After a prairie or woodland fire, Jack Pine cones open up to release their seeds only when there's fire present. The Kirtland's Warbler will only breed and nest in the new Jack Pines that emerge from freshly burnt prairie land.
A tree falling in the middle of a Sugar Maple forest allows more light in and many plants that were previously crowded and shaded out take its place.
And while so many people tend to associate trauma with the destructive process, we often fail to shift our gaze from the terminal moments toward the cyclical progeny it can point to.
Healing is a restorative form of growth that happens when there's respite from harm that inhibits our capacity to care for ourselves and each other.
Health speaks to one's capacity to take care of their self. And wealth speaks to collective health--our capacity to take care of ourselves, each other, and everything that supports that process.
Prosperity happens when nourishment is manifested as a result of healthy growth. And hunger without extreme keens our intuition for seeking appropriate nourishment.
The difference between healthy fulfilling organizations and hate groups is surprisingly narrow: both will utilize sense of purpose, progress, and meaningful connection.
But hate groups eventually force dependency for connection among their membership and limit the scope of purpose in ways that intentionally preclude "others" while playing on ambiguity enough for it to seem innocent or a dualistic good and bad with biased emphasis on only one side and denial to the other.
Healthy organizations, in contrast, encourage emancipation and meaningful connection within and outside of the team. They allow for growing up and out depending on their role in the environment.
The pandemic is a crisis that highlights a myriad of ongoing crises--and in many circles, you might even come across the phrase "disaster capitalism"--where people choose to exploit crisis for maximum near-term profitable gain at the expense of others.
But a contrasting path exists too--disruptions can be creative as well. Whereas the news and traumatic events are often shaped and exploited for manipulative purposes without genuine solution, creative acts function as a kind of exercise in gratitude:
They frame a chosen reality (or multiple realities) with uplift, elicit our being, inspire, and tend to empower people toward relevant and significant action.
Whether in the West African Tradition of the Jele, Celtic Bards, or singular storytellers, minstrels, painters, and warrior poets of many cultures over -- people have chosen to bridge the momentary tragedies and triumphs with creative acts that let us dance between the work in our day to day lives and the magic that manifests a timeless sense of wonder for lifetimes to come.
So what do our narratives for post-traumatic healing look like? It's likely a way of being that allows for independent and collective sense of purpose, progress, and connected relationships to flourish.
For sustaining prosperity, any act will tend to have characteristics that allow for creative, comprehensive, and continuous existence at appropriate scale.
At what point do we recognize the growth that's inherent to our healing?
What will be done for prosperous growth to happen?
As a person?
As a people?
As a population?
As a place?
As a planet?
Seeking answers to any of the above questions brings us into sacred moments--the ones that connect us to sense of purpose and compel us to live in good accord with ourselves and the world alike.
[ ] kirtland's warbler + cultural burning / indigenous knowledge traditional knowledge ecology {tending the wild}
[ ] Leila Janah's note on seeking post-traumatic growth
[ ] delivering happiness framework for fulfilling / sustained happiness
[ ] neuroscience of hate
[ ]
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