Healing Justice

These are exhilarating times. I began in the paralyzing fear of Covid 19 and sheltering in place, to learning how to work without physical interaction with others, to accepting that, since I live alone, I would not have “touch,” to willing myself not to turn away from the 8 minutes and 46 seconds of George Floyd’s murder, to realizing I must find a higher reason for these experiences.

Over the past ten days, the evolution of humanity has been striking. Astrologer Anne Ortelee said, “We are giving birth to ourselves as a country.”

Hopi indigenous leader White Eagle said: “Do not lose the spiritual dimension of this crisis; have the aspect of the eagle, which from above, sees the whole, sees more widely. There is a social demand in this crisis, but there is also a spiritual demand. The two go hand in hand. Without the social dimension, we fall into fanaticism. But without the spiritual dimension, we fall into pessimism and lack of meaning. You were prepared to go through this crisis. Take your toolbox and use all the tools at your disposal. Learn about resistance with indigenous and African peoples: we have always been and continue to be exterminated.”

This is the struggle of community. We sit together, a cacophonous chorus of differing opinions, vastly different needs, varied privileges, and disparate states of emotional being. How can we soothe and nurture each other? How can we move forward?

“Healing justice” is a term coined by Cara Page, founder of the Kindred Southern Healing Justice Collective, which “identifies how we can holistically respond to and intervene on generational trauma and violence, and  bring collective practices that can impact and transform the consequences of oppression on our bodies, hearts and minds.” Page’s support of the 2010 Detroit United States Social Forum’s Healing Justice People’s Movement Assembly along with Healing Justice Practice Spaces, the Black Lives Matter movement, and certain campaigns for criminal justice reform, have been attributed as the founders of the healing justice movement. Additionally, “Emotional Justice” is a term coined by Ghanaian award-winning journalist and radio host Esther Armah, which refers to the process of remedying untreated intergenerational trauma for Black people. [1] One of the principles of the healing justice movement is: “We begin by listening.”

My path through the two pandemics is to seek healing. Yes, I was filled with rage and sorrow at another Black person’s death at the hands/guns/knees of police. I remembered scenes of the apartheid movement in South Africa: beatings, brutal murders, imprisonment, bravery beyond imagination, and Mandela’s freedom from prison after 27 years to win the first free election and become President, the leader South Africa deserved. How can we not walk through this time with grace if Nelson Mandela could walk through his?

Mandela wrote to Winnie Mandela from Kroonstad Prison February 1st, 1975: “…internal factors may be even more crucial in assessing one’s development as a human being. Honesty, sincerity, simplicity, humility, pure generosity, absence of vanity, readiness to serve others—qualities that are within easy reach of every soul—are the foundation of one’s spiritual life…Regular meditation, say about 15 minutes a day before you turn in, can be very fruitful in this regard.” [2]

I choose what Mandela chose – resistance, knowledge, meditation, love, and ultimately, peace.

May you each find your path with grace and healing justice.

[1] https://blackher.us/black-women-and-healing-justice/

[2] Mandela, Nelson: Conversations With Myself (Mandela 2010)