Tag: restoration

Year of Abundance Project Revisited; Embodied Abundance

/ Lanae / Leave a comment Featured

Time to revisit my Abundance Project, for a review of what has (or hasn’t) been going on with it the last few months!

I clearly haven’t been doing a monthly review for each month’s theme/actions. And it’s not that the project itself went by the wayside, because it didn’t, although it has taken a vastly different form than I could’ve envisioned when I crafted it. Some aspects and actions just haven’t been possible (such as June with its Social focus and all the gathering/neighborhood ideas I had!) and a certain depletion or narrowing of creative energy coupled with intense work/therapy focus meant I didn’t always come up with anything much clever to fill the gap either.

Some of the monthly themes took on such an ironic feel in their timing, considering quarantine. April – Parenting? May – Family? A fitting focus for each of those months! Little of it looked in action as it had on paper, for sure, but was determined by the needs of the moment and the needs of the moment shaped the responses. Though sometimes I felt as though I were floundering and failing, somehow it all managed to be ‘good enough’ … and sometimes, that’s what abundance looks like in weird, rough times, giving yourself and others the grace of ‘good enough’.

Yet, though the forms morphed into something so unexpected, to have the abundance framework has helped hold me up somehow – hold me up in hope, remind me of love and joy and passion (which was this month’s theme focus, Play/Passion), and remember it’s not only okay but vital in times like these to nourish our joy, to find wonder, to be playful.

I suppose one reason I felt hesitant, as if it were inappropriate to write of abundance in such of time of upheaval and uncertainty, distress and despair, when it’s so apparent so many don’t have the same chances to participate in and know abundance, and when so many other topics urgently needed attending, voicing, and engaging. To me, for a while it felt that writing anything about an abundance project seemed out of tune, that it would be misattuned and disharmonious (and attending to attunement is a key part of my deep meaning of lived integrity, my 2020 word). Whether or not that seems like an accurate interpretation of the situation and energy to others, it was something I felt moved to be respectful of and intentional about in whatever I did offer or share.

And, goodness, how is ‘abundance’ supposed to look right now? How is my abundance, your abundance supposed to look? Or perhaps more accurately, how does it and how can it look? Beyond that, how does abundance look for those grieving loss and injustice, for those suffering oppression, for those laboring for liberation right now?

How to define, refine abundance right now? How is the year 2020 a year of abundance; what abundance can be drawn from all this year has brought, broken down, cracked wide open, thrown wildly to the winds, swamped us and our world with? Those are questions that perhaps can’t be answered yet, perhaps the answers are still buried, hidden, unfolding, perhaps some answers are vividly, defiantly, beautifully present in the challenge, pain, and grief.

One thing I know – abundance itself remains as real and present, as valid and vital as ever it was. The experience of abundance, the ability to access and know and choose abundance in its many forms, a right all deserve. Abundance in the form of moments of awe and wonder, nature’s healing gifts (such as blue butterflies I saw on my recent solitary retreat). Abundance in the many forms of hope and grace, love and liberation, joy and justice, liberty and equity, solidarity and empathy, honesty and healing, humility and truth, community and collaboration, rest and restoration …

I’ve been learning of embodied activism (being connected and present in mind, spirit, and body in social justice and advocacy action, in racial justice work, and antiracism practice – and this makes perfect sense to me as a therapist and yoga teacher, considering we experience life in bodies, our bodies carry our memories and traumas, and so the work of justice and healing needs to happen intentionally through and in our bodies to be a whole work). But considering the many forms of abundance makes me think of embodied abundance … embodying abundance. Abundance present and embodied in nature, in us, in our relationships with ourselves/our bodies and in our relationships with others. Us learning to be present in our bodies and our world, to be embodied, and to embody abundance for one another in all those beautiful qualities of being and serving and advocating listed above.

