Trauma is part of our human experience, wherever we come from, whatever our beliefs, we are all affected by trauma in the same way physiologically and psychologically.

In our modern industrialized world we cannot escape it. It is part of our shared human experience. And, in this shared humanness we can find connection, understanding and healing. We can reach the dawn after the darkest days. We don’t need to just survive, but can find ways to heal and thrive.

Tommy’s poem touched me in the place where I have been working to heal my own wounds and rebuild my life in the wake of illness and loss. May it inspire all of us to grow new life.

“Hidden Treasure” by Tommy Crawford

once, there was clay.

before that, burning lava.

now, you are here.

ice once covered everything.

floods drowned the helpless.

yet you live.

we are sons of survivors

daughters of destruction.

our ancestors are rocks

thrusting upwards from some impossible yesterday.

our grandparents are not just adam and eve

but the ripening fruit on the tree

the serpent with eyes aflame

the jealous god and his parting gifts.

inside of us pulsing rainforests

collide with snow cut mountains,

upon whose faces sit ridges of teeth

that belong to the laughing face

of the beloved.

she is laughing at you.

for you chose life while others chose death

you beat a path through the undergrowth while

others

followed suspiciously straight roads.

listen. let me tell you a secret.

your wound

is a womb

from which

new life

will grow.