trauma
The origin story of the CJCLDS contains a lot of trauma. These people were violently forced out of one town after another, until, eventually, their originary prophet, Joseph Smith, was murdered while in jail. They then migrated across the Great Plains into the Great Basin, a trek that involved starvation, freezing conditions, and cost the lives of many more members. They then struggled to form a new life in the Great Basin desert, pushing them ever further into this mix of trauma, resilience, and faith. These traumas bonded this people ever closer together.
While trauma does bond, it also blocks. It can create a certain kind of self-preserving ignorance. For example, my own originary trauma of paternal abuse, passed down through generations, caused me to block out my first eight years of memories. I became ignorant to them. These psychological defenses can divorce the body from it's tentacular sense. After experiencing sexual trauma, Geryon, from Autobiography of Red, concludes that "Inside is mine." This inside is the place from which the senses reach out. When the body knows that "outside" is dangerous, it closes down, puts up walls, and goes inside. Without this reaching out, we do not connect, furthering the isolation created through trauma.
Trauma can be cyclic. My father was abused by his father and went on to abuse his children. The LDS were repeatedly forced out of their homes and went on to force the Utes, Goshutes, Paiutes, Shoshoni, and Diné peoples off of their homelands and into reservations.
Trauma can also deepen compassion and sensitivity. As a child, I had to be keenly aware of my father's mood to know if it would be safe to try to connect with him each day. This developed into a deepened ability to sense a person's inner state, and to be able to connect with another's suffering, deepening my capacity for compassion, empathy, and vulnerability.
see also: acknowledge, body, the Church, Great Basin, home, ignor(e/ance), inside / outside, kin(d), Latter-days, migration, mine / mine, myth, opening / closing, origins / foundations, phantom pains, Red (Cliffs National Conservation Area), remember / memory / memorial, southwestern Utah, spiritual experience, stable / settled, Ut(ah/opia), under / inner, "what is"
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The origin story of the CJCLDS contains a lot of trauma. These people were violently forced out of one town after another, until, eventually, their originary prophet, Joseph Smith, was murdered while in jail. They then migrated across the Great Plains into the Great Basin, a trek that involved starvation, freezing conditions, and cost the lives of many more members. They then struggled to form a new life in the Great Basin desert, pushing them ever further into this mix of trauma, resilience, and faith. These traumas bonded this people ever closer together.
While trauma does bond, it also blocks. It can create a certain kind of self-preserving ignorance. For example, my own originary trauma of paternal abuse, passed down through generations, caused me to block out my first eight years of memories. I became ignorant to them. These psychological defenses can divorce the body from it's tentacular sense. After experiencing sexual trauma, Geryon, from Autobiography of Red, concludes that "Inside is mine." This inside is the place from which the senses reach out. When the body knows that "outside" is dangerous, it closes down, puts up walls, and goes inside. Without this reaching out, we do not connect, furthering the isolation created through trauma.
Trauma can be cyclic. My father was abused by his father and went on to abuse his children. The LDS were repeatedly forced out of their homes and went on to force the Utes, Goshutes, Paiutes, Shoshoni, and Diné peoples off of their homelands and into reservations.
Trauma can also deepen compassion and sensitivity. As a child, I had to be keenly aware of my father's mood to know if it would be safe to try to connect with him each day. This developed into a deepened ability to sense a person's inner state, and to be able to connect with another's suffering, deepening my capacity for compassion, empathy, and vulnerability.
see also: acknowledge, body, the Church, Great Basin, home, ignor(e/ance), inside / outside, kin(d), Latter-days, migration, mine / mine, myth, opening / closing, origins / foundations, phantom pains, Red (Cliffs National Conservation Area), remember / memory / memorial, southwestern Utah, spiritual experience, stable / settled, Ut(ah/opia), under / inner, "what is"
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