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Dear Still Water Friends,
Alaine Duncan, the co-founder and co-director of Crossings, has been a
peace activist for more than 30 years, and an acupuncturist for more
than twenty. In recently years, Lani has reached out to work with
returned soldiers and nursing staff at the Veterans Administration and
at Walter Reed Medical Center, through the programs of Crossings
Healingworks, a non-profit arm of Crossings.
Working with the military family, Lani notes, has been the "grittiest,
grimiest and most compelling peace work” she has ever been
involved in.
In addition to practicing traditional Chinese acupuncture, Lani brings
to her work with veterans a method of releasing trauma called Somatic
Experiencing. It is defined by its originator, Dr. Peter Levine, as a
short-term naturalistic approach to the resolution and healing of
trauma. As explained by Levine:
It is based upon the observation
that wild prey animals, though threatened routinely, are rarely
traumatized. Animals in the wild utilize innate mechanisms to regulate
and discharge the high levels of energy arousal associated with
defensive survival behaviors. These mechanisms provide animals with a
built-in ''immunity'' to trauma that enables them to return to normal
in the aftermath of highly ''charged'' life-threatening experiences.
This Thursday evening, after our meditation, Lani will talk with us
about her work healing the wounds of war and how it has transformed her.
You are invited to be with us this Thursday. The best times to join us
are just before the beginning of our 7 p.m meditation, just before we
begin walking meditation (around 7:25), and just after our walking
meditation (around 7:35).
An excerpt from Peter Levine's book, Waking the Tiger, is below.
Warm wishes,
Mitchell Ratner
Senior Teacher
From Peter Levine, Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma
"The roots of
war run deep. Any truly honest person will acknowledge that we all have
the capacity for both violence and love. Both are equally basic
aspects of the human experience. What may be even more significant in
understanding the roots of war is the human vulnerability to
traumatization. We should not forget that it was in the frightening
symptoms manifested by some of the soldiers who returned from combat
that the effects of trauma were first recognized... . Trauma creates
a compelling drive for re-enactment when we are unaware of its impact
upon us.
What if entire communities of people are driven into
mass re-enactments by experiences such as war? Lasting peace among
warring peoples cannot be accomplished without first healing the traumas
of previous terrorism, violence and horror on a mass scale."