We have a lot of things to answer for…. We need to make peace with the indigenous peoples that were here before we came. We need to make peace with the black community, slavery. We need to make peace with the earth…with all our creatures, with all the plant life. —Marianne Marstrand, executive director of the Global Peace Initiative of Women
We don’t achieve peace by covering over past mistakes, injustices, inequities, or pain. By acknowledging the wrongs we’ve committed, as individuals or as part of a larger community, we can begin to heal and lay the foundation for peace.
There is power in sharing the truth, wrongdoings, and the pain of our past.
Marstrand encourages us to be patient, “Before we can jump into finding solutions…it’s okay to sit still and to really reflect on what we’ve done…. We need to do some deep acknowledgment.”
This practice asks us to “sit still and reflect on what we’ve done,” individually or as part of a community or nation, advertently or inadvertently, that has harmed others or harmed the earth.
Then, Marstrand suggests, let the next step(s) arise from that acknowledgment.
As with all of the practices we offer, we see them as a frame, an idea to take and make your own.