SVG attacking itself from within

Fri Mar 01, 2013

Dear St Vincent,

I have been diagnosed with an autoimmune illness, caused by an overload of chronic stressors. The body attacks its own organs, affecting cell metabolism and compromising the ability to perform basic tasks. There are days I cannot function well and I’ve been told the disease is progressive.{{more}}

I can’t help but see a connection with a national condition that is similarly attacking itself from within. It’s apparent our island is ailing. Its vital aspects are attacking each other rather than working cooperatively. The virus of violence and abuse turns energies destructively inwards towards the vulnerable, whose gifts are crippled as a result. Protective community practices no longer hold up, and each cell fights for its own survival as the whole is depleted.

St Vincent, as a sensitive being, I often wonder if my organism has absorbed your condition. Over two decades I have empathised with your pain to transmute it into youthful creativity. I have wept as a witness to destruction of nature, of creativity, of love in a culture of lies. With many others, I have agonized over umpteen projects sabotaged, positive people self-exiled, children silenced in fear, friends burgled, raped and assaulted. I have seen too many prematurely dead bodies. Through illness, I have spent days unable to walk or see. Could that be my body screaming “Enough!!”? No more seeing, no more travelling up and down excavating creative heritage to later feel the pain of its strangulation. No more interfacing with those who feign concern, whilst robbing others deserving of opportunities. When faced with excess, debilitation is the body’s rational response to conserve energy (or the wise One will force us to). It’s time to reflect.

My dear St Vincent, I continue to act in the interests of our mutual health, recovery and community resuscitation. Despite what doctors say, I have not given in to the notion that I have a degenerative disease, but prefer to embrace a ‘regenerative condition.’ The power to regenerate is immense, if we believe we have within what it takes to be well. But our sickness must be our guide, we must befriend it, understand what it is saying to us, where it originated, and let it teach us about healing. Such lessons from examining, not denying, the suffering in our midst, form the foundation of wellness. The sooner we embrace our national condition, the greater our chances of making a full recovery.

Effective healers start their protocol by asking questions and listening to those who are suffering so they can understand the specific internal and external environments in which the sickness proliferates. Far from being a miserable task, this first stage of healing is sympathetic and reassures that benefits await us, once we attend to our condition responsibly. We are going on an adventure of immense discovery. The healer empowers the patient with tools to change not only their perception of their illness, but also the destructive practices that led to it. With will-power and faith, the ailing can transform their suffering into wisdom to share with others and reclaim their productivity.

Can we face our illness with the healer’s vision of empowerment, hope and liberation? For the same person/nation that gets sick is not the same one that heals.

With love from one who knows in healing the Spirit grows stronger.

Vonnie