In Memory: Tyre Nichols, Monterey Park, & Half Moon Bay

In Memory 

 It seems we cannot change circumstances, politics, and the brutal reality of lethal violence.

It seems we can hardly change ourselves.

Sometimes, no matter how hard we have fought for justice, we witness again and again, that humans can and will do to others and to their own--the unthinkable.

What do we do with the rage that we hold, if it seems that bad guys continue to harm, and the innocent continue to suffer?

What do we do with the profoundly complex and intractable overlay of internalized racism and the culture of brutality that only entrenches itself with each incident.

Why can't we heal our family of humans, our nation of violence, much less our own failures within and without?

We cannot quiet our fury, our grief, our sense of helplessness in the face of another senseless death, or our own relentless memories. 

A survivor looks at this through the tunnel of recovery, awake to it all.   The work makes us more alive in the face of our own situation, and perhaps more acutely--those who are suffering, stuck or helpless like us. 

 But there are those we do not like or know--perhaps the ones who harmed or continue to harm. They too are suffering and stuck.  

Words alone do not take away this pain or further a resolve to change the system or ourselves.

We grieve together.  We do so with resolve and fierce tenderness.

But we cannot look away from any of this.  

2023

2023

We are, all of us, together standing in the dark, waiting to hear the heartbeat of a new beginning.  Waiting to find our voice and become the people who our ancestors promised we would become.[1]     
-Patty Krawec, Anishinaabe Reserve

I greet you today, at the start of 2023, with a heart full of promise and resolve.

If you are reading this, you may be on a journey with no name or clear path when you look to the coming year.  No matter how you inhabit your current body or the lineage you find yourselves, there is  much in your DNA that makes up the richness of who you are.  We each hold a particular ancestral bundle from many sources, cultures, and histories.  Our individual life bundle holds the trauma and wounding, the progress and wisdom, that has been accumulated over thousands of years.

Think of the people in your life, those alive and those dead, who inhabit your heart¾who have depleted or nourished you¾directly or as ancestors.  Some have been stuck in their own particular toxic concoctions.  You could not always fix what or who was present in your life, but you can work to change the responses that help you be whole and true to yourself. And it may be easier said than done to find a way to detach from loyalty to poisonous relationships or inner voices that harm you. Make an alliance with darkness and use it as a nutrient for the future. The greatest challenge and gift as you make your way forward are to have some compassion for this challenge and the process.

Respect your own struggle and movement as you turn and return to yourself. This is not easy, especially for survivors who have been abused or neglected.  We know the world is struggling and many are dancing with their eyes shut and their hearts closed. You may need to look to the potential of a kinder vision with fresh resources and habits of connection, finding other ways to give and receive. Honor and find those in your life who were or are doing the work of change and possibility, even if imperfectly. We will all do better together.

Consider deeply who you are, respecting how far you have come this time around. Your struggle is compost for what is ahead, and there is immense potential in the rich soil of your life. However you do it, I invite you to write or draw or sing your own song today:  tracking your grief and hope, your losses and possibilities.  Remember, you are not alone in this.

We as humans are kin, perhaps more than we may ever realize. 

Happy New Year!

Mikele Rauch
Taking Back Ourselves

[1] Krawec, Patty.  (2022Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future.

Thanksgiving 2022

I am making a home inside myself. 

A shelter of kindness where everything is forgiven, everything allowed—a quiet patch of sunlight to stretch out without hurry,

where all that has been banished

and buried is welcomed, spoken, listened to

—released. 

A fiercely friendly place I can claim as my very own. 

I am throwing arms open

to the whole of myself—especially the fearful,

fault-finding, falling apart, unfinished parts, knowing

every seed and weed, every drop of rain, has made the soil richer.

                                          Julia Fehrenbacher--The Most Important Thing

Thanksgiving 2022....

As survivors, we may enter this holiday season with mixed emotions, triggering memories, some complicated family and challenging relationships.  This is a time when grief and loss can bring our hopes and our longings to the surface.

So, however you spend the coming days, we encourage you to decide how you keep the holidays—choosing to separate from situations that do not feel safe, or making courageous or quiet stands in your own truths, no matter who you engage with. 

Find the space to step away if need be; to breathe, to find humor or bemusement even in the vast ironies of situations you cannot always control.  Reach out to those who are connected to you in your recovery. But most of all, be generous and compassionate within yourself.

In the meantime, may the holiday season be full of possibility and new sources of gratitude.

And as always,

 ever thankful to be on this journey with you.

Mikele

When There Is No Hope

You, a survivor not only of sexual trauma but all that may have accompanied it: family secrets , Church secrets, military and organization secrets and silencing, incarceration, profound neglect in any category, being invisible and made mute--being blamed or blaming oneself, gaslighted, demonized, legally thwarted, financially strapped, physically demoralized in health and mind, addicted, shamed by the system and shamed within--exhausted--alone.

It feels like the perpetrator won...

Since the beginning of human interaction, the phenomena of evil has competed to overtake truth and power.

We could freeze, capitulate, or self destruct in despair. But here’s the thing. There is power in standing in your own truth. It is why you are still here, against the odds.

Don’t give up on yourself, or a community that sees you, hears you, believes you. You may have to take the plunge and risk the possibility of connection that is real, where you are truly seen and heard.

There are those of us who do see you, who can hear you, and whom you can join. We may not look like you, or come from your familiar spaces. But here we are, ready to stand together. This may not seem like much when you have been so alone. But it is there and it is strong.

We are with you.