Although it feels like things are spiraling out of control, we're not powerless to use the chaos for our own purposes.FREE ONLINE STORY SANCTUARY
Friday, June 23
(THIS WORKSHOP IS FULL. If you're still interested, e-mail me and I might schedule another.)
8 pm eastern
Space is limited. Register at julietbrucephd@gmail.com
One of the principles of my story practice is that there is a point of intersection between our own lives and the larger one playing out on our planet. When we find that point of intersection, we can step inside and make healing changes in ourselves. As we heal and make ourselves whole, we heal and make whole the energy flowing through our world.
Today, as we enter the deeper waters of the Sea of Chaos in America, I am reminded of this blog post and healing workshop I offered during the Gulf disaster. I used this principle of intersection between self and world to bring an infinitesimal but real bit of healing to the world. I'm beginning to think of how to bring healing story practice to Trump's unraveling.
It was a beautiful sign to me this morning, the day of Comey's testimony and what I believe is the beginning of the end of the Trump Administration, that the background music on Morning Joe this morning is Paul Simon singing, "These are the days of miracles and wonder..."
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Monday, June 7, 2010
A Healing Story for the Gulf, its Wildlife, and its People
Ancient healers understood very well the power of words, images, dance, music, and especially the dynamic conflicts and characters in stories to heal and comfort suffering people. They often diagnosed illness by observing what parts of a story most resonated with their patient and then told a special curative story to mobilize the sick person's inherent healing capacities.
Contemporary healers, artists, and creative people can do the same for our planet and all its creatures. Through the metaphors of artistic expression, we can imagine into being a better story than the one that is playing out now.
What exactly is a healing story, you may ask. Healing stories are metaphors for the universal human struggle to create meaning and growth out of misfortune. They're as old as humanity itself and are often called hero's journeys; they're expressions of our natural resilience -- of hope, transformation, and redemption. In this kind of story, a personal or collective disaster inspires someone to leave their ordinary life and go on a difficult quest for the solution to the problem. After many trials and defeats, overcoming dangerous obstacles and adversaries, they succeed in claiming the healing knowledge, elixir, or object, and bring it back home for the good of all. These times call for heroes.
We all feel helpless and sickened about what's happening in the Gulf. Once the oil leak is stopped, it will take years, even decades, for the ecology, wildlife, and people of that region to recover. But we're not helpless to create unexpected and amazing change through storytelling. The purpose of this workshop is to activate collective energy for restored health to the waters, wildlife, and people of the Gulf.
Here is a healing story exercise for yourself and the Gulf: What stands out for you about this event? What aspect of it do you most resonate with -- the loss of home for its animals, the poisoning of the water and the beaches, the careless disregard of BP? The resonating element in the event might be triggering unconscious pain from a deep internal wound that hasn't fully healed. In writing a story, poem, or free-write about that aspect of the story, you are also writing about a wounded part of yourself.
This exercise is not about writing a wishful but inauthentic vision of what you'd like to see happen in the Gulf. It's about finding that place in yourself that intersects with that larger story, and writing whatever your soul and spirit send up from that place. That's how real healing happens, both personally and for society.
In Chaos Theory there is a term called the butterfly effect. This means that small actions in one part of a giant system can affect the whole system. So a butterfly flapping its wings in New York over time could create a fresh wind over the Gulf of Mexico.
Many minds moving with the same intention can create miracles. Think back to the grassroots momentum that put President Obama in the White House, against all odds. It began with hundreds of tiny Camp Obamas, where people were asked to tell a better story for our country and for their own lives. The sharing that happened at those storytelling camps galvanized a movement. Together, possibly we can change this awful story too.
What if millions of people across the country let their imaginations loose to create healing stories for the Gulf? What unimaginable possibilities might arise? Mobilization of millions of citizens for the greatest environmental clean-up in the history of the world? A new and more profound commitment to taking care of our environment? What’s your wildest dream for our land and its waters?
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So bringing our story practice back to the present, what most stands out for you about the whole situation of Trump in the White House? What most angers you, makes you sad, resonates in particular with some part of yourself. For me, it's the crushing oppression of stupid white men -- yes, that's an old wound in me that I'll probably be attending to for the rest of my life.
Pull out three or four words that immediately rise to consciousness.
Choose one word that has the most energy.
Set the timer on your phone and give yourself 7 minutes to free-write from that word.
Read your piece to a trusted friend who is wise enough not to judge discovery writing. Or, if you like it enough, read it to your video camera and post it to a small FB group. It must be witnessed and felt by someone to have its full power.
It's out there now in the world's energy -- a tiny healing flow, a flapping of a wing.
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