Human-ing

Grounded in love, mending in fragmented times.

Photo by Andrey K on Unsplash

“ What I learned in deep conflict: To survive, people must learn to human together better. “

“Facing fear, fragility, and fragmentation will take courage and creativity. It will require gentle ways to wield the crude and gentle tools of being human.”

Over the past four decades my wandering in places of deep violence, rampant injustice, and daily fragility taught me to watch and learn from people who, against the odds, flourished with their dignity and imagination intact.

Intact (v): Living whole while wounded; fully alive.

Excerpts From “the centuries wrapped round us” by John Paul Lederach (Author/Poet/Expert in Nonviolent Conflict Transformation).

Lately, I’ve been deep into reading John Paul Lederach’s luminous new book the centuries wrapped round us. It is a beautiful collection of prose-poems that are presented like a winding path that is dotted with cairns of pondering, framed by his life long experience in peacemaking and conflict transformation, shaped through poetry and his connection to the natural world, and grounded in love that endures, imagines, sustains, and surprises you in its courage. I’ve been reading a bit each morning and it’s been a beautiful thoughtful way to start my day.

And so today, in my continuing series of February posts exploring the many forms of love, I’ll be pondering what John Paul calls “human-ing” vb.

As I understand it, human-ing is love that arises from the messy business of being human and daring to become aware. We are living in a fragmented time and a technological culture that brokers in capturing and keeping our attention. We are confronted daily by the business plans and political playbooks that rely upon keeping us feeling isolated, dissociated, distracted and fractured personally and as a community. In the book there are several references to what changes when we become more awake to the power of connection—between one another as humans, between ourselves and the natural world, between ourselves and our own inner resources and between ourselves and an ancient Light that if not greater, is at least more vast and wild and more made of mercy than ourselves.

There is great danger when a culture or an individual life becomes so fragmented, filled with increasing distrust. We are living in dangerous times.

And yet, with awareness comes possibility. With seeing comes a call to envision. With the stories of those who against all odds survived and flourished with their dignity and imagination intact we are encouraged to do likewise, to “create ourselves without creating an enemy”.

And so as we endeavor to reweave fabric that is feeling a little threadbare, as we take careful but sure steps toward one another, we do what Lederach describes as building the first boards of a bridge, precariously but firmly rooted into the ground on either side of a chasm.

It is a deliberate and intentional loving and life giving action to reclaim my own distracted mind. It is a loving and life giving action to nurture my own connections —to music, to art, to poetry, to stories, to wonder, to awe, to trees, to community, to beloved friends, to a great wild mercy still threading through the world. It is a life giving and loving action to find ways to rebuild trust, where trust is possible. Because when our ability to trust ourselves or one another becomes so deeply fragmented, our ability to envision, to hope and to listen becomes dangerously impaired. We build trust board by board. And beloved it is going to take time.

Often I feel a sense of helplessness at my inability to alter the unchangeable past, or personally course correct this current movement of history. But I am not helpless. I can be here. I can be now. I can use awareness as a catalyst. I can claim my own wholeness and fragility and strength. I can do the daily actions of human-ing. I can find the connections which allow me to become a part of an expanding course connecting community.

Love takes courage and creativity. Love finds a way.

This week I saw an image that brought tears to my eyes. The Attorney General of the United States, Pam Bondi was being questioned by congress upon the way the Epstein case has been so tragically (and deliberately) botched. First, ok, I can’t look at this US official and feel like I’m viewing a person who is developmentally arrested at the phase of Jr. High School Mean Girl, the shadows that have set up shop in her soul seem to be as deep and dark as the shadows under her eyes—sneering, shouting and performing for an audience of one malignant viewer.

At the moment of this photo, several women who had been trafficked (some as children) by a convicted pedophile, stood up to be counted. They did not cover their faces. They were not ashamed. They had been harmed not just by the perpetrators, but also a system of justice that was clearly protecting wealthy and powerful men. I started to cry. I was so angry and so full of grief. And yet, this was an image of raw courage, women who had been viewed as expendable, less than human and without power claiming their voices and wholeness. Six women standing in a room full of mostly white powerful men, demanding truth, justice and accountability. The AG refused to look at them - even acknowledge their existence, let alone apologize for the harm the justice system is still perpetrating against these brave women.

These women were intact as in the definition from the centuries wrap round us defines being intact.

Over the past four decades my wandering in places of deep violence, rampant injustice, and daily fragility taught me to watch and learn from people who, against the odds, flourished with their dignity and imagination intact. Intact (v): Living whole while wounded; fully alive.

The AG and the sad malignant man she serves, are not intact. They are not whole. In that sense they are tragic as well—not fully alive, only scooping up handfuls of sticky thick shadows and presenting it as clear water.

It was a moment of fragmentation, another chip broken out of a cup of trust. And yet, it was a moment when extraordinary action and courage that was calling us back together, to mend what is broken, and to envision something new.

So today in February, the month of wintering and love, I am called to connection, called to a sacred inner well, called to express what I find there with humility and courage. Called to do what I can to heal what feels broken in my life and in the world, but keep an open heart to what is learned in the process of brokenness.

And….I am called to human-ing—strong and fragile and honorable and full of regular blind curves and true love and understandable messiness.

As always thank you for your beautiful comments, likes and for sharing this post. By liking, or sharing you invite others into our Gathering of Spirits conversation!

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Practice

Take a few deep breaths, allow yourself to center and your breathing to slow. Hold your hands open and apart. Now place your palms together in the attitude of namaste or prayer. Feel the warm that comes when what was separated comes together. Feel how your arms and body feel balanced as one hand gently presses into the other. Breathe in and say, “In love” and breathe out the word “We mend.”

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Question

What did it feel like to do this mending and balancing practice? In a fragmented time, what helps you feel “intact”.

I’ll start….I’ve deleted several apps from my phone this week that were taking too much attention. I reached out intentionally to cherished connections. I read poetry instead of the news each morning. I got out into the woods and took a few One Inch Photos. I wrote this post and felt the goodness of this gathering of spirits.

How about you?

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One Inch Photos

Things I Loved This week

Music Always Music -Voces Novae

I attended a beautiful performance by Voces Novae, a chamber choir based in Bloomington, Indiana, and directed by Susan Swaney. I highly recommend any upcoming concert. I loved attending their “To The Moon” concert exploring the life and work of astronaut Gus Grissom. At the end of the concert the narrator asked the question, “If the USA was able to create the technology to carry us to the moon in ten short years. What might we do for the planet, for health and hunger, if we chose to use our resources and brilliant minds in positive ways?”

The Anderson Symphony - Beethoven’s 3rd Symphony.

I was able to attend a really innovative performance of Beethoven’s 3rd with my father and husband last week. It wasn’t Valentines day…but it was still a Love-Thing :-)

A New PBS Documentary About The Life & Work of Eco Feminist Pioneer, Gene Stratton-Porter. I’ve been invited to participate in this project, directed by Robert (Todd) Gould. I’ll be the voice of Gene and will participate the recording the film score that is being envisioned and composed by Tyron Cooper, Ph.D., Director, Archives of African American Music & Culture at Indiana University. This week we met to hear Dr. Cooper’s score- and next week we’ll be recording! What a fