The United States was founded through the genocide of native people who had lived on this beautiful land for eons, and was built on the backs of people who were kidnapped from their homes and sold into slavery. The energy of these horrific acts continues to exist in the land where we reside. The earth holds vibrations of former traumatic events, as do our own complex human bodies when we have experienced deep pain, such as that associated with war trauma, sexual wounds, emotional and physical abuse. These formerly-noted afflictions are referred-to as post-traumatic stress disorders, PTSD. It is widely accepted that traumas from these painful events not only live in our bodies, but these same bodies are the last places where traumas depart after healing interventions have removed traumatic traces from the whole human energy field, including subtle layers of the entire sensitive human self. When one is triggered by incidents that are reminders of a former trauma, the body is activated in ways that cause such a person to re-experience the full force of that original trauma. The same is true for the earth. The trauma of what occurred upon it is activated by similar traumas and the energy of the trauma rises up and is felt by those who live upon the land.
In the treatment of those with PTSD, it is important to bring to consciousness and process the trauma before it can be released from the body. Although there is acknowledgement that the genocide of the Native Americans did occur and that slavery is an unfortunate part of our early history, we have not as a nation come to terms with the devastating impact these two occurrences have on the soul and collective psyche of the nation. Nor have any heartfelt amends been made to those who have most severely suffered from the legacy of slavery and genocide.
One of the founding principles of the United States has been religious freedom with the underlying religious tradition being Christianity. The core teachings of Christianity, as taught to us by Jesus, is to love others as yourself, to take care of the poor and infirmed and to welcome strangers into your home. We are at a crisis point in our nation. The pandemic has exposed for the world to see how poorly as a nation we have taken care of the poor and infirmed for they have experienced the bulk of the deaths from Covid-19. Disproportionately the ancestors of slavery and genocide have been most cruelly impacted by the virus, highlighting a failing health care system and in many cases, inhuman living conditions. Through the murder of George Floyd, images of lynchings of black men surface to consciousness triggering the pain of the past and fueling protests and violence throughout the land.
It is time to address the savagery of our origins and how this has brought us to where we are today. Is the current racism in our country an unconscious attempt to justify our founding fathers’ actions by actually believing that people of color are in some way inferior to white people? Is the fear of the other so strong that we project all that is wrong in our lives at the feet of those who are different from us? Is the energy of violence and inhumanity that lives in the land so strong that it rises up to either inflame our collective sense of injustice to the extent that we are called to march in the streets or conversely does it awaken the hateful entitlement of our ancestors that it is the white man’s destiny to dominate, control and rule the non-white people of the world? Each person needs to ask himself how the imprint of racism lives within. I long for a world in which we honor and respect a person, not for his wealth, power and skin color, but for the manner in which he walks on the earth with love, compassion and equanimity for all. Before this is possible we need to deeply ask ourselves how the imprint of genocide and slavery lives within, not from a politically correct place of denial of any hint of racism, but from an honest examination of our deepest thoughts and feelings.