So, perhaps this points to an answer to some of the questions above …

abundance can look like and be
hope and grace embodied,
love and liberation embodied,
joy and justice embodied,
liberty and equity embodied,
solidarity and empathy embodied,
honesty and healing embodied,
humility and truth embodied,
community and collaboration embodied,
rest and restoration embodied!

Mending brokenness with gold

/ Lanae / Leave a comment Featured

A few days ago, I heard again a story I have heard before about a Japanese method of repairing a broken object, like a teacup or a vase, with gold, and of the philosophy that goes with that process. The belief is that the visible brokenness and mendedness makes the repaired object even more beautiful than it was when it was an unbroken whole … more beautiful AND more beloved.

So, my curiosity helped me discover that this repair process is called ‘kintsugi,’ which as I understand means literally ‘gold joinery,’ or ‘to join with gold.’ And that this joining with gold process and philosophy is also a part of the Zen ideals of ‘wabi sabi,’ which teaches about seeing the beauty of aged, weathered, or worn things.

About cherishing the beauty of unpretentious imperfection, honoring the beauty of simplicity, of authenticity, of vulnerability. About respecting the deep, rich beauty of things that have been broken and mended.

But also about respecting and honoring the rich beauty of people who have been wounded and aren’t afraid to let their scars, their brokenness and their mendedness, to be visible …

Of people who understood that their brokenness was worth being mended with gold, that they were worth being mended and made a new whole …

What beautiful philosophies! Or maybe I should say ‘practices’ … because these words and ideals aren’t meant to be elegant objects to set on the shelf of your mind or heart, to look at and admire. They’re meant to be a way of living more richly and soulfully … seeing beauty and light in the ordinary, the cracked and broken, the imperfection, and seeing them all with belovedness.

Teaching that broken things can be mended and still have purpose, usefulness, beauty, a beauty that maybe new things don’t and can’t yet possess … In this way, also teaching the hope of restoration and reconciliation.

I realized that this method of kintsugi, this way of repairing and joining with gold, doesn’t just apply to broken objects … but to our own broken hearts. And what about to broken or cracked relationships, friendships? Can those cracks or breaks be filled, joined with the gold of forgiveness, of reconciliation, whatever reconciliation may mean in that circumstance?

Cracks happen, relational fractures happen, relational rifts arise. Words cause wounds, trust cracks, a sense of spiritual or emotional distance opens up, disconnect, misunderstandings, miscommunication, unequal feelings. Conflicts and crises might shake a relationship … maybe sometimes shatter it, or cause the individuals in it to feel a shattering. Or perhaps just a subtle but profound shifting of the relational foundation …

And so what felt like a strong, deep-rooted relationship or friendship seems to become like a beautiful vase that fell and shattered … what do you do with the broken pieces of the vase? Do you sweep the pieces into the trash, and consider the worth of the vase irretrievably ruined? The question is, how precious was the vase … precious enough to gather up the pieces and fit them back together, even if they will not be in the same flawless form? Precious enough to find the most beautiful way to fit them back together, even if it is a painstaking – or painful – process?

Can a cracked, wounded, broken relationship or friendship be made whole, restored or repaired as if the cracked, breached, or broken places had never been? Maybe, maybe not … but whether it can or not, the effort of reconciliation, the desire of restoration or repair, is precious beyond price!

And so, the deeper question that came to me is: What if we sought to repair and restore our relationships, our friendships, in the kintsugi way? To mend, to join with gold, the broken places, the broken trust, the broken communication, the broken connections. To mend brokenness with belovedness.

How is that done … with mindful listening and open-hearted conversation. With open-souled vulnerability and deep humility. Sometimes, with tears, with repentance, with apologies … and sometimes, with stillness, silence, space.

Maybe it seems counterintuitive, that giving space would be the thing that healed brokenness or disconnect, but sometimes, it’s the loving act of giving space, letting go, that becomes the gold that joins relationships together again. It’s what my soul believes, anyway!

