trek to Hellfire Bay with camp in the background 30 minutes into the hike
Yesterday we went for a hike to Hellfire Bay from our camp at Cape Le Grande National Park in WA. I thought it was a 1 hr walk instead of the very challenging 3 hr walk each way. Hiking up and over granite ridges, peaks and skirting Mount le Grand, the trek took us over rocky and steep terrain I had not anticipated. I was pushed beyond my physical comfort zone. Arriving back at camp, relieved to have made it, I dissolved in tears, my comfort zone breached, and old wounds and griefs seemed to open up.
skirting Mount Grand
It has been 13 years since my late husband died of a heart attack while swimming. I have written about what grief looks like over time. I could equally have called this post ‘what 29, 44, or 55 years looks like’. (Referring to years since significant grief /trauma moments in this life of mine). So this is not a pity party piece but more an exploration of my own comfort zones, built as a kind of defence against the inevitable vagaries of life, death and being human and how that connects to a more global response to trauma and healing.
I have, for a good part of my life, suffered from too much emotion and no place to put it. Grief not being the least of it. Nature, writing and making art or developing creative projects has been my go to place to regain equilibrium.
finally we can see the bluer than blur waters and white beach of Hellfire Bay age 64
There is childhood trauma that has been buried that still manifests today. As an aunt of mine once described, ‘new hurts hit on old scar tissue.‘ So I can react to what may seemingly be a minor event in a highly charged way, more indicative of a serious attack and in such a way that a small child may react to something rather than a competent 64 year old woman.
Perhaps there is a gradual maturity and some degree of getting of wisdom, this seeing where things start. It is interesting to track patterns and habits, see where trauma begins and how it impacts life as you go along. And yet… the triggers still remain.
me at 15
Feelings of being inadequate, shame and people pleasing lie under the surface waiting for the moment when hot tears will come bubbling to the surface. The face we show the world is a mask of deeper more turbulent things; a comfort zone built to manage difficult and challenging ideas and emotions.
So it is with curiosity I ponder the art of healing. It is said that time is a great healer, but I think it is akin to a great forgetting. Like childbirth pain it can recede in intensity, or parts of our brain or psyche can block things that are incomprehensible in scale to digest. Perhaps time plays a role in giving distance so that we can look back and truly see dispassionately the motivations, circumstances and events from the past and apply forgiveness, compassion or apology. Is this then the nub of healing?
If I have dark moments from grief in my own past, if I have trauma from events in childhood and adulthood, if I have created comforts zones around my life to manage or deny my experience, then these are only my own demons, significant for me, but minor on the scale of human suffering.
later that evening, a storm brews over Cape Le Grand Beach
What then about other forms of suffering that are truly abhorrent? Genocide, war, the violent crimes of murder and rape, dislocation, disease, injustice, loss of country and all you hold dear? Could we apply forgiveness, compassion or apology here. Do we need to add reparation or atonement to that list?
The Alcoholics Annonymous 12 steps program includes (paraphrased by me) admission that things are unworkable, belief that something bigger than ourselves may provide an answer, undertaking a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, admitting to the exact nature of our wrongs. make atonements to those we have harmed, and acknowledging when we are wrong. Is this a course of action we could take individually and collectively towards healing? What is the answer for healing the trauma of displaced people, of the ravages looming through climate change….how do we heal?
In my past forays into Tibetan Buddhism and explorations into a global ethic and peace making the response has been, if we want to inhabit a peaceful world we first need to find peace within ourselves.
“Historical experience demonstrates the following: Earth cannot be changed for the better
unless we achieve a transformation in the consciousness of individuals and in public life. ”
So for me I must confront my own demons and break out of my comfort zones, as I’m doing on this trip, I turn towards nature and cultures far older than my own for insights and wisdom.
In tracing Australia , I see diversity all around me. This is not one country but many. Colonisation and the habits and ways of the western world have wreaked havoc and damage on the original inhabitants, and the landscape and balance of this place.
If we (as Australians and as citizens in this world) are to heal and go forward together then surely we must embrace things like the 12 steps, and The Declaration Towards a Global Ethic, which both features an admission that we are on the wrong track and that we need to act with compassion, atonement and truth telling.
“Makarrata is a word in the Yolngu language meaning a coming together after a struggle, facing the facts of wrongs and living again in peace.”
It will be uncomfortable, as it has been for me to confront my past, to acknowledge that it was traumatic, and to take positive steps to heal the pain within. It will be uncomfortable for us as Australians to hear the things that have happened during the colonial era to first nations men, women and children. It will be uncomfortable as citizens of this planet to hear the truth about what we have done and continue to do to the one earth we have, through our greed and lack of care. It will be uncomfortable for us to reflect on things in our past, that through ignorance have brought about much human and planetary pain.
We can reflect that we did not know then…but we do know now.
We can stick our heads in the sand or we can face our demons, step out of our comfort zones and heal.
…with gratitude to my partner Michael Bunney who helps to extend my comfort zone and who is my partner in this journey, on the road to find out.