Healing the Degenerative Disease of Separation - An on-Going Regenerative Inquiry

Encouragement to face ‘the shit’. “Rehabilitation only works when there is consent, not only intellectual, but affective and embodied consent and the first step is admitting we have a problem, in this case, it is also admitting the depth and scale of our individual and collective problems.”

colonialism as a degenerative disease, a form of neurobiological impairment that is based on an imposed sense separation between human beings and the rest of nature and an imposed sense of superiority of humans over nature

the imprints of separation and superiority in our collective neurophysiology condition us to create hierarchies between species, cultures and individuals and prompts us to relate to the land as a property or “resource”, rather than as a living being that we are part of

separability erodes the intrinsic value of our lives, it enforces a sense and fear of worthlessness that compels us to participate in economies of worth that can validate the value of our existence, a process that requires us to put a price tag on everything and transactionally calculate our relationships, exchanges and politics accordingly

Fighting colonialism as a disease is different from fighting it as a machine. Because it takes so many forms, there are different things we need to do to address the symptoms, but also the root of the disease. We also have to be careful because the disease is really contagious and, because we are part of the same metabolism, the disease is already in all of us.

We need to find an antidote to and heal the dis-ease alongside the work of stopping the bulldozers. The problem is that this often cannot be done at the same time.

trying to fight it using the tools most readily available to us (that come from the same source) often inadvertently reproduces what you are trying to oppose

the most fundamental role of education is to enable pathways that can start to heal the wounds of separability and supremacy at both ends: those most directly affected by the worst symptoms of the disease at the receiving end and the inflicting end of most of the violence

Tags: sm/2024, sm/interbeing, sm/trauma

those of us who work in the global north were concerned that the framework of healing has already been co-opted in a depoliticised way in our context, manifesting often as spiritual bypassing

In spiritual bypassing, people want to think they are “one” with everything beautiful, while negating their connection with everything that is destroying that beauty.

Tags: sm/2024

The root of the fundamental existential problem is relational. The framework of justice is extremely limited because it is still based on separability and human superiority. It does not reflect the reality that everything is inseparable from each other. Entanglement is not just a concept, it is a factual reality, but being able to sense this entanglement and activate responsibility towards it is a neurophysiological issue, not a matter of thinking, but of un-numbing to the pain of the whole and re-activating latent capacities to act wisely and responsibly.

Addressing healing in this way is a political practice, but this political practice is not visible from the perspective of separability.

a framework of justice is what is intelligible and what is perceived as political within the house of modernity. It relies on a narrative of villains, victims and heroes. It requires the same architecture of being and relationships based on separability. When we are seeking justice, we tend to invest in a future outcome, a destination point, that we imagine from a position of autonomy and entitlement. This process is often driven by the desires of the ego and prevents it from being a collaboration with the Land. By placing all investment in certainty and control, and a predefined outcome, we are prevented from repairing and healing relationships in the present, which inherently needs to be driven by something other than the transactional calculations of the ego.

Tags: climate/justice

When people come to the Amazon expecting Indigenous communities to teach them, they are not really receptive to these teachings because they are used to a form of education that only educates the head.

We educate the gut, so that the heart can be filled with the message, motivation, direction and vision that the Earth provides through the umbilical cord for the head to follow.

go back and let go of the romanticization of the community and fantasy that I can just escape into a “decolonized” space

life is primarily about the expansion of responsibilities and restraints rather than the expansion of perceived entitlements and pleasures.

we talk about probiotic education which is about creating the conditions where the core direction of these teachings can be received and digested in a cultural context that has got stuck consuming junk food

SMDR compass, which is used to direct our attention towards the need for emotional sobriety (or stability), relational maturity, intellectual discernment and intergenerational responsibility in every situation

a way of experiencing life where meaning cannot be a description of reality, but a heuristic that helps us to navigate an unknowable reality

What we can articulate is one fraction of what we think, what we think is one fraction of what we perceive, what we perceive is one fraction of what is going on around and within us and people socialized in the house of modernity tend to think that the narratives they have of things can describe all there is

People feel enchanted by the words and they seek association with the work without commitment or capacity to engage with the responsibility “ask” of the work.

Rehabilitation only works when there is consent, not only intellectual, but affective and embodied consent and the first step is admitting we have a problem, in this case, it is also admitting the depth and scale of our individual and collective problems.

there is no state of “decolonization”, there is no point of arrival, we will always be in rehab

People also want “community”, but this desire is often based on projections of being seen, felt, heard, and cared for in a particular way, similar to the oceanic feeling you described earlier.