This working definition of Values reflects our role as healers and organizers inside of our movements and communities. We write this document with the understanding that we are part of a legacy of practitioners. We challenge co-optation of traditional healing practices that have been forcibly removed from our communities and then sold back to us. We bring forward practices that are rooted in our cultural and political traditions.
We are learning and creating this political framework about a legacy of healing and liberation. This document is meeting a particular moment in history inside of our movements that seeks to: regenerate traditions that have been pushed out & lost; to mindfully hold contradictions in our practices; and to be conscious of the conditions we are living and working inside of as healers and organizers in our communities and movements. Through these practices we seek emotional, physical, spiritual, psychic & environmental well being.
1. Collective wisdom, well being and memory
We value our collective wisdom and memory towards our collective well being
Practices & intentions that support this value:
- We believe that wisdom of health is within us and that our bodies communicate what we need. Therefore we have the ability to intuitively heal ourselves.
- We honor individual agency, and therefore honor people’s right to make decisions about their own bodies.
- We honor making decisions with and for our communities for our collective wellness that is not decided for or without us.
- We understand that intuition and innate wisdom is valuable information
- We will seek to transform the capitalist assumption of profit over people towards collective well being
- We acknowledge that our well being is integrally connected to the historical and contemporary experiences of our bodies being misused, abused and mistreated. We remember these abusive experiences as based on a legacy of trauma, control and genocide of communities that are within oppressive systems (white supremacy, Christian supremacy, patriarchy, heterosexism, ableism and eugenics- genetic assumption of who is superior).
- We see that health and healing can be achieved by returning to ancient & traditional healing and earth & nature based modalities and creating new practices to respond to our political and social context.
- We accept not always having the answers because we understand that healing and transforming pain and trauma from generational woundedness and violence is ongoing.
2. Wellness and Liberation
We value wellness as a tool of liberation
Practices & intentions that support this value:
- We value individual and collective wellness and healing towards total liberation (mind, body, spirit and soul).
- We will sustain our individual and collective wellness as a response to transform generational violence and trauma
- We address racism and oppression as a public health issue and social illness that informs our physical, emotional, environmental, spiritual and psychic well being
- We believe there are many ways to wellness that expand our concepts of health beyond binary divisions. We seek to move beyond binary divisions that align with only two genders and two sexualities and the limits of concepts such as ‘good health or bad health’ and ‘sick or not sick.’
3. Interdependence
We value our interdependence
Practices & intentions that support this value:
- We acknowledge that everything is interconnected with everything else.
- We understand that the ways we live with and treat each other has direct impact on our wellness and collective well being towards liberation, healing and transforming our conditions.
- We value dignity for all life
- We understand that children are as important as adults and that they have inherent worth.
- We value and are conscious of the connection of our health, healing and wellness in relationship to the environment and the health and healing of the earth.
- We necessitate that humans are in harmony and build intentional relationship with the natural world rather than dominating the natural world.
4. All bodies
We value all bodies and the conditions that we live in
Practices & intentions that support this value:
- We name and honor our conditions and bodies by creating & sharing memories and storytelling.
- We accept the experience of pain, grief and trauma as indicative and interrelated to the process of healing, health and well being.
- We understand that wellness is not only about being “healthy” but includes the reality of disability, sickness, and harm reduction.
- We are aware that rights to health are for all to experience and access in spite of ability and affordability.
- We are aware that the body does not live forever, and we honor death as a part of the cycle of life.
We are learning and creating this political framework about a legacy of healing and liberation that is meeting a particular moment in history inside of our movements that seeks to:
- regenerate traditions that have been lost
- to mindfully hold contradictions in our practices
- and to be conscious of the conditions we are living and working inside of as healers and organizers in our communities and movements
- Healing justice is being used as a framework that seeks to lift up resiliency and wellness practices as a transformative response to generational violence and trauma in our communities.
We do not seek to promote single healers as one model, nor models of healing as singular nor to build individualized care; but to build mechanisms and systems that builds collective wellness; transforms generational trauma and violence; and builds quality care that is accessible to all