What is the Mutual Reawakening Project?
What is the Mutual Reawakening Project?
We are a group of women who are investigating and promoting dreams of health, of nature, and of a balanced life – each one a deep blue, velvet sack filled with potential.
What do we mean by mutual reawakening? We wake from dreams into the realities and synchronicities of the day, but that does not mean that we discard those dreams. Rather, we awaken and apply the dreams to enliven and shape the reality around us. Using the gift of co-creation, life is like clay in our hands: we press it, roll it, twist it, and pat it into the shape of our dreams. We imagine what life could be when the global imbalance created by those with wealth and power has been put right, and no longer threatens nature, health, and the dreams of ordinary people.
So, we all need to dream deeply and remember those dreams. Draw them with us into a new day, hold them precious as baby birds, delicate as the shining threads of spiders’ webs. Respect them, consider them, share them. Slowly, gently – but with fierce urgency – we can reawaken each other into the light of what we really want our lives to be. Together, we can chart the path into a regenerative future where we live in balance with nature, creating health for the planet, and health for ourselves. This is one type of mutual reawakening; you and I both wake and begin to act upon our dreams together.
What does ‘mutual’ mean? Mutual is an adjective – a word that helps describe a feeling or action that is experienced by two or more parties toward each other, such as caring for one another or practicing joint respect. A mutual relationship is a two-way street, it has give-and-take, a back-and-forth-ness. Mutual also might mean something that we hold in common, like a shared friend.
What does this tell us about mutual reawakening? Reawakening can be an experience that we share when we doze off, wake up together, then awaken others. Could it be that once upon a time we all were mutually awake – but forgot – and so we need to reawaken each other again?
Photo courtesy of Sara L. Warber
And who is that mutual other? Are we two humans or groups of humans? Could we also be human and tree, or octopus, or cat? Perhaps the ‘other’ includes all of life around us, the other-than-human co-inhabitants of creation. When we reawaken to the sentient aliveness of the other beings in our world, they respond by reawakening to our sentience. Mutuality of awakening creates a recognition of shared aliveness across the boundaries of species or forms. A partnership is created, a direct experience of animating spirit occurs. When I speak to the tree; she hears and awakens with joy – and when she speaks to me; I hear and am also filled with joy. We are mutually reawakening each other.
There is another type of mutual reawakening that is linked to the concept of reciprocal healing: I heal you; you heal me. Health professionals know this feeling of receiving as much or more from their patients as they give and volunteers know that when they give of themselves, they receive much in return.
Reciprocal healing between humans, such as healers and clients (Rahtz, Bonell, Goldingay, Warber, & Dieppe, 2017) or physicians and patients (De Conciliis, 2014), may occur when the well-being of both parties is deeply and positively affected during transcendent moments of mutual acknowledgement and intense connection. (Dieppe, Goldingay, & Warber, 2020).
— Warber et al, 2020
So it is with the other-than-human life around us. When we step up to take care of nature, nature reciprocates by healing us: mind, emotions, body, and spirit. Nature contains everything we need: air, water, food, shelter; we respond by bending our lives to mesh with the needs of nature. This nurturing exchange takes place across all individuals and all species in a reawakened world: the give and take of flowers and pollinators; the life-giving exchange between trees and fungi. Life is a mutual shuttling of gift and need, back and forth, you to me, me to you, we to them, they to us. Thus, we mutually reawaken to weave our dreams into visions of interconnectedness and acts of reciprocity in which all humans and all other-than-humans thrive and flourish.
We have the power to co-create this, we can call forth our dreams, we can reawaken and heal together.
REFERENCES
Rahtz E, Bonnell S, Goldingay S, Warber S, Dieppe P. Transformational changes in health status: a qualitative exploration of healing moments. Explore 2017; 13: 298-305
De Conciliis, AJ. Reciprocal healing in healthcare. Ochsner Journal 2014; 14: 310–311.
Dieppe P, Goldingay S, & Warber SL. Healing and wellness. In W. W. Ishak (Ed.), The Handbook of Wellness Medicine. Cambridge University Press, 2020: Cambridge, UK.
Warber SL, Irvine KN, Quinn BF, Hansen AL, Hypki C, and Sims E. Methods for Integrating Transdisciplinary Teams in Support of Reciprocal Healing: A Case Study. Ecopsychology 2020; Sep: 222-230.
Sara L. Warber, MD is the founder of the Mutual Reawakening project as an expression of her work as a Scholar at Nova Institute for Health in Baltimore MD, USA. Together with the Mutual Reawakening transdisciplinary team she is exploring how womxn’s expressive arts illuminate their dreams of nature, health, and a balanced life. Sara is a Clinical Professor Emerita of Family Medicine at the University of Michigan (UM), Ann Arbor MI, USA. Her research focuses on how time spent in nature affects human well-being. She has authored numerous articles and chapters about holistic medicine, nature-based interventions, and processes of healing. swarber at umich dot com
We are especially grateful to Nova Institute for Health of People Places and Planet for the visionary, scholarly and material support that makes this project possible.