Written by: Betsy Kudlinski, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
I have a background in animals, nature, the environment, farming, and a few other odds and ends (like window treatments and professional photography.)
My background means that my train of thought, and the metaphors I resonate with, usually have to do with something animal – or nature-related.
For instance, let’s talk about my work in Somatic Experiencing® and resolving trauma long held in our bodies.
The only old-growth forests I have managed to visit are a redwood forest and a giant sequoia forest out in California. They made a helluva impact on me. That was about 30 years ago, and I still remember the awe.
I noticed the massive trees, the moss, the hush created by both – as well as some centuries and more of biological material falling to the soft ground.
Now I know that the ground under a forest like that is absolutely teaming with life, acting as the brains of the whole ecosystem. Fungi create a latticework throughout, bringing signals and nutrients from one tree to another, diverting some for themselves. The other micro – and macro-organisms underground are astonishingly numerous and varied, all an integral part of the whole.
*Then* we get to the parts of the forest we recognize. The small and large plants, the small and large animals, and the above-ground fruiting bodies of the fungi (mushrooms.)
I also know about cornfields that have been industrially farmed since the major use of fertilizers after WW2.
They are all but sterile.
There is nothing natural about the ground at that point.
Substrate that barely earns the name dirt. It’s so hard-packed from all the tractors and trucks that neither air nor water can percolate into it. There are virtually no living organisms. And the nutrients that the corn grows from are sprayed onto the field.
Comparing this to an old-growth ecosystem is dramatic. I have feelings about it…
And. Its possible for forest to grow. Renaturing is a thing – that’s my word, but there are lots of terms for nature coming back from the brink. (Even superfund sites!)
The way I see it, there are three prerequisites for that traumatized cornfield to progress toward an old-growth forest: safety, connection, and time.
See where I’m going with this, yet???
Safety. It needs the tractors to stop going out there. No more compaction. No more herbicides and pesticides. No more tilling. I can extend this to continuing to go in and gently removing invasive species as they move in.
Connection is essential because humans can’t bring/plant/introduce all the micro – and macro-organisms necessary for a complete ecosystem. So that old cornfield ought to have at least one edge against something resembling a natural state. Nature being what it is, it will grow and creep and walk and fly into the area as there is opportunity.
If we do plant stuff, it might or might not help.
But I do know that “weeds” are doing dirty work, here. They are small and tenacious. They are strong enough to break into the compacted ground and don’t require as much as the “preferred" plants.
The last requirement is time. Because if there is safety and connection, nature knows what to do.
Weeds will break up the compacted dirt, allowing other organisms to survive, then thrive.
And succession begins…
Around New England, which I know best, it’ll be weeds and small critters. Grasses, brambles, shrubs and some poplar/aspen/birch saplings. Then the softwood like pines. Then hardwoods, oaks, and maples. And eventually, given hundreds of years, you have old growth.
But where in there would you consider it “healed?” Would a savanna-like grass-and-tree combination be the bar? Or is it only good when it’s a hardwood forest? What about when those weeds take hold and mice and beetles can make their homes?
Allow me to extend that metaphor for you. You’ve been through decades of trauma, socialization, and stress. The patterns of survival you have consciously and unconsciously perpetuated may not be great long-term solutions.
You’re looking for help, healing, or resolution.
You need the same things that that old cornfield does.
Safety, some modicum of the embodied feeling of being ok.
Connection, to a person or many people who can help you learn and do better.
Time, because there is no magical pill for this.
Betsy Kudlinski, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
As a Freedom Guide, the nature Betsy explores is yours: someone who is living with trauma, stress, and overwhelm as together you work your way toward personal freedom. After a lifetime of being everything to everyone, the way she was taught to be, she was diagnosed with multiple chronic illnesses and turned the lens on herself. She found herself renaturing, becoming who she always was, and who she feels she was meant to be. By bringing that same healing to others, she finds peace and purpose. The final piece of the puzzle has been training to become a Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner, where everything, the nature and animals she loves, trauma-induced illness, and healing, clicks into place.
