Healing in a Climate of Injustice
By C. Holly Denning

Over the past few months, I have had a hard time staying tapped into the transformative consciousness of my eclectic spiritual faith. Hurricane Harvey and its aftermath continue to wreak destruction as even more massive flooding drowns Bangladesh and India, wildfires rage as white supremacists rise. Millions are experiencing collective concern for our nation as the office of the President is delegitimized and our democracy itself appears to be at risk. Often perceived to be the most optimistic person in my circle, it is timely to reflect as I prepare to enter the classroom again. How can I bring hope to my students in this climate of injustice? I pray that as people see the damage being done to the planetary community and to ecological systems that many more will be compelled to act.

I have been called to this work. Suffering personal losses in the past few years, sociological research on collective trauma has been integrated more fully as I faced my own healing and transformation. A blessedly quick, successful bout with cancer and then a serious flare-up of chronic back pain, forced me to spend time in deep reflection. Following spiraling thoughts, I moved inward. Teaching sociology using “the spiral of history and social change” for years, analyzing outward patterns of inequality, this time, I allowed childhood memories to surface, losses and love, grief and hope, shaping my life’s journey. Dual energies intertwine and inform each other: personal and professional aspects seemingly separate now merge.

Projects are being undertaken across the globe as growing networks of activists, advocates and educators search for and implement sustainable solutions to rampant crises. Parallels between generational trauma of Native American genocide and forced assimilation with the devastating legacy of slavery and Jim Crow segregation must be understood. Environmental and restorative justice help to teach interconnections and ongoing legacies that will allow us to move ahead together. Building trust through shared cultural exploration, education and activism can begin the healing process.

People across Wisconsin have mobilized against sulfide and sand frac mining, expansion of oil pipelines, and CAFOs—Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. Resistance efforts are part of a growing movement of water protectors beginning with Ojibwe Grandmother Josephine Mandaamin’s vision. Through her sacred water walks beginning in 2003—around each of the Great Lakes and from the headwaters to the mouth of several major rivers, including the length of the Mississippi to the Gulf coast—awareness and hope for change has spread far and wide. These are the days we have been anticipating; the seventh generation since the conquest of Native America has come of age. The voice from the north is rising.

Bridging movements is critical at this time, fostering dialogue and seeing interconnections. The land and water are in dire need as are some of the most vulnerable, yet resilient people. As the Black Lives Matter movement raised voices of inner city youth refusing to be silent as their communities are decimated by police violence and mass incarceration, overlapping concerns among environmental and restorative justice struggles are coming into focus. The litany of social problems cannot be addressed without healing the root causes of despair and inequality.

Community partners share insights and mobilize. People with a range of expertise are coming together in a new organization in southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois. Peace Urge/PCERJ, Partnership for Community: Environmental and Restorative Justice will focus on educational workshops and travel studies as we examine impacts of climate change on land, food, water, culture, and sacred traditions, as well as related crises of industrial fossil fuel extraction and agribusiness. Moving from problems to solutions, we embrace multicultural practices, support and celebrate local responses and resilience. The water/energy/food nexus in the Rock River watershed and Mississippi corridor leads us to make connections between global and local issues, such as organic/biodynamic food systems as alternatives to Big Ag.

We in the upper Midwest are intimately tied to the Mississippi River. Over-fertilizing in the corn-belt leads directly to the dead zone in the Louisiana delta. Decades of damage to wetlands and bayou communities by extractive industries and oil spills, as well as by devastating storms and a climate exacerbated by global warming, are met with collective organizing, planning, scientific scholarship and spiritual agency. Sustainable models for resisting climate change through applying traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) lead to cultural resurgence while working for justice.

As the seasons turn from summer abundance toward fall harvest and onto the dark time of the year I envision the light of collective energy of organizing mobilizing personal and planetary healing. So many are threatened now: refugees of climate and war, yet, a ray of hope shines through reminding me that in comfort, too many have ignored the pain in the world. Perhaps the awakening I have been anticipating and working toward my whole life needs people to witness and endure more suffering before enough awaken to shift the tide of destruction.