thing that caused the individual’s wound.  For example, a person heals their wound around their fear of water.  Where they once were paralyzed with fear to get on a boat, swim in a lake, they now gladly go in a pool and go surfing.  Their family is happy as well because they come from a long line of deep-sea fishermen, no pun intended.  The lineage of the family’s relationship to the water is important.  It’s more impactful than someone whose family were multi-generational farmers, per se.

For a racial inequality example, say two separate individuals heal their emotional trauma of being marginalized their whole lives.  They find grace, forgiveness, peace, love for their situation.  (Remember too, that the marginalization must stop first).  One individual comes from a family and region where oppression was heavy.  Maybe a lower-class, multi-generational black family from, say, Birmingham, Alabama.  The other individual comes from a family and region where oppression and the systemic marginalization was less than most.  Perhaps a black, upper-class, multi-generational family from Burlington, Vermont.  The regional and family lineage of trauma, in general, would most likely be greater for the Birmingham family than the Burlington family.  The greater the trauma, the greater the healing.  So I feel that, theoretically, the individual from Burlington would have less effect on the group container than the individual from Birmingham.

This is only a hypothetical example.  This takes nothing away from the pain people feel every day in similar situations.  This takes nothing away from the hard work, self-love, and dedication it takes to heal an emotional-energetic wound.  I honor and love each and every person who is willing to be better versions of themselves and take control of their healing and take their power back.  The importance to each individual is the same and I know this, I’ve done it, and greatly respect this.

“Healing Justice means that we begin to value care, emotional labor and resilience, not as add-ons but as central components of sustainability that restore us to life.” [2 ,3]

Another possible variable to why individuals would have different effects on the group energetic container would be their ability to connect with the group container.  What I mean by the ability to connect with the group container is the strength of the relationship an individual has with the group container.  Think of this relationship like a water hose.  The connection is the hose of varying diameters and the strength of connection is how much water is flowing through the hose.  The connection, and then thereafter the strength, of an individual’s relationship to any group container occurs in two main pathways: actively and passively.  The first way is the deliberate, active, conscious connection to the group container.  This is the willful, purposeful act of putting one’s awareness and attention to the group container.  The strength of that conscious, purposeful connection is dependent upon the ability of the individual to channel energy through their awareness.  The second way is the innate, passive, unconscious connection and relationship to the group container.  This connection occurs through a multitude of ways.  Some of which would be family connections, ancestral lineage, friendly and romantic relationships to those connected to the group container, regional or location-based connections (i.e. where you reside currently, where you resided previously, or connections to land that connects to the group container), religious or spiritual beliefs that connect to the group container, educational connections, and past lives (to be touched on in a little bit).  The individual’s strength of connection to the group energetic container would be proportionate to the strength of connection via the innate, unconscious channel.   

We all have unseen relationships, invisible energetic hoses you might say, to a multitude of these connections.  The Lakota Nation has a saying for this.  Mitakuye Oyasin.  It literally translates to ‘all my relations’, but it speaks of the deeper interconnectedness of a being to all of it’s surroundings, tribe, history, and future.  It speaks of the deeper, infinite interconnectedness of all beings to each other in all the ways.  The healing of one, is the healing of all.

Within this realm of interdependence of all relations lies the connections of one’s past-lives.  The past-lives of an individual are a connection that will affect the group container as well.  Many individuals, whether they are conscious of it or not, will be connected to many group containers because of their past-lives and past-life connections.  Nearly everyone has lived lives as many different beings.  From Kings and Queens to peasants and beggars.  From witches and priests to heretics and lunatics.  From soldiers to monks and in every race, culture, and gender.  Imagine the individual healing that will touch all the countless group containers.  Imagine all the endless combinations of healing and ties to group containers when past-lives are considered.  See, I told you the possibilities are vast.  

This multidimensional tapestry of relationships, this cosmic web of life, is what all the mystics, Masters, and meditators can feel when they speak of the Oneness of everything.  The infinite pathways of interconnectedness are mysterious.  Such is the journey towards Spirit.  Embracing the Great Mystery and accepting the miraculous, unseen, yet ever present presence of The All allows for much healing to take place. 

In all the great wisdom of the Great Mystery, we shall circle back to the original tenant of healing: the trauma must stop so that a healing can take place.  This is the most basic, yet most crucial step in this whole process.  The cut to your skin will heal when it’s done being cut.  (So put the cat down.)  The childhood trauma can begin to heal when there is enough space and a boundary – emotional, energetic, and/or physical– between you and your wound-giver.  This space, this boundary, ensures the trauma stops occurring.  So how does this work when the trauma is so far-reaching like the systemic prejudice and racial marginalization that occurs?

The first step of this greater healing journey for the group container is that the trauma must be seen and witnessed in order to be healed.  Considering the global reach of the problem of racial oppression and inequity, this is a global task.  Global, yet individualized.  For we each have a part to play in this.  How can you create a boundary, a safe space, from which to heal a wound when the trauma is continuing and embedded into so much of our global society?  This is why we each have the power to help heal this group container wound.

