“The Earth is not just our environment, the Earth is our Mother”

(Dalai Lama)

“My Perception, My Truth“.

I wonder if we are facing a world of trauma; I also wonder if trauma, with its many guises and appearances, is a growing occurrence affecting all of life.

These are my understandings, my perceptions, my sense of things, my experiences; my truth. I want to make it clear that I am not claiming to know “the truth”. All I have is what I have learned and experienced in my life. Neither am I claiming to have the answers either. I’m just attempting to untangle my thoughts on how I see our world today.

Let me share a little about myself. I’m in my 67th year and through these years I have lived in Africa, (Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia), India, Canada, Mexico, and for a short while in England/Wales. My life has and continues to be a roller coaster of adventures and it has had its fair share of traumas. There have been fantastic, scary, challenging and sad experiences all resulting in amazing life-changing ventures. I truly have been blessed as all of it, the good, the bad, and the sad have resulted in the expansion of my outlook on life.

What I am going to try and share with this blog series is my interpretation, my understanding and my sense of what it “may” all be about. It’s a combination of my outward reality and my inner spiritual awakenings which have brought me to “my truth” so far.

Societies Trauma world

With 7+ billion people calling Mother Earth home, I sense many decisions and actions made throughout history and present-day have been made without considering the fact that each of us 7+ billion people lives in our own unique reality as well as our own cultural upbringing. This lack of awareness, recognition, or indifference, I believe, has contributed greatly to a deep trauma world in our society.

To me, it seems that major decisions and actions have and are made from a sense of superiority and a deep lack of understanding. I guess many decisions made by leaders in the past and present were/are based on a belief that they were/are for the good of whatever purpose they were/are pursuing at the time. In today’s world, I see similar traits used in making decisions that greatly affect our society.

I believe arrogance and ignorance are two traits that have significantly contributed and still contribute to the collective world trauma surrounding us today.

There is an exercise you can do that may help you see what I see. Take a moment, and in your mind’s eye step out of your body, float up as high as you can, and then look down onto Mother Earth. Just scan the globe and get a sense of how much struggle there is in our trauma world.

Minor to Extreme

We all live with trauma to different degrees. There are people who get through life fairly easily and others face extreme trauma. Some of us seek help to understand and try to heal from our trauma, and for some of us, the trauma is so deep and ingrained that we get lost in it.

I wonder, with each passing generation does our collective trauma increase? Just in my 66+ years, it seems there has been a steady rise in all the common addictions, mental health issues, sexual, physical, emotional and verbal abuse victims, and homelessness.

Human to Human trauma world

Examples of some “human to human” traumatized categories that stick out to me are:

• Cultures that have been displaced and destroyed – 1^st Nations of North America, Aboriginals and Maoris of Australia/New Zealand, Bushmen of Southern Africa, Pygmies of Eastern Africa. Just to mention a few that I’m aware of. All the world’s refugees could fall into this category. (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/the-pygmies-plight-93401092/)
• Child soldiers of the world, are kidnapped, brainwashed and forced to kill their own families and friends and people of their villages. This trauma really sticks in my throat; I don’t know how one recovers from such trauma. “Recruitment and use of Children”. (https://childrenandarmedconflict.un.org/six-grave-violations/child-soldiers/)
• Soldiers are subjected to fighting wars; post-traumatic stress, war injuries, suicides and deaths. Children and families are subjected to these traumas. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJX3byjYSMc&t=4s
• The Slave trade, of course, has existed for centuries and still continues in different forms today, in particular with women and children resulting in the sex trade.(https://time.com/longform/african-slave-trade//)
• Child sexual abuse within church walls and other institutions, within families, friends and communities. I’ve met people who went through satanic abuse as very young children/babies. This too is beyond my comprehension.
• Traumas are experienced within families. There are sexual, verbal, emotional and physical abuses. To a lesser degree is the trauma experienced by children interpreting and believing things that are not the reality of the situation. Examples: believing it’s their fault their parents divorced, or believing they are incapable and not worthy due to incidences they interpret and then carry as their truth. In reality, it’s not the truth at all. Regardless, it results in trauma. Or not receiving the understanding and attention that they, in their unique form, require. Children’s ability to understand anything only goes as far as their understanding takes them at that point in time. My guess is this is probably the most common trauma we deal with in society and in general we seem to manage it. I sense though that this can have a significant impact on one’s belief system resulting in a skewed and incorrect reality. This is where my trauma seemed to have originated leaving me pretty paralyzed for many years.

Hand me downs

Let’s take this one step further. I sense there is also trauma children absorb and take on from their parents if their parents have not got a handle on their own trauma. We then pass our accumulated trauma onto our children, which then gets passed on to our grandchildren………..  

Animal trauma world

How about “humans inflicting trauma to all other life forms”. We are responsible for the traumas being inflicted on animals. Examples are, poaching, trophy hunting, puppy mills and neglect and abuse of pets, commercial fishing techniques, slaughtering of whales and dolphins, inhumane commercial animal farming i.e. pigs, chickens, and cows.

Mother Earths Trauma world

Then there is the extreme trauma we are causing to our environment. Colonialism has been blamed for the reaping of resources in underdeveloped countries. What are we doing today? Since Colonialism had its ruling moment, we have raped Mother Earth over and over and over again. We dig her up, we blow her up, we frack her, we flood her, we pillage whatever we can from here; we spew poison into her air, we flush poison down into her water system, we spray poison onto her land as well as all the food we eat and all the life that lives on her land; we fill up Mother Earths’ belly with our continual purchasing of stuff that we don’t want anymore; we need to make room to buy more stuff. Garbage is thrown everywhere and anywhere; we can’t mix biodegradable with our garbage anymore as we have so many chemicals mixed in causing a chemical reaction.

I don’t believe people trash and destroy their homes this way, yet Mother Earth is our home, so what are we doing by trashing her this way?

Our Unnatural World

I also see greater trauma. To me, it looks like we are polluting ourselves with our chemical world. All our medicines are becoming more and more synthetically created. We ingest and inject chemicals; we take modern synthetic medications that can cause other health issues which require more synthetic and harsh medications; we use sunscreen to prevent skin cancer, but common sunscreen gives us cancer; we eat food that is sprayed with chemicals. Our food is filled with strange added ingredients. And what the heck is the GMO process and the new creations we’re eating? There is processed food and now there are non-meat products. Fast food, what is that, what is in it to make it so addictive?

We build our homes and buildings with chemicals in our paint and other building materials. Our furniture is now a major fire hazard due to unnatural materials and things added. Not sure what is in some of the materials our clothes and cheap shoes are made from!

How about the devastating world of plastics and the chemicals in all of that. And now we face the latest consequences of the massive disposable masks and all the plastics related to covid.

What about the industrial world that creates all this stuff “we want”? Along with the process of recycling plastics? What goes into all that which then creates the pollution that gets spewed out into our atmosphere adding to our trauma world?

Chemically filled trauma world

From my perspective, it looks like we are becoming more and more disconnected from our Mother Earth and our natural environment, and becoming more and more chemically and artificially filled. What do you think; could this have anything to do with our health? Do you think our wants and desires could be adding more stress to our trauma world?

Mother Earth, a Living Breathing Organism

I see a world in a trauma crisis. Mother Earth is alive. She is a living breathing organism. So are her trees, animals, rocks, the dirt we walk on, the water we drink, the air we breathe; it’s all uniquely alive. Yet strangely, we feel superior to all this and disconnected from it all. We still seem to live in a world where we believe we control it all and that it’s here for our convenience solely to enable our growth and evolution.  

I’m Sorry

I know this sounds heavy and many people won’t want to look at this. Although it’s only my perspective, I believe, if we take a closer look at our world trauma and the roles and responsibilities we play in it, maybe we can find some solutions to help us find a healing and hopeful way to stabilize our Mother-home which feels to me like she’s deeply wounded and floundering.

Expecting governments and other leaders to take action to make the necessary “healthy” changes, I believe, is not going to happen. Why? Because corruption and greed are the biggest traumas contaminating our society today. (https://fransjournal.com/2018/10/28/when-the-road-bends-you-cannot-walk-straight-roma-proverb/)

UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL (Aesop)