Scars of the Heart as Maps for the Soul

(The following is an excerpt from the Regenerative Poems, Short Stories and Recipes for the Soul chapter of my book Recipes For Reciprocity: The Regenerative Way From Seed To Table)

While it is true that our many of our communities (as well as much of our dominant western culture and broader societal/industrial infrastructure is broken) this does not mean we should give up or lose hope.

We can find wisdom and paths to healing through philosophies such as the Japanese art of Kintsugi. The art of Kintsugi involves restoring broken ceramics by fusing the broken pieces back together with gold. It is an art form built on the idea that in embracing flaws and imperfections, you can create an even stronger, more beautiful piece of art. Every break is unique and instead of repairing an item like new, the 400-year-old technique actually highlights the "scars" as a part of the design.

Using this as a metaphor for healing ourselves, our communities and our society as a whole teaches us an important lesson: Sometimes in the process of repairing things that have broken, we actually create something more unique, beautiful and resilient.

When we give our voice to speak for those that cannot speak for themselves, when we strive to protect the body of our Mother Earth and re-connect with the living planet in a reciprocal relationship as our ancestors did (nurturing the land and our bodies through cultivating food and medicine crops in a way that gives back) we are mending the broken relationship that humanity has with the living world that sustains us. We are healing the fragmentation of our species and how we connect to our Mother Earth, and doing it in a way that (if done with love and care) can create a connection that is even more beautiful than it was before.

"With coherency among us, no other problem would be hard to solve. As it stands, the prodigious powers of human creativity cancel each other out. The crystalline matrix of our co-creation has burst into shards." - Charles Eisenstein (from his essay titled "A Temple Of This Earth")

We can heal, merge and galvanize the fragments of our human family into something more beautiful than anything that has existed here in the past. We can engage in a joining of the shards of our tribe through looking inward to recognize the golden essence that shines within each and every being. The recognition of this eternal essence within ourselves invites us to also recognize that same golden spark in our fellow beings, enabling us to bind our tribe together as one re-connected by the golden light we carry within.

"Your intuitive rebellion against the world presented to you as normal will become an explicit quest to create a more beautiful one.” (from "The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible")

Kintsugi Earth by Paule Bernard Roussel

There are many beautiful examples of this happening all over the world such as the Food Is Free Project, the Grow Free movement, John D. Liu's Ecosystem Restoration Camps, The R-Future Conference, The Greater Reset Conference, We Are Human, We Are Free, Nonviolence Charter, Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth, 'Why Violence?', Nonviolent Campaign Strategy, Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy, Global Nonviolence Network, Food not Bombs, Deep Green Resistance, the Seed Freedom Movement, Restorative Circles, Traditional Ecological Knowledge (or TEK) and a great many other movements and initiatives. (If you have any to add to this list, I invite you so share a link to these in the comments below.)

Despite all the pain and atrocious behavior all around us, I have faith that if we look within, ask the Creator of all things for guidance, and then proceed with humility, love and courage, we will be guided to able to heal what is broken within and what is broken in the world around us in a way in which the scars become a beautiful reminder and not something to be ashamed of.

In doing so, we can leave a "map" for those souls who come to live here after we are gone which can help guide them to not fall into the same traps we did and guide this world forward to leave adolescence and come into Cosmic Adulthood.

Now is the time for us to give thanks for all that Mother Earth gives to us and remember that we each came here with our own unique gifts that we can use to heal our communities and heal their relationship to the land that sustains us all. We can live by example through reciprocating Mother Earth’s gifts and provide a much needed medicine this world and her human inhabitants need now. Look within to remember your gifts and go forth now to share them with the world.

One of the most powerful choices we can make to heal the land and our relationship to her begins with a handful of seeds and some TLC.

I am wishing you all a spring time filled with hope, inspiration, peace and feeling unified as a human family as we pick up the pieces and create something more beautiful than anything that existed before through our combined efforts.

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