The Warrior’s Heart

Seven months ago after hearing about the Soldier’s Heart organization and reading the book, War and the Soul, by Dr. Ed Tick I knew instantly within my body that I needed to participate in the 5 day retreat being organized by my friends.  Bringing Ed, along with co facilitators Kate and Paula to my town fell in sync with my life and passions in perfect timing beyond anything I could have orchestrated consciously.  I immediately got online to register trusting I would find a way to gather the funds and my computer blocked me from doing so.  True to the way I follow the river of my life, I let go and allowed more to be revealed to me in its right timing.  The next morning I awoke knowing how I would get half the money and earned it within the week and figured the rest I had seven months to gather and so went on with my daily life.  Fast forward six months and I had not saved anymore money for the event.  I got online to register and trusted if again I could not get through that in all likelihood I was not meant to attend.  The registration form came up and I filled it out sending with it a note asking if I could waylay the room and board fee if I commuted daily as I live only 20 minutes from the retreat location.  Synchronicity took over from there.  As my email arrived the discussion in the SH office at that moment was in regards to needing a massage therapist at the event and thus was gifted with the opportunity to render my services in combination with participating fully in the experience…both passions having a venue for expression and the financial end of it taken care of.

Four days before the retreat I as well as some other family members received  emails  from my youngest son whom I hadn’t heard from in 11 years…it was his 28th birthday which has been a sad day for me every year he has been gone. The emails were a mix of information about his life since he left the family and his rage at feeling isolated and disenfranchised.  My heart soared for the communication and the door opening to healing and plummeted in hearing his pain and struggle alone without family.  So within these emotional waters I entered into the SH experience knowing full well synchronicity was again the current keeping this journey flowing.  As I entered the world of war veterans working to heal from PTSD, many of them Vietnam vets I was struck by the fact that my son, who has been in his own war on the streets of life was at that very moment living in Vietnam.

As I walked the retreat location called The Expanding Light Retreat Center, the first soldier I met was a young 25 year old Iraq vet with of course the same name as my son…And so the journey began.  I realized not only was I participating as a civilian and family member of a vet (my brother was in Vietnam and estranged from the family) and as the resident body/energy support team member but also as a mother and grandmother holding space for a whole group of young warriors looking for initiation into their tribe in a culture that has no such initiations for such a rite of passage; those young men, fatherless and void of male role models or mothers that could hold the necessary frame to guide them into manhood that rather than choosing the military, chose the streets and all the pain, struggle and horror that experience brings to a sensitive soul. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) comes with trauma whatever the source and requires healing to call back the soul of the warrior (male and female) that got left with blame and shame to carry all alone.

It has been reported that the suicide rate (over 100,000) for Vietnam Vets has now exceeded that war’s actual death toll. and that the pattern is repeating itself with our young Vets returning  from present day combat.  The organization and movement called Soldier’s Heart has a mission to let all these warriors know they are not alone;  that whatever experiences they endured and acted out were done in our name; that their pain and struggle is our pain and struggle and they no longer have to carry the burden of shame, guilt, anger, remorse, betrayal, abandonment, et al alone.  By allowing the stories of their experiences to be witnessed, they can lay down their burdens one stone at a time, lighten their load and begin to heal and breathe again.  They can begin to feel supported and a part of the whole rather than alone and separated from themselves, their families, and life in all its offerings and complexities.
To support the warrior’s healing goes across the board in these times of revolution and transformation whether war began in the family system, on the streets, or in the military and politics of our country.  All the war zones of the world create a burden all humanity carries and calls for the wounded, heavy heart of us all to be healed.  So I came away from these profound five days affirming once again for myself that it is the Warrior’s Heart that must be healed within us all; that the part of all of us that protects, holds a healthy frame, and communicates with compassion and fairness connected to spirit by any name must be restored to its purest state so that the part of all of us, the heart, that opens to receive and give love, that embodies a trust in this physical journey and grounds us on the Earth walk can continue to birth ourselves individually and collectively back into balance, wholeness and peace.

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