Uprooted. Vulnerable. Willing. Open.
Walking with a friend last week on a gorgeous morning, we came upon the most magnificent tree.
It was different than the rest of the sentinels along the path. And so it attracted attention. Not only ours. Lots of people got off their bikes or veered from the path. To look at it. Touch it. Marvel at it. Talk about it. Record it.
This tree was a conversation starter. It brought us together. It demanded our attention.
Toppled by the violent wind in the recent storms, this massive tree stretched out prone on the open grassy lawn. Leaving a great hole in the earth. Roots torn asunder – some still deep within the earth and many dangling. After years of growing to a great height, rooting deeply and owning its place, the tree’s established foundation had broken.
My friend, interestingly enough, was reading a new book: The Hidden Lives of Trees.
As she shared some insights, I learned about the interdependency of trees. Communicating, supporting, and sometimes harming one another. Providing a home for the lichen growing on the bark and small greenery planting itself by the base.
Such a massive tree required years of growth, dropping roots deep into the earth to sustain its ability to become a giant. Stable and steady, even in the face of great storms. I was reminded that no tree exists alone. That nothing within the ecosystem is independent in and of itself. Everything contributes to everything.
Unearthed, this tree invited a closer look. Forcing a new perspective.
I stood upon the massive horizontal trunk and put my nose into the vertical lawn. I found a spider, an ant, and a bee buzzing on the clover. I examined the lichen and marveled at the trunk.
This was a wonder to me, all this activity normally left unnoticed. I wondered why it took such a dramatic movement for me to reflect upon the importance of each aspect of the system.
I stared into the gaping wound in the earth. It was massive and spoke of the force and violence necessary to create it.
Looking around, I noticed another tree with split earth around its foundation. It would topple in the next wind storm. Prepared to fall. Willing to let go or forced to surrender its dominant position, I didn’t know. I didn’t ask. Instead I finished my exploration and wandered away into new conversations.
It is easy to veer off in another direction. Dismissing the importance of a structural change in the system.
Yet, something had me coming back to this scene and the perspective shift it offered. I spoke of this tree to others and shared my photos. It touched something within me that needed to be revealed.
I felt this tree had something to teach me if I was open and willing to be taught.
The symbology hasn’t escaped noticing as I’ve entered deeply into conversation and self-reflection about the recent murders of Ahmaud Abery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor. And the powerful reaction across our nation revealing our gaping wound, our divided nature, and the overlooked disparity that infiltrates every aspect of life for people of color.
The violence and power has broken open the prevailing structure to reveal deep, deep roots and a gaping wound.
Reverberating around our country, our history, and our world. This isn’t a new issue. Yet, today this invitation is loud, large, and powerful. For each one of us to examine our own contribution to this interdependent ecosystem of society. To see where we have been blind. To hear where we have been deaf. To act where we have been passive. To learn when we have been unable or unwilling to explore.
The inequity of structural racism is wide spread and mutually reinforcing in our society.
We live in a societal ecosystem that promotes ongoing discrimination and disadvantage through inequities in all areas of life. Creating trauma, a public mental and physical health crisis, economic disparity, and race influenced interactions for people of color. Ordinary people facing extraordinary challenges. This mostly goes unnoticed by those of us who haven’t grown up with black or brown skin. Who haven’t faced the subtle, overt, small, and large insults, obstacles, and lack of responsiveness by the rest of society.
I felt this gaping wound had something to teach me if I was open and willing to be taught.
I’ve been in conversation about race, inequity, and the need for restorative justice, respect, and systemic change since I was a young woman. It was natural for me given my life experience. Yet, I often veer off into other conversations and the habit of living my life. Forgetting that all parts of the system affect all parts of the system. Forgoing my responsibility to see, hear, and act in a way that honors my neighbors, supports well being, and contributes to repair of our relations.
Like most of you, I’ve been listening. Heart and mind open. Sometimes calm, sometimes turbulent.
Allowing vulnerability and discomfort to be my companions as I’ve explored the heartbreak, fear, rage, trauma, and hopelessness that is being experienced and expressed. Sitting with the hope, the momentum, and the anguish in the request to not turn away once this storm has passed. Encouraging the call for true inquiry into the issue so that societal change may occur. So that racism in all forms may be uprooted and a healthier system put in place.
I’ve sat within the breaking as people have confronted places within themselves they haven’t been willing to see before.
I’ve found myself up against strong opinions and deeply rooted foundations of separation and misunderstanding. Like many of you, I’ve read, talked, marched, and listened. All the while allowing my emotions, thoughts, and conditioned beliefs to freely enter the storm. In all of it, I recognize the intergenerational trauma of a society mired in racism and inequity across its systems. And I ask a simple question, “How may I contribute to the healing …. of an individual, community, country, system, world?”
These conversations have revealed that people are paying attention. They want to learn more and own personal responsibility for the ways they have contributed to the problem.
I don’t know the big answer. I’m not that expert. I do know a place to begin. I believe we must start with the person in the mirror. Recognizing that if we want to change the outer world, we must first shift the inner world. And to do this important inner work – the excavation of the societal conditioning living as our beliefs, values, and biases – we must be able to soothe ourselves. So we can remain open even when vulnerable or wanting to turn away. So we may allow the possibility to look, listen, accept, process, and release that which harms. So that we may develop a new way of being with our human family.
Society is a living system. When one part of the system is disrupted, it has far reaching consequences.
Our country has been disrupted since its inception and we must dig deep if we are to explore an alternate path forward. Buckminster Fuller said “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that mades the existing model obsolete.”
The erupting crisis, rooted in centuries of structural racism, has caught our attention and demanded our personal response.
Calling us not to fix the old model, but to dream a new future. As painful as this is, it is a wound that has something to teach us. So we can learn how to be present and open during challenging, uncomfortable conversations. So we take responsibility, make amends, and shift behavior. So we don’t walk away from the issue once the national outcry dies down.
So we don’t once again leave people of color to fend for themselves in an unjust society.
The experts know that a systems based, integrative view is essential if we are to create change across all aspects of society. With a focus upon restorative justice, the healing of trauma, the engagement of meaningful conversation across all groups of people, institutions, and policy makers.
It takes more than experts. It takes everyone to build a just world.
Deep listening. Respectful action. Let’s not walk away. Let’s be that change.
Peace be with you and with all. No exceptions.
HeartWarming
News
Want to improve your communication skills? Focus on nonverbal skills, listen for the essence of what is being said, and offer “support responses” that allows more self expression. Brain research reveals that staying open to the possibility you are wrong reduces activity in the amygdala, where you react to perceived threats. Neuroscientists at UCLA found when participants with firm political opinions had their beliefs challenged, their brain activity resembled that of someone being chased by a bear. At this level of arousal, a difference in beliefs may be interpreted as being evicted from the tribe. Threatening survival, belonging, and connection. Knowing this changes things.