I think that perhaps a truly sacred relationship or friendship is one that has seen and been weathered by storms, one that has endured brokenness but has been mended with gold. Because it was precious enough to be mended and mended with the best …

And it is more beautiful, more cherished, more honored because it has been broken and because of all the gold with which it is mended and joined together …

*************************

Questions to consider: politically, socially, globally, what if we sought to repair broken relationships in a kintsugi way, a way of belovedness? And – what if we sought to repair and restore our broken relationship with the earth, with nature, in a kintsugi way? What might that look like?

sorrowfulness, a sacred part of belovedness

/ Lanae / 2 Comments Featured

Yes, this little space has been echoing silence  …

As it’s said, there’s a time to be silent and a time to speak.

When it was a time to speak, I spoke boldly and passionately about what was deep in my heart and soul, about mindfulness and justice, about owning the truth and living the truth.  About Belovedness, as not just ‘my truth,’ but a deep Truth, a Truth for all!

But then it was a time for silence … and as I’ve learned, knowing when to hold space for silence is an important – perhaps the most important – part of finding your voice and knowing how to use it well, with love and truth.

It’s a time of sorrowfulness, of grief, both personally and communally, and silence, stillness, seemed the most necessary for the healing and health of my heart and soul …

So I embarked on what has felt like a lonely journey, practicing silence, speaking, writing less. It has felt like being in exile, a chosen exile and a redeeming one, but still …

I thought, why should I write/share these days, anyway? When sorrowfulness is so strong in me … I cannot write of belovedness in the same way, and if I write of sorrowfulness and grief, doesn’t that seem contrary to belovedness, to the message of belovedness? When I write of saying “YES!” to belovedness, but then I write of knowing sorrowfulness and feeling intense grief, being in deep mourning, doesn’t that sound like a “NO!”?

Does it seem joy-making, gratitude-inspiring, hope-spreading? Which truly is what I want to do and be!

But here is a truth I cannot deny about myself:

I am one well acquainted with sorrow, with grief. One who knows suffering. Who knows the suffering of others, feels it in her bones, in the inward marrow, in the heart-center. Yes,  I have an apprenticeship with sorrow … yet I also now have an apprenticeship with belovedness.

Oh yes, wild sorrow and wild belovedness, I know these both.  I know the darkness of sorrow, but also its light; the light of Belovedness, but also its darkness. I know this wildness, and if there is any edge on which I live, it is this edge.

It is not quite a safe wildness, no, but yet – I am secure, because I am anchored, I am grounded in belovedness. My soul is safe, my ego is not, and this is as it should be.

The wildness of being fully alive … fully, deeply, intensely, powerfully alive in, with, and through sorrowfulness and Belovedness both!

And another truth:

The other part of Belovedness, is this sorrowfulness, this grief-fullness – the yin/yang, the both/and.

Sorrowfulness IS another part of belovedness! Grief and mourning ARE a part of belovedness.

They are a part of a full, deep, rich “Yes!” to belovedness.

What is belovedness without sorrowfulness? What is belovedness without honoring and holding sorrowfulness? Sorrowfulness is a part of the wholeness of belovedness, part of its wholeness and richness of meaning.

Belovedness contains joy and sorrow. Goodness and suffering. Grace and grief. Peace and pain. Hope and  despair.  Abundance and loss. Groundedness and uncertainty. Wholeness and brokenness.

Having awareness of them all within us, within each other, is important, vitally important. Knowing how to give space to and to hold space for them is fundamental to knowing our own both/andness, our completeness, our aliveness as human beings.

It’s not about embracing either belovedness or sorrowfulness … it’s about embracing both and being taught by both.

Belovedness teaches compassion, empathy … it can crack your heart wide open, to feel and know the sorrow and the suffering in the world, to make it a real rather than an abstract understanding … and move you to loving action.

Sorrowfulness, grief, loss, exile. Belovedness gives the grace and strength to face them. They must be allowed, respected, honored, given space … if there is to be a full healing of the body and soul, heart and mind.

