Rituals for Healing and Self Care - A Caribbean Feminist Brew

Rituals for Healing and Self Care
A Caribbean Feminist Brew
Conjured by Angelique V. Nixon

for those of us on the frontline,
waging battles, survivors of violence,
for Caribbean women and girls,
for Caribbean people who live and love
outside gender and sexual norms,
(especially lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex,
queer, and gender non-conforming folks)

These past weeks of sharing painful stories, we have broken depths of silence,
Broken, we are not, broke open, we are, not damaged beyond repair,
We are breaking silences with fyah raised fists and voices beaming, 

we listen, we hold, we rage, we bawl, we scream, we remember.
 

We share our own stories. Sometimes we don’t share. Sometimes we can’t. This is time to bear witness. We share in this unearthing of our stories of sexual abuse, harassment, assault, and violence. We wonder how to move forward. How to escape. How to process. How to cope. How to stop this violence. How to hold each other accountable. How to live and love. How to be whole again. How to heal. 

Krystal Nandini Ghisyawan and I have been asking these questions over the past few years through our co-created art and reflection projects on gender-based violence (GBV) in the Caribbean. This year, we decided to focus on breaking silence and healing. 

For survivors of violence especially women and people who defy sexual and gender norms, I hosted a healing workshop at Wholeness and Justice Counselling Centre in Trinidad on 9 December. I created this workshop to facilitate healing space for those of us most affected by gender based violence. This session focused on women, LGBTQI folks, and gender non-conforming people because we experience the brunt of hetero-patriarchal violence. These forms of violence affect us all but women and sexual minorities experience gender based violence disproportionately. 

As the #LifeinLeggings movement grows across the Caribbean, we must create more spaces for us to find healing. We have opened up wounds, we have shared painful memories, and we are bearing witness to each other’s pain. How do we process these feelings and memories? How do we support and protect each other? How do we channel our anger, pain, rage, and sorrow into creativity, language, and action? How do we manage loved ones reactions, feelings, and pain upon reading our stories? Can we create change and transform our societies, communities, and families? What is possible? Inspired by Audre Lorde's poetry and essays, my workshop seeks to open space and use creativity for healing and transformation. 

I share here on consciousvibration the goals, rituals, and creative exercises I developed to create space for healing and sharing. We had a powerful and hard session on Friday – with nine of us – sharing, writing, creating, and thinking through these questions of how we transform silence into language and action. I will be hosting more of these workshops soon – and some folks in the group want to meet up regularly.  

The Goals of the Workshop: For survivors of gender based violence, to release and find healing through creativity and to transform silence into language and action.

   Defining Self Care:

• A self-initiated, deliberate act to establish and maintain physical, mental and emotional health.
• Creating spaces for reflection, healing, community building, and balance. 

Cleansing Healing Breathing Practice

• To release stress and emotional build up; To cleanse the body and regenerate; To clear the mind - ground and center self.
• Focus and Pay attention to the breath as a healing practice.

Remember that Healing is a process (day to day practice)

• Establish daily rituals of self-care: eating well, exercise, meditation, yoga, grounding, nature connection, checking in with loved ones.
• Relaxing and restorative things you do just for you (time for yourself everyday; writing every morning or before bed; make a healing playlist just for you; etc.)
• Build a healing altar and/or space for mediation and healing practice. 

Healing Altar built for the workshop on 9 Dec 2016

Writing and Art – Creativity as a Path for Healing (channel rage into creation)

Anger expressed and translated into action in the service of our vision and our future is a liberating and strengthening act of clarification. 
Anger is loaded with information and energy. 
 –Audre Lorde “Uses of Anger”

We have opened up wounds, we have shared painful memories, and we are bearing witness to each others' pain. How do we process these feelings and memories? How do we support and protect each other? How do we channel our anger, pain, rage, and sorrow into creativity, language, and action? How do we manage loved ones reactions, feelings, and pain upon reading our stories? Can we create change and transform our societies, communities, and families? What is possible?

My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you.
–Audre Lorde “Transformation of Silence into Language and Action”

As survivors of gender based violence – we often push down the painful memories and this can create a separation of selves – especially if it happened to us as children or teens. We may have split and silenced parts of our selves to survive and cope. Sometimes these are necessary strategies but long term can be damaging. Here are some creative exercises to communicate with your other self or selves built for survival and coping – for healing and transformation.

Creative Exercises as pathways to healing:

1) Stone Reflection (Earth – grounding self)

Pick two stones – one as a reflection of your inner self or child self and the other as the self you project to the world or your adult self. Write about each stone and how they reflect these parts of you. Describe the surface, the edges, the feelings that each stone evokes in you. Let the power of the earth come through the stones. Feel how they ground you. Share your reflection.

2) Love letter or drawing to child-teen-younger self (Air and Water – for healing) 

Use the elements of Air and Water – as a metaphor for channeling messages to your younger self: write a love letter or create a drawing for your younger self. 

For Inspiration -- read my love letter: 

“States of Healing Anger – Love Letter to my GirlChildSelf.”

3) "Transforming Silence into Language and Action" (Fire – for regeneration)

And of course I am afraid, because the transformation of silence into language and action is an act of self-revelation, and that always seems fraught with danger.

 We can learn to work and speak when we are afraid in the same way we have learned to work and speak when we are tired. For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of the silence will choke us.

The fact that we are here and that I speak these words is an attempt to break the silence and bridge some of those differences between us, for it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken.

– Audre Lorde, “Transformation of Silence into Language and Action”

For Inspiration, watch and listen to my collaborative art project: “Sixteen Days: Art and Reflection Project” and see my art and poetry collection: Saltwater Healing: A Myth Memoir and Poems.

Vision your own transformation piece with FYAH – create, draw, paint, colour, write poetry, or anything you want to make with your hands -- transform feelings, anger, sadness, grief, pain, silence into something new that will incite, will speak, will draw upon your energy and live beyond you.

Healing Art by one of the workshop participants

Closing – circle vibration / conscious vibration  

Give Thanks – ancestors, earth magic, walk with spirit

#Beyond16Days#LifeinLeggings #Caribbeanfeministwork #Catchafyah

13 December 2016 | Full Moon Blessings in Gemini