Wisdom Teachings for the Polycrisis: What It Takes to Heal

by Prajna Choudhury, L.Ac

At our last Wisdom Teachings for the Polycrisis, we began discussing What It Takes to Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World by Prentis Hemphill. Both Prentis and Norma Wong (author of When No Thing Works) talk about the importance of having a vision of the world as we would have it. Focusing on what we don’t want or are against just feeds that energy, but having a vision of what we are working towards is what allows us to actually create a different world.

It occurs to me that Project 2025 is a very fleshed out vision of the world as some would have it. So what is the more life affirming vision we would want instead? From an esoteric perspective, it is said that the universe doesn’t understand “no” (as in, “no kings,” “no fascism,” etc.) - that these messages are only understood as an affirmation of what we’re naming (e.g., “yes kings,” “yes fascism”). So, what is it that we affirmatively wish to create, that we are deeply longing for in the world around us?  Perhaps it is love, wisdom, compassion, truth, justice, care for Mother Earth and all her creatures, belonging, inclusiveness, joy, prosperity and abundance for all … what is your deepest longing for our world?

As a somatic therapist, Prentis skillfully elucidates how the ways we are taught how to feel or not feel our bodies, and how we relate to other bodies, defines the culture we live in. That a culture that does not allow for feeling is not humane. And how important it is for us to feel our grief, the importance of feeling and healing collectively the traumas that have happened and are happening to us not just individually but collectively as well. That protests, for example, are not solely for the purpose of changing policies - but are places we can feel our feelings collectively, a place for ritual and healing by being together, by having our experiences held and reflected back to us, to know we are not alone in our grief and anger about things that are inhumane.