So much soul-sickness and suffering comes when grief and sorrow are not given space to be, to be known, to be tended. Not only to individuals, but also to communities and nations.

Here is our country, our society, its psyche deeply, gravely wounded, reeling from profound losses and traumas,  facing and fearing change …  fear seems to be a common ground we share, wherever we stand.

Underlying it all, I sense the vastness of an unheeded sorrow, an untended grief, feeding the fear, the anger, the despair; giving root to the seeds of violence and suffering.

I see a society that doesn’t know how to grieve, give space for sorrow.  That doesn’t have a healthy relationship with pain, grief, or sorrow – and thus perhaps not a healthy relationship with grace, goodness, or belovedness either, then.

What is happening in our society (in our world?) is a breaking wide open … there is so much pain pouring out. It overwhelms me with sorrow and grief, a sense of deep spiritual loss, death, darkness.

And yet, in this breaking open, belovedness teaches me to see hope – that with all the pain and sorrow rising so visibly to the surface, perhaps we will learn, together, how to give space to sorrow and pain. Perhaps we can learn together the gift and the grace of grief …

I know that Belovedness is teaching me how to have a healthy relationship with sorrow, to bind grief with grace, to give space to mourning   … the gift of great losses and heart-rending choices and experiences is that I am being given the opportunity and the space to learn how to grieve, how to see and know the grace in grief.

A gift that perhaps I can learn how to share, even to fashion into part of my life’s work  … the blessedness in sorrowfulness and the sacred work of grief, and their beautiful oneness with Belovedness.

************************************************************

What if we allowed ourselves to be better acquainted with grief, with sorrow, to not fear or shame them, but to welcome them? To work with and through them, to find meaning and hope in them? Would restoration and renewal come? Would we become whole, in ourselves, as a nation, as a world?

 

 

Restorative Justice, Part 2: Circles of Relationship

/ Lanae / Leave a comment

Restorative justice, in both its distilled and its universal sense, is about relationships, and living is about relationships. Restorative justice as a way of life is about how we live in relationships, a mindful way of living in relationship, remembering interconnectedness and inter-being even in midst of suffering. Seeking to rebuild, renew, redeem, and restore relationships where there has been conflict, pain, wrong-doing, and crime, things that have wounded or broken the relationship.

While this restorative view of justice sees crime and wrong-doing as a violation of relationships, retributive justice instead sees it as a violation of laws, and the state, or society. While retributive justice sees these violations as creating guilt, restorative justice sees them as creating obligations. Retributive justice determines blame and enforces punishment, pain and suffering in return for pain and suffering as the way to restore the broken balance …

But how does retribution and punishment truly restore a broken balance? Does punishment teach accountability, or let the wrong-doer experience the impact or depth of how the ones they hurt were affected? Punishment may teach shame, but does it teach repentance?

Does punishment teach how to make right the heart … does it offer belovedness, a belovedness that perhaps the wrong-doer has not known and so carries untended the suffering of this unknowing?

Are broken relationships restored? Is the harm and pain caused by the wrongdoer healed by this? Is the wound within the wrongdoer that caused them to do wrong considered or treated, or is it perhaps deepened and widened, leading to possibility of further suffering and wrong-doing …

In contrast, restorative justice asks some simple and important relational questions: Who has been harmed? What are their needs? To whom do these obligations belong?

What are some of these obligations? Repentance, restitution, responsibility, accountability.

There is a debt to be paid, yes, but not so much a debt to the state or to society, as a debt to the specific relationships broken, the people directly harmed. Of course, the ripples of conflict or pain may spread into wider circles of relationship … but addressing and mending them in the smaller circles may save them from widening in wounding ways. Instead, healing can ripple outward …

Both retributive and restorative justice approaches acknowledge the necessity of consequences for the wrong-doing. However, instead of promoting punishment, restorative justice promotes discipline. Instead of an authoritarian response, it offers an authoritative, corrective response. It encourages the principles of compassion and non-violence, values of respect, responsibility, accountability, an ethics that puts the deeper needs – psychological, emotional, spiritual – of all those involved first.

