By Molly Brown
Recording by Molly Brown
Click on image for photographer’s notes
Welcome to the March 2021 issue of Deep Times: A Journal of the Work That Reconnects. The theme for this issue is “In Each Other’s Hands: Living Resilience,” exploring how to build resilience out of personal and collective trauma, especially that experienced by BIPOC, women, LGBTQ2 people, immigrants and refugees, people with limited income, and people with disabilities. As the Great Unraveling accelerates, more and more people experience trauma from living within the dominant socio-economic system. At the same time, we are becoming more aware of trauma’s repercussions throughout our lives: our self-worth, our sense of safety and agency, and our interpersonal relationships. Trauma impacts parenting, education, policing, relationships among various groups of people, and our relationship with the entire natural world.
The editorial team sent out a call for submissions, asking, “How do we heal our individual, collective, intergenerational, and historical trauma? How do we nurture resilience in ourselves and our institutions for a more just, peaceful, and livable world, drawing on our deep interconnections within Earth’s web of life and with one another?”
The response to our call was heart-warming. We received far more submissions than we could include, especially poetry. We realized that poetry plays a special role in healing trauma and enhancing resilience, because it speaks to us emotionally and even somatically, where both trauma and resilience reside.
Reading through the issue as we prepared to publish, I was deeply touched by the heart and soul that shines through the contributions. Once again, something beyond our reckoning and “control” has emerged. Our team can take credit for the hard work of editing, emails back and forth with contributors, posting chores, etc, but it feels like we are in the service of some Force or Intelligence beyond us as individuals or as a team. I am filled with gratitude for everyone’s creativity, intelligence, and good will that has come together for this issue of Deep Times.
Following the Spiral, the issue begins with two poems that evoke gratitude in the midst of hardship. In honoring our pain for the world, four poems and a poetic personal essay speak to the horrors and brokenness of the world, the complexity of feelings and numbness many experience, and the struggle to forgive. A reflection on parenting in Deep Time, one writer’s reconnection with the land near home, and six stirring poems guide us to see with new/ancient eyes the pain and the beauty of our world. And so we go forth with an essay on parenting during the Great Turning, a poem on stepping out, and an exploration of how the Work That Reconnects can better support resilience by becoming more trauma-informed.
The Evolving Edge section offers an illuminating essay by a self-described Afrofuturist & Afropessimist and a poem challenging the complacency of white people in the face of rampant racism. Resources includes in-depth explorations of two very relevant books: My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem, and Healing Collective Trauma by Thomas Hübl, as well as an announcement of Sean Kelly’s new book, Becoming Gaia. And finally, the Network section has a fascinating history of the Work That Reconnects in Australia and a report on the many “Mini-spirals” offered after the November 2020 election in the USA.
Deep gratitude to our contributors, to the editorial team, and to Gaia.
Gratitude
In Praise Of
Tales of an Immigrant
Honoring Our Pain for the World
Shards
Trauma hurts
Numb
Anna describes the many numbing traumas she experienced as a refugee from war--and how she is healing.Alive
Last night I dreamt of everyone I needed to forgive
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Seeing with New/Ancient Eyes
And Flowers will Grow in Syria
For a friend fearing that time is up for humanity
Starting Over
For Parents: Intergenerational Trauma and Lineage Work
All the healing work that each of us does permeates all the way through our lineage, back through generations of ancestors and down through generations of future beings.Quantum
The five-kilometre radius pilgrimage
I left my house without an inkling of where I was headed. No route planned for my wander, just a burning desire to leave the house.Anything Can Happen
Trilogy
Prose poem and drawings reflecting on the healing power of songA Gift in the Darkness
A meditation on the crises of our time, through which we are invited to face ourselves.to see the world through new eyes.
Going Forth
Parenting during the Great Turning
Yulia shares a journey as a mother facing the impossible demands and circumstances of our time.Walkabout
The Work That Reconnects: A Resilience-building Practice
Constance describes resilience building skills that are already part of the Work That Reconnect and how to use them in a more trauma-informed way.
Evolving Edge
The End of the World, for Whom?
An Afrofuturist & Afropessimist Counter Perspective on Climate ApocalypseDear Fellow White People: Where Were You Standing?
Resources
A White Body Elder Meets My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem
A significant resource for facilitators of the Work That Reconnects
Healing Collective Trauma by Thomas Hübl
Thomas Hübl has been developing and facilitating group work internationally to address issues of societal level trauma, calling his method the Collective Trauma Integration Process.New Book: Becoming Gaia
Becoming Gaia: On the Threshold of Planetary Initiation is devoted to helping catalyze the shift in consciousness toward a life-sustaining culture
Network
Activism Inside the Tiger’s Mouth
A history of the many incarnations of what we now call "the Work That Reconnects" in Australia, 1985 to present time.Post-election Mini-Spiral workshops
Rebecca reports on the Mini-Spiral Workshops organized by Sarah Nahar and Mordechai Liebling that were held following the 2020 election, to help people process their feelings and concerns around the election.
Deep Times: A Journal of The Work That Reconnects
Vol. #7 Issue #1 – March 2021
Editor: Molly Brown
Editorial Team: Silvia Di Blasio, Karina Lutz, Martha O’Hehir, Carmen Rumbaut, Rebecca Selove, Carolyn Treadway. More information here.
Graphic Design: Frieda Nixdorf
Webmaster: Silvia Di Blasio
Deep Times is published online twice a year by the Work That Reconnects Network.
The Network provides support, guidance, and inspiration to people all over the world in their work for the Great Turning. We welcome your donations to support the Work That Reconnects Network and Deep Times. The Work That Reconnects Network is currently a fiscal project of Interhelp so all donations are tax-deductible.
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-ShareAlike 4.0.
