The Wound of Being Alive

The moment we emerged from our mother’s birth canal and sipped our first sweet breath, we were wounded. ?The very cord that sustained us, fed us, nourished us–the umbilical cord–was cut.

And from that day onwards, we proceeded to live a life of wounds. ?Every moment our mother did not give us her whole heart and her full attention; every moment we were not breastfed when we were hungry (or if we were not breastfed at all), we were wounded.

When it came time to leave home and go to school–when we were forced to sit in a classroom for 6 hours a day and listen to strangers teach us things we didn’t ask to learn, we were wounded.

When we were taught our sexuality is shameful, we were wounded.

When someone laughed at us in a moment of awkwardness or vulnerability, we were wounded.

When we were punished because we did something wrong and it felt like we were punished because of who we were rather than what we did, we were wounded.

The first time we fell in love, we were wounded. ?And the second time. ?And the third.

When we finished school and were told to stand on our own two feet without the support of a community behind us, we were wounded.

Every time we pay our taxes, we are wounded.

Every day we spent ill in bed or at the hospital or in fear, we were wounded.

And when we die, we and everyone around us will be wounded.

The soil is shaken, turned, punctured–and wounded–every time a seed is planted. ?The caterpillar is wounded when it must surrender its life to become a butterfly. ?The earth is wounded every day by this human life of ours.

 

Wounds heal.

 

In time, a scrape or cut, a bruise will disappear. ?The lizard grows back its tail.

Our bodies know how to do this. ?Naturally we heal ourselves and our wounds every day. ?With hunger, food. ?With tiredness, sleep. ?With sorrow, we feel it and it passes. ?Wounds heal naturally of their own accord–if cared for, paid attention to, and nurtured back to wholeness.

Traumas in our lives are infected wounds. ?Wounds we turned against and never looked back. ?Wounds we were afraid to face. ?Deep cuts we didn’t take the time to treat and masked with a band-aid, a lie, or medication until they were forgotten.

Or even wounds that didn’t have a safe environment in which to heal naturally.

All these wounds became infected; became trauma. ?Scars that surface unpredictably or predictably. ?The places in ourselves we refuse to go.

Infected wounds are intimidating to face because they are ugly. ?Yellow and red, swollen, oozing with pus. ?They’re nauseating.

But that is all they are–infected. ?And when treated with proper care, with compassion, with the elixir of love, they, too, will heal.

All of nature, all of life exists in continuous cycle. ?Create, maintain, destroy. ?Create, maintain, destroy. Birth, life, death. ?Birth, life, death.

In order for the future to be born again and again in each moment, the present must die–that is, it must transform into the past.

With support from ourselves and our community, we become connected to our wounds and all the places in us that have become rotten. ?And from these holes, the light can shine through. ?Our closet of traumas, given sun, will become compost. ?Will become the fertile soil from which we can live our lives to their full potential. ?And our recollection of each and every wound becomes the food of our compassion.

This is the miracle of being alive. ?It is a cycle and a ceremony: of wounds, of scars, and of new life.