In restorative justice is the understanding that retributive or punitive practices may often fail to meet those deeper needs. Sometimes, these practices may instead water seeds of injustice or oppression; sometimes, they may place heavy yokes upon all involved – individual, community, society.

Retribution does not necessarily lead to restitution or restoration, nor does it unequivocally seem to encourage soul-deep repentance or offer reconnection, and all of these beautiful things surely seem to belong to a true, rich, merciful justice.

I cannot hear very well echoes of belovedness in retributive or punitive ideas of justice … but I can hear them resounding in the principles and practices of restorative justice!

Restorative justice invites a new sort of relationship between those who have suffered and those who have caused it, between wrong-doers and their community, between wrong-doers and society, a relationship wherein the healing of repentance has opportunity to arise. Echoes of belovedness sounding forth in justice, a justice that neither discriminates nor judges wrong-doers unworthy of healing and help, of restoration and reconnection to the circle of community.

It is an invitation into a circle of conversation, an intentional dialogue. Within this circle, those who have done wrong or injustice, who have caused suffering, have the opportunity to see the impact of their words and their action. Within this circle of conversation can be present an invitation to healing of broken relationships with self, community, the Creator.

An invitation for belovedness to come into the heart of the circle and heal …

A healing of the circle of relationships, with self and Creator. A healing of the circle of community. Restoring the wholeness of the circle as much as possible … instead of the circle remaining broken, the brokenness can be named, known, addressed, healed to whatever depth it can be healed.

Restorative justice gives individuals who’ve been caused suffering the opportunity to voice their pain, to voice it to the one who caused the suffering, and to be heard about what might help make things right. It gives the one who has caused the suffering the opportunity to voice their pain, their shame and sorrow over the suffering caused. Together, they can come to see each other’s suffering. Simply sitting with someone and allowing them to express their sorrow and shame can be a healing experience; this is a practice of deep listening, listening with belovedness, watering seeds of peace, forgiveness, healing grace.

It may not be an easy thing to come into such a circle and it must be facilitated with great care, skill, grace … but what value there is in opening up the possibility of reconciliation, reconnection!

In the circle of relationship is healing; the circle of relationship is healing. Restorative justice can help heal a cycle of suffering … keep the circle of healing whole, open and inclusive of all wounded souls.

****************

I have emphasized here the circle of relationship/community, and restoration of the brokenness in this circle, as key to a restorative justice. It’s not just about criminal justice approaches but also about everyday living, how we believe and be-love. I feel it as a matter of justice also to acknowledge that many specific restorative justice models used in North America now are grounded in a First Nations understanding of the circles of life and relationship, of community and justice. The circle is a beautiful and meaningful symbol of life and creation, of relationship, in many cultures, globally. It is surely beautiful and meaningful to me!

I’d like to leave you with these takeaway questions to consider (and even to discuss your thoughts with others – or me! 🙂 ).

How can you perhaps view the criminal justice system now and those caught in it from a different perspective? What does the concept of a circle (circles) of relationship mean to you, and how would you apply it to a way of living restoratively, doing justice?

Restorative Justice, Part 1

/ Lanae / Leave a comment

My tagline says, “mindfully speaking and living love, compassion, and justice.” Since I’ve shared much already about love and compassion, perhaps it’s time to begin talking more about justice, to echo the belovedness of justice, to implore a justice that echoes and encourages belovedness.

The things that I have been sharing with you – deep listening; watering seeds of grace, gratitude, and goodness; even the practice of equanimity, finding emotional and spiritual steadiness – all lead into the notion of a justice of belovedness, also. These practices are mindfulness practices, but also justice practices, about first dealing with our own selves in just ways, then seeking to deal with others in just ways. Just communication, just interactions, just relationships … healing communication, healing interactions, healing relationships.