When the group containers are as large as they are for ethnic, racial, cultural groups -- a lot of individuals can influence the healing, even those from outside the groups, but especially those who have received and given trauma.  Like we discussed earlier, those with stronger connections to this group energetic container have the ability to affect more positive change and healing than those without the strong ties.  For those who are in the position of wound-givers, or those or work with systems that are wound-givers, they have the most important job right now as they have the most power to stop the continuation of the trauma so that the healing may begin.  How do you know if you are a wound-giver or work in a wound-giving system?  Take time to reflect on this, as this is very important, and the answer you will find will empower you to take the best courses of action.  (Hint: in the context of the current Movement For Black Lives, Indigenous, and People Of Color, if you are White, like I am, you probably fall into this category in some way.  We have a crucial role to play right now.  I am right here with you.) 

“Today, Black Lives Matter remains a potent force for racial justice. Yet media coverage of the movement frequently continues to paint it in simplistic terms that ignore the way its vision of justice intertwines with healing and spirituality.” [4]

I am writing this in response to the current Movement For Black Lives, the Black Lives Matter campaign, and the protests over the murder of black people by the police.  I am writing this because we have an opportunity to take a big step forward in the unification of human-kind, as I see what is going on as the first step in the journey towards healing a massive group-container wound.  The first step being that the trauma is being seen and witnessed by enough people now, even though the oppressed have been sounding the alarm bells for centuries.  I also see that the healing journey of this particular group-container, the Black race, will undoubtedly stimulate the healing for all other oppressed and marginalized cultures, races, and groups. 

The systemic trauma perpetuated by the global power-systems inequality are at the root, are the wound-giver, for all of these repressed groups.  As of the time of this writing, the Movement for Black Lives has just started sprouting into a Movement For Black, Indigenous, and People Of Color.  BLM has spurred the BIPOC Movement.  (We love acronyms, don’t we?).  I am empowered to know that if we can show up in our individual power to help heal the oppressive-trauma for the Black race that it will naturally and gracefully cascade out to help heal all other subjugated and marginalized groups.  We are going to need to each other, and need each other at our best, whole, and harmonious selves, to weather the big Earth changes we have coming our way.  I know I just took a big left turn with that statement, but it’s true, and it also provides the grander context for the opportunity and importance of this time.

Our current world, or the Old World as I’ll call it, is built upon trauma that begets more trauma.  The wounded become the wound-givers through their unconscious acts.  Children learn wounded behavior from their parents and then pass down the wounds to their children, and on and on. The power imbalances and systems of wound-giving ensure the power stays with those who have it and that those without power stay wounded and less-than.  This was allowed to happen because, “It’s just the way it is…” most people will say.  I say, it’s the way it was.  We are at a great point in time with the opportunity to end the cycles of trauma.  We can start the cycles of healing, unity, and Oneness for a New World.  We can move away from the old cycles of power inequality.  We can take our own unique and magnificent power back.  The Old World way of thinking was that if I help someone with their power, empower them, then I lose power [5].  This was thinking in ‘lack-mentality’.  This was thinking that there is not enough power to go around.  This is short-sighted, flat-out wrong, and total bullshit. 

Remember how interconnected we all are through all our relationships and overlapping emotional-energetic containers?  How it is so grand and vast and mysterious that we all are interdependent on each other.  You think there is a lack of power in all of that?  Physically, all the atoms we are made up from come from the Earth, and 99.9% of the atoms of the Earth come from the Sun [6, 7].  If you haven’t, I encourage you to watch videos of the Sun [8] and watch the magnetic fields, coronal holes, and plasma filaments fling, dance, twist, and morph.  In those videos, you can put a little overlay of the Earth on there, for scale.  It looks like a soccer ball next to a hot air balloon.  One tiny plasmic tendril from the Sun can completely envelope and encase the Earth.  We’re made of the same material.  We’re made of stars.  Think there’s a lack of power in all of that?  There’s power to spare out there.  There’s power to spare down here.  We have the power to heal ourselves, our emotional-energetic traumas, and all our connected group emotional-energetic containers as well.  When we heal, we reclaim our power.  The healing of one, is the healing of all.

References (for knowledge) and Resources (for empowerment):

1. Four Winds Society; “The Sacred Tree” (Reference)

2. Prentice Hemphill - HuffPost - Healing Justice Is How We Can Sustain Black Lives - February 7th, 2017 (Resource)

3. For more information on Healing Justice and Prentice Hemphill (Resource)

4. Livia Gerson - JSTOR Daily - Healing, Spirituality, and Black Lives Matter - June 10th, 2020 (Resource)

5. Caroline Myss - Youtube Channel - The Power of Injustice - May 31st, 2020 (Resource)

6. NASA; https://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/gallery/Particle/cel001.html (Reference)

7. NASA: SOHO; https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/educators/lessons/xray_spectra/background-elements.html (Reference)

8. NASA: Solar Dynamics Observatory;   https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/ (Reference)