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New Year’s Meditation

~golden flight

On the dawn of a new day
on the cusp of a New Year
may I awaken to my heart’s
deepest longings,
may I unburden my mind’s
deepest fears
and from the wellspring 
of body and breath
find homecoming
and the soaring sweetness 
of freedom.

Deb Sherrer

Many blessings on the transition from one year of life into the portal and possibilities of a new year.

Truth and Repair: How Trauma Survivors Envision Justice , Judith L. Herman

Judith L. Herman, a renowned trauma expert, was interviewed on NPR’s Here & Now program on her latest book. (Link below) In her groundbreaking book, Trauma and Recovery, she was instrumental in establishing that sexual and domestic violence are traumas that can result in post-traumatic stress disorder, a diagnosis that had previously only been linked to veterans of war.

In Truth and Repair, she once again interviews survivors and explores the importance of justice in the healing and recovery process of trauma. From the book:

“If traumatic disorders are afflictions of the powerless, then empowerment must be a central principle of recovery. If trauma shames and isolates, then recovery must take place in community. These are the central therapeutic insights of my work, and I believe they have held up well across cultures and over time.”

“This book is about envisioning a better way of justice for all. I propose that survivors of violence, who know in their bones the truths that many others would prefer not to know, can lead the way to a new understanding of justice. The first step is simply to ask survivors what would make things right—or as right as possible—for them. This sounds like such a reasonable thing to do, but in practice, it is hardly ever done. Listening, therefore, turns out to be a radical act.”

Judith L. Herman

witnessing the ripples

https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2023/05/16/judith-herman-abuse-survivors

Facing Our Grief: Anderson Cooper interviews Francis Weller on the importance of shifting our framework and relationship to grief and the connections to gratitude, joy, and living vibrantly.

Facing Our Grief
All There Is with Anderson Cooper

Grief doesn’t just go away, no matter how hard we may want it to. So how can we live with it and learn from it? These are the questions Anderson Cooper struggles to answer after the first season of All There Is ends. Anderson spends months playing more than 1000 unheard voicemail messages about grief from podcast listeners, and once again finds himself in his basement surrounded by boxes, full of letters, photos and objects that belonged to his late father, mother, and brother. He also talks with psychotherapist and author Francis Weller, whose book “The Wild Edge of Sorrow” gives him hope. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/all-there-is-with-anderson-cooper/id1643163707?i=1000636892004

As the foliage begins to turn to flames, the leaves like small prayer flags of light, Mary Oliver reminds us to shine, too.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”

~Mary Oliver

(Excerpt from: When I Am Among the Trees)

facing fear

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“Each of us must confront our own fears, must come face to face with them. How we handle our fears will determine where we go with the rest of our lives. To experience adventure or to be limited by the fear of it.”

~ Judy Blume, Tiger Eyes

“So, how can you live in love rather than in fear? The first step, I’m sorry to say, is to love your fear. There’s a way in which you actually have to bow to the fear and say, ‘I know you. You too are part of this humanity.’” –

~Jack Kornfield