I’ve used the phrase ‘restorative justice,’ or ‘transformative justice,’ in past posts, and I’m feeling moved to share about what those words mean, what they mean to me. I decided to research into the concept more deeply, and learned so much about restorative justice as an alternative to the current criminal justice system presently dominant in this country (and many others) – a retributive rather a restorative system.

I do want to share more about the spirit and practices of restorative vs retributive justice and the relationship of suffering and social justice. Indeed, I even have a lot about it written already, but there is only so much that can be crammed into one post, which is why I decided to turn this topic into a multi-part series of posts!

However, I realized I wanted, needed, first to clarify what I was initially envisioning when I spoke of ‘restorative justice,’ to lay as clear a foundation as I can. I was centering upon a mindful relational and spiritual perspective, about healing and restoring the imbalances of justice that exist in the very way we perceive and live in relationship and interact with one another. Yes, the social aspects then follow; reformation or transformation of social structures, of the criminal justice system. Restorative justice flows into and blends with social justice.

But first, I simply want to look at what I see as a major root of restorative justice, a reason for the need and the value of it. I see it as the root because I tend to see life and living and relationships through a spiritual lens, a lens of mindful spirituality, and because I am deeply concerned with and passionate about the healing of our souls, healing of the collective soul of society. Restorative justice for the soul, for the spirit.

These verses, shared with me at the beginning of Lent, opened to me a beautiful, practical, transcendent, living view of restorative justice, what it looks like both in spirit and in action:

Isaiah 58

6.Is not this the fast that I choose                                                                    to loose the bonds of injustice                                                                          to undo the thongs of the yoke,                                                                         to let the oppressed go free,                                                                          and to break every yoke?

7.Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,                                                and bring the homeless poor into your house …

8.Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,                                       and your healing shall spring up quickly; …                                                          

9. … If you remove the yoke from among you;                                               the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil

10.If you offer your food to the hungry                                                         and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,                                                           then your light shall rise in the darkness                                                    and your gloom be like the noonday.

These verses speak of suffering, of justice that is due the suffering, the oppressed, the burdened, the poor. Justice blended with service of love and compassion. This means to do not only charitable acts, but to advocate for deep change, as we are aware and able.

A restorative justice, is it not, to loose the bonds of injustice and to let the oppressed go free? To break every yoke of oppression, every spiritual yoke, every societal yoke, every yoke of inequality, placed upon our fellow human beings. Ones we have placed there, or ones others have, that matters little, except that together, we can and indeed must remove those yokes from among us, break them. Break them, so that those who have been broken by them might be able to stand, be whole …

I think we can all understand what some of those yokes may be, when we look deeply into the conflicts and suffering in the world, in the USA. Perhaps some of us are wearing yokes from which we need to go free … yokes of suffering or injustices … or yokes we wear because we’ve placed such yokes on others, intentionally or not.

This restorative justice begins within our own minds, hearts, and souls, an inner work of awareness and healing change that flows outward, ever outward, like light breaking forth. An inner work of restoration that first breaks within us whatever spiritual or psychological yokes we suffer under; that sets us free, free to practice with belovedness the work of restorative justice. To me, that’s what the fast I choose today looks like, in my being, my living.

This is the beginning of restorative justice. Beginning from the root, beginning within us, you and I. Beginning from the root and rising upward and outward, a justice of belovedness that first flows into us, flows from us, flows into our families, all our relationships with others, with strangers, with enemies … until there are no strangers, no enemies, no ‘others’, no ‘us vs. them.’

A justice of belovedness that flows like a river into our communities, our social institutions and structures.

A justice that flows across cultures and unites us, restored in wholeness to one another … restored and returned to the state of love, equality in love. A return to and restoration of the human connection, wherein is healing.

******************************

I know this is a lot to absorb (!), but if you would take away one thing, let it be this: what does restorative justice mean to you, and in what spiritual and/or practical ways can or would you practice and live it?