Liberated to the Bone: Histories. Bodies. Futures.
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15
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Self-transformation requires social transformation. Social transformation requires self-transformation. The newest title in the Emergent Strategy Series, Liberated to the Bone addresses the intersections between healing our physical bodies and healing our relationship within systems and structures that are shaped by violence. The book illuminates three different approaches to healing: ending violence, the significance of being rooted in the present, and creating the conditions to address unfinished histories and generational trauma. By showing how these approaches are intricately connected--whether it be physically or emotionally--Raffo interrupts the traumatic binaries of the political and spiritual, the physical and intellectual, and healing and organizing.
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Read for my collective liberation book club. This book is about healing justice. It is about how to be alive and in relationship with others (human and more than human), but especially in the current US framework of "healthcare." I basically underlined the whole thing, so it was hard for me to even choose a few quotes of Raffo's writing that moved me, but here's two:
"Each of these weave together: stopping the violence, coming in to the present moment, and creating the conditions to allow deep healing. They are each part of the other, but, if we don't hold them with intention, systems of supremacy may find the cracks to, one small bit at a time, bring us to a place where healing is about feeling better within our isolated bubbles rather than a fiercely felt connection with life. None of this should be a task list. It is poetry, an incantation you whisper to yourself as you are planning your day, organizing an action, sitting down with a group of people to dream or act together, showing up out of deep respect for someone else's pain, or claiming your own survival." (p. 29)
"...how are we honoring the sovereignty of life rather than trying to control it so that we feel like we have done a good job?" (p. 84)
