by Susanne Bounds
March 22, 2020
Greetings to everybody! This is an abbreviated version of what my message was going to be this March 22 spring equinox morning. This message and the ritual I have posted on YouTube will hopefully help us all ground and remember and draw on the essentials of life in this difficult time.
We are in a time cycle representing growth and hope and increasing light, but it can be hard to keep that in mind when shadows of a crisis like this coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world intervene. Our bodies and our emotional, spiritual, and emotional lives comprise so many connections that wax and wane over time and through cycles, but sometimes those soft connections fray or snap. How do we heal from those stretched ligaments, frayed tendons, pulled muscles, emotional hurts, spiritual rendings, social isolations and abuses?
There is and always will be some weakness remaining, some lingering damage. How does life change when those connective tissues are damaged? We are immobilized, stuck, unable to move in ways we are used to or want to. Most often there is no plaster cast or outward sign of the fraying or broken connections, so others cannot see the pain. We limp along on the invisible injury. When there is no surgeon or bandage or other fix, what do we do? Medicate, but that only covers the pain; it doesn’t address the connective tissue injury itself. Immobilize, but that only makes everything weaker in the end.
Nature gives us ways to heal those connective tissue wounds, but in this particular culture we often have been taught to just “tough them out,” forgetting, as Tanya Tagaq, Inuk throat singer and author of Split Tooth wrote, “There are secrets hidden in our flesh. Our cells are being born and dying with the same force that makes galaxies form and deconstruct.” What a time of winter or storm or fire lays bare, the spring comes along to tend and dress and allow some healing to take place.
Like the earth, we people can compensate by making surrounding parts of our lives stronger. The injury and pain will still be there, but more in the background, integrated within a new growth. It is a slow process: the initial healing growth can spring up quickly, but underneath, there are so many other places to strengthen to compensate for that soft, painful, inhibiting connective tissue damage that can never completely heal.
Today, just after the spring equinox, is a good time to do some work to start healing a connective tissue injury. The following calming and healing ritual can help send you on your way toward inner support and strength.
YouTube link to ritual: https://youtu.be/8E3T8uPMZNI
Find a comfortable quiet space and have a writing instrument at hand for after the ritual. As soon as you can, write down what you saw and constructed during this meditation, and then start focusing your life on tending what you envisioned and constructed. You can use this meditation for other connective tissue injuries. Don’t try to do too many at once, though, and always remember this is a slow process, healing those soft connective tissues, but over time, with care taken, we can again flourish.
Namaste, and much love,
Susanne