ANCESTORS THE HUMANKIND ODYSSEY HEALING OFFLINE

Hidden layers of unintegrated past are like the sectors where electricity has failed those zones are offline and disconnected from the whole. Think of the traumatized person or community like a large city that is experiencing power outages. In the wake of mass unresolved traumas, fragmentation yields disrelation yields polarization yields chaos yields collapse.

In all of these ways, trauma suspends evolutionary progress and blunts our ability to meet the challenges of the present. It damages internal and external coherence, distorts perception and obscures truth, and greatly disembodies the traumatized, thereby injuring our capacity to relate to and with one another. And by its effects: collective trauma blocks the flow of lifeforce through a living system, whether a person’s or a planet’s. Like dark matter, collective trauma cannot be observed directly we can only perceive it by its symptoms- hyper arousal (e.g., social anxiety, intensity, distrust, agitation, fear, aggression, violence) or hypo arousal (e.g., numbing, apathy, lethargy, disconnection, ennui, pessimism). The problem has been termed the meta-crisis for precisely this reason: in the words of Jonathan Rowson, it “highlights that our relationship to the crisis is part of the crisis.” This failure of relationship isn’t based in human ignorance, stupidity, or even greed, however it lies far deeper.įrom a mystical perspective, every systemic and seemingly intractable social problem, regardless where it plays out in the world, springs from the same source: humanity’s deep social, historical, cultural, and multigenerational trauma-our unhealed and unresolved past. “…by coming together to integrate the past and heal trauma, we can unlock vast reserves of untapped energy and hidden potential, a profound resource that can be consciously used to light the way toward better possible futures.” Yet, many remain unable to see, sense, feel, and therefore accept the reality before us. However successful our species appears, without a thriving planet, without abundant biodiversity and healthy ecosystems, our kind and countless others will cease to exist. Yet, in a relatively brief span of time, we have simultaneously lain ruin to delicate ecosystems and catalyzed an accelerating environmental crisis, kicking off the planet’s sixth mass extinction event. – Jean GebserĪt nearly eight billion strong, humankind has populated all corners of the globe, planted flags at both Arctic poles, explored the very depths of the oceans, and launched itself into space. Our sole concern must be with making manifest the future which is immanent in ourselves.

Ancestors the humankind odyssey healing