Hey community,
We have an exciting announcement! We’re hosting an in-person Healing Helix retreat for early childhood educators on August 15, at Rolling Ridge retreat center in North Andover, MA. We are thrilled to welcome guest teachers, Lori Goodrich (in our opinion the world’s best OT) and Sarah Helm-Dunbar (behavior analyst and also my amazing cousin) to help us explore how neurodivergence shows up in our classrooms and how to support children and ourselves in a way that aligns with healing centered practices. Angela Carolina and I will be facilitating self-care practices after each session to tend to our nervous systems and integrate our learnings.
And in the meantime, our work has been asking us to explain what we mean by healing and we are ready to share this with you. During a Spanish class last fall I came across the word “cicatrice” in a song we were studying. I thought it was a beautiful word and immediately typed it into the translator. The translations of the verb “cicatrizar” were both “to heal” and “to form a scar” – whoa!! I fell in love with the idea that these two concepts share the same word and immediately texted Angela Carolina. As a bilingual human she considered this word from her perspective. Hearing it as a child the word was used as “scar” – what is left after the healing. The more we explored this idea the more we loved it as a framework. Healing is not trying to get back to some earlier state or time in our lives, rather it’s learning to live with new skin. The more we think about and play with this concept the more we love it. Once Angela Carolina settled back in at home in Chaparral, she realized that it was the mountains that had called her home. In her reflections, connection making, and indigenous studies she learned that the mountains are the holders of our stories. Cicatrice fits perfectly because, like mountains do for the earth, our scars hold our stories as reminders of our healing journey.
The Cicatrice work that wants to become is starting to emerge. As we listen to our hearts, our ideas, and messages from our communities, we are learning that Cicatrice is related and adjacent to the work we are doing with the Healing Helix but its shape will not belong to us. It will be different and bigger than the two of us. We’ll keep you in the loop about Cicatrice as it continues to emerge and begins to evolve into its own being.
As I hold space for my own stories and scars I feel aware of my journey to becoming a mother which has entangled grief and joy. I’ve experienced several losses in physical, emotional, and systemic ways. Even the way I’ve become my son’s forever mama and with a full heart, is directly related to a birth mother’s grief. (And potentially to his own grief one day depending on how he processes his origin). I am learning how to hold space for myself to be present with all of this and I must thank my husband, sister-friends, therapist, and my own mama for the different ways they support me in doing this.
Joy and grief are also intertwined for us as teachers – have you felt that? At this time of year we say goodbye to our babies and their families as they begin to move on to the next classroom and/or program. For those of you that loop with your kiddos the grief (and sometimes relief) that accompanies this inevitable transition may be felt even more intensely. It’s the joy that we experienced throughout the year – related to the development of intimate caregiving relationships, celebrations along developmental milestone journeys, and moments of authentic co-inquiry – which lead to our experience of grief at the end. We’d love to hear how you’re experiencing this as you move through the end of the year in the coming months.
With love and gratitude,
Lauren