CORE CONCEPTS
The purpose of the political healer is to use ritual to bring cultural trauma into public memory. Below is a breakdown of these core components of purpose.
RITUAL
Ritual is a word that has largely been relegated to organized religious practices. However, as Political Healers, we see ritual as the practices and routines that we conduct with one another that define our relationships to one another, and that define our relationship to something larger than ourselves, like community. Calling our practices and routines “ritual” reinserts the sacred nature of all life. The rituals of community meals, healing circles, collective artmaking and storytelling brings community together for fellowship and coordination. They are points of engagement that enable us to remember and deepen our connection to one another.
CULTURAL TRAUMA
We define cultural trauma as traumatic events that change a community or group of people forever. Our country is a confluence of cultural traumas that intersect but that are either erased or adapted to appear unrelated. These cultural traumas, widely-speaking, are Genocide, Chattel Slavery, Colonialism, Imperialism, and assimilation into whiteness. These traumas continue to accumulate and expand, destroying the fabric of our communities and our lives through the issues that we fight against everyday — climate justice, healthcare, housing, immigration, mass liberation, and ending student debt.
PUBLIC MEMORY
Public memory is defined as the ways a society systematically remembers and forgets people, communities and events. Public memory dictates what gets told about those people, those communities, or those events, thus controlling what society remembers and forgets over the long-term. Public memory is a complex system inside of which “narrative” falls. In order for people to have control over the public memory of the events that shape our lives, everyday people must reclaim space in the public arena. We can no longer rely upon the “professional” politician or the corporate trickle-down narrative to dictate the laws that affect our lives.
A core component of the politicization this project intends to provide womxn of color is reminding us that in order to build a system that works for us, we need to be present, attentive, and active. Public memory is an infrastructure that tells thousands of people the story of the impact we have accomplished due to our collective work.
FOUR PILLARS OF FEMININE LEADERSHIP
What does feminine leadership look like? How does one tangibly express it in everyday life? Feminine leadership, is a full PIES expression and compels development and expression to occur on all levels of our physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual energy centers. Below are the areas of leadership development and expression that align with PIES energy centers. They are the pillars of feminine leadership that define the tangible expression of political healing.
