
Belonging: Remembering Ourselves home

When an individual can’t (or won’t) do the inner work to heal their pain, the wounds get passed through the generations, metastasizing through our family tree in the form of mental afflictions, patterns of fear, and even physical injury. Until someone in the younger branches has enough support and awareness to face and grieve that ancient grief, it
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The Western medical industry is a great example of materialism for how it treats the human body not as the miraculous, interrelated organism that it is, but as an organic machine of aggregate parts. In its veneration of the physical, materialism dismisses meaning and magic, or what we might call the mythic dimension of our lives.
Toko-pa Turner • Belonging: Remembering Ourselves home
Those songs that speak of love without having within their lines an ache or a sigh are not love songs at all but rather Hate Songs disguised as love songs, and are not to be trusted. These songs deny us our humanness and our God-given right to be sad and the airwaves are littered with them.”
Toko-pa Turner • Belonging: Remembering Ourselves home
Like the original Grimm’s telling of Cinderella, her sisters literally cut off their own toes to fit into her tiny slipper. False belonging prefers that we hold our tongue, keep chaos at bay, and perform a repetitive role that stunts our natural inclination to growth.
Toko-pa Turner • Belonging: Remembering Ourselves home
These awakenings can be painful because we are never more aware of our predicament than when we’re briefly outside of it.
Toko-pa Turner • Belonging: Remembering Ourselves home
When another friend had a miscarriage, we brought her a basketful of treasures, including some Japanese paper for writing goodbyes, some rose oil and beeswax candles for a ritual bath, and wildflower seeds to plant in memory of the life that briefly visited her. These small but symbolic items invited her to befriend her loss, to be in conversation
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It may seem obvious, but two things are absolutely necessary to creating community over the long term: someone willing to take the lead and invite others to gather, and someone willing to answer that call.
Toko-pa Turner • Belonging: Remembering Ourselves home
In every family, and in many folk tales, there is a designated black sheep.
Toko-pa Turner • Belonging: Remembering Ourselves home
we chase status instead of belonging.
Toko-pa Turner • Belonging: Remembering Ourselves home
Journal prompt: why does status feel likebelonging