Spring is the growing season. How can the energies of spring help those, especially the children, who are traumatised by the Christchurch earthquake and its continued aftershocks?
The ground is something we normally associate with stability and safety. But after an earthquake, that trust is broken, and we need to regain perspective: to remember that the earth is normally stable and trustworthy, while the shaking is an exceptional event. To a child, these realities will feel reversed. Shaking and danger will have come to feel normal, and security abnormal. While an adult knows that over the span of a lifetime, an earthquake is a rare event, a child with a much shorter life, does not have such a perspective.
It’s spring, the growing season. Children can be reassured by planting seeds, knowing that the seedlings will be put into the earth when the ground is stable again. In this way, they will be reassured that the cycle of life goes on, that new life can be planted and grown, and the earth can be trusted once more.
6 comments:
This is a beautiful post, this would be so reassuring for children.
This is beautiful Juliet. It is hard to imagine how it is to be in this situation for so long.
Such an easy and meaningful way to help children after the quake, Juliet. I wonder if a seed company or garden clubs in the surrounding areas could help with such an effort. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, our garden club up here donated money and trees to help a garden club in Mississippi plant in their stripped public places.
That's a great suggestion, thank you Penny. I've sent a copy of the post to the Christchurch Press, and will think about other ways to follow up.
Although it's a beautiful idea, and I fully support gardening for children, most children I know of are not afraid of the earth. They may well be afraid of their bed, or their bedroom, or the bedroom at grandma's house where they were sleeping when the quake hit.
In fact my daughter well into her thirties couldn't sleep in her own bed for two weeks after the quake and first few days of aftershocks, and had to move into the spare room until her subsconscious fear of her bed settled down.
Children are very specific and will not have known since it was 4.30 in the morning that the earth shook, only that their house shook.
(Sorry for the late post, we have been on holiday)
Thank you for these thoughts Catherine; much appreciated.
Post a Comment