Wounded Healers
Dark Matter Women Witnessing: Dreams Before Extinction
When the brother of Airmid, the Irish goddess of healing and herbal medicine, was slain, her tears, shed upon his grave, gave birth to all the healing herbs of the world.
Chiron, of greek mythology, an immortal centaur with an incurable wound, is renowned for his wisdom in healing, the original wounded healer.
Chiron was the name given to the first heavenly body classified as a centaur. This poem fragment is from my long narrative poem, Yarrow’s Offering, in which Chiron is a character.
Chiron I’ve a new home in the heavens my wisdom projected skyward sky centaurs new discoveries in space I’m asteroid comet 95/P planetoid (2060) my ancient myth beams teachings to earthbound watchers in lightcurves occulation events elliptic coordinates my rings have been spotted tail discovered longest perihelion is Aries realign with nature I transmit from night sky seek forgiveness courage and empathy forsake violence
The archetype of the wounded healer has been know in many cultures and ages, embodied as selkies, shamans, Indigenous healers, supernatural beasts who are half animal and half human, medicine men and wise women. It is expressed through poetry, myth, oral teachings, art and literature.
Modern psychology has embraced this idea, that the capacity to discover, in the darkness of suffering, rays of light and means of recovery, is the archetype at the bottom of all genuine healing.
This anthology, which is compiled from ten years of the online literary journal, Dark Matter Women Witnessing, is a vibrant embodiment of the wounded healer archetype. Wounded is the Earth and many creatures and organisms with whom we share this planet home. Humans also suffer within the present catastrophe of simultaneous ecological challenges, species extinctions, wars, political upheavals, and spiraling technological innovations which are beyond our ability to comprehend.
The healer in each of the sixty-seven authors, from six countries, who have contributed to this anthology of 79 pieces, has been ignited.
It is organized in nine sections: To Witness, Fired Anew, The Grammar of Animacy, What We Know in Our Bones, Songs of Undoing, I am Nothing Without My Dead, Healing with Land and Ancestors, The Music of Grief, and What it Takes to Breach.
I am in the anthology! My Body—An Eco-terrain, is in section two, Fired Anew. It’s about my experience with Lyme disease. This is how it begins:
I’ve become a country, my blood a river which carries bacteria, viruses, spirochetes to unsettled territory. The valley where I met these travelers, is beautiful but abused: It is littered with old shotgun casings, tin cans, hub caps, fenders of rusted cars. It is protected now, its name a local secret—location hidden, road closed….
Advance praise for Dark Matter: Women Witnessing, Dreams Before Extinction:
Dark Matter: Women Witnessing is the most important literary magazine today.
Vibrant voices connect us to the sacred relationship between body, Earth and spirit. Like indigenous praise songs that bring down empires, the essays, poems, and stories in this collection prepare us for a changing world—inspiring radical joy and compassionate action.
—Laura Simms, award-winning storyteller, author Our Secret Territory, The Robe of Love, Becoming the World
ORDERING: Upstart and Crow bookstore in Vancouver has agreed to take orders and stock the book. Your local bookstore or library can order from the Ingrams Catalogue: Paperback, 6 x 9 inches, 586 pages
ISBN: 978-1-960293-13-8
Requests for the book from bookstores and libraries will be of enormous help.
This anthology was published by Nature/Culture, a small woman-owned business that publishes the Writing the Land anthologies and other books of poetry that help connect humans with the rest of Nature from an off-grid, solar-powered location in Northfield, Massachusetts.
Yes, I thought so too. Her essay opens the book.
Congratulations Carole!