displacement noun /dɪˈspleɪs.mənt/
- the situation in which people are forced to leave the place where they normally live
What does it mean to belong?
This is an important question to unravel and continue to unravel.
In fact, the continuum of the unraveling of belonging I believe is one of the core underlying drivers and motivators in human existence. Belonging is right up there with purpose.
Why are we here?
Who or perhaps what do we belong to?
Interestingly the subject of belonging on a subconscious level is even tied to a deeper understanding of many of the big “whys” of this existence. Who are we? Where did we come from? Why are we here? Why did this happen?
Just look at the birth of DNA testing sites, promising to answer with ease and just a quick payment everything you need to know about who you are by learning where you come from.
Why do we seem to be obsessed with our origins?
Is it mere curiosity and interest?
Or is it perhaps something much much deeper.
In my experience, it’s the latter.
As we, as a Western society, move further and further away from the essence of our origin – the blood and bones and fabric of our ancestry and true cultural heritage – the effects of our orphanage unravels around us.
We are experiencing a huge cultural loss – a mass extinction – of cultural diversity and wealth that humans have never yet seen before. Never have we been more disconnected from the soil, our ancestors, and the very bones, blood, waters that created us.
We are a modern people.
Cut off from nature, and yet, by our essence still a participant whether we want to or not – our very bodies inherently reminding us that we are very much animal, despite our efforts to pretend that the death-birth cycle does not apply to us, only those around us.
I have come to an understanding over years of practice (from gardening to meditation to becoming a somatic therapist and explorer of what it means to become as a living human expression) that there is something deeply important about the land that holds our ancestor’s bones.
As immigrant/orphans, we tend to cling to the threads or tendrils of that echo of a whisper that tells us “you belong here”. We either cling to a whisper or we appropriate other people’s heritage – or both – in efforts to find our way to our roots.
I have come to a deep understanding fo the critical importance an intact ancestral and cultural lineage has on both an individual and a collective. Living in Mexico, a culture deeply imbedded in this inner sense of knowingness has shown me the palpable and direct results of what a people, community, and individual experiences when we are either deeply rooted to this chord, or whether or not the chord has been severed and a trauma or a literal uprooting has occurred along the way.
An example of the severing of the chord is the systematic severing colonizers engaged in with First Nations communities in Canada and the US, the repercussions of which are still felt today, despite attempts at restorative gestures (for example, Canada’s Truth & Reconciliation Commission). I wonder and suspect that the cascade effect of trauma, and the massive ripple effects would look very different today, had the colonizers been unable to break the deep roots that bind a people to their ancestors and to their land.
What would First Nations communities look like today if they were never displaced from their lands of origin? You see, the land that holds the bones of our dead also holds our culture. It holds our stories, our language, and our capacity to heal.
In my experience, the trauma of displacement – the severance of our remembrance and of our origin – is a trauma far greater than the other traumas and it’s impacts are far more wide spread in insidious.
And, in my understanding of trauma, it too can be healed.
But first we need to see the thing for what it is.
Name it.
Touch it.
In each of us there lies a deep yearning in our bellies and in our bones – an ache for home.
It cannot be resolved by spitting into a test tube and sending it away to 23 and me for analysis.
Our bellies and our bones crave a deeper remembering.
The kind of remembering that touches us when we swim in the sea, or walk barefoot in the forest.
The kind that stirs something inside of us when we see a wild creature or hear birdsong.
The wild kind of remembering.
The place where we can sense the literal texture of our DNA.
Displacement has made many of us and our peoples orphans.
Orphans of cultural context, of ritual and rites of passage, of language and nuance in understanding.
Orphans to our ancestors, and the very fabric that created us.
Sadly, orphans to our bodies, our planet, the sacred waters and lands that nourish and protect us.
All is not lost.
A resurgence is upon us, but I fear that we will put our energy and resources in hollow and worthless enterprises.
How important is it to know you’re 22% Irish?
What does that even mean?
Who were your grandparents?
What land were they born to?
And their grandparents?
What literal lands did they cultivate with their bare hands?
Where do the bones of your kin lie?
What does that mean to you?
How do you relate to the land you currently live on?
Are you in relationship to the ancestors bones that live and are buried on it?
I will leave you with a short story and documentary that I feel fits the theme of belonging and displacement.
It’s by an amazing Mexican film maker, Xóchitl Enríquez Mendoza, and it’s called “La Raíz de Mi Ombligo” (the root of my navel)
Enjoy.