A web or a cloud, not a straight line
Fields of healing that drift into each other — every one touches every other. Where they overlap, the ground darkens: the deeper the shade, the more is happening at once. You can stand in two places, or three. The dotted line is a real path: it loops, it backtracks, it crosses itself. Wandering isn't losing ground. It's the way through.
This map is offered with gratitude to Elizabeth Clemants and Hidden Water, whose circle practice and way of seeing healing shape this work — and to Judith Herman, whose stages of recovery in Trauma and Recovery underlie these fields.
Coping
The first turn toward survival. Almost all coping begins as protection.
Safety & Stabilization
Making continuation possible: plans, pods, people who stay.
Facing
The slow turning toward truth. Naming who was hurt, and how.
Remembrance & Mourning
Grief, collective as much as personal. Tears that make space.
Releasing
Not forgiveness, though it can make space for it. The grip loosens.
Reconnection & Integration
Back into relationship, purpose, future — as who you've become.
Which of these places do I know best from the inside?
Which one am I in right now — or between?
The practices are how communities tend each field — and how we walk with each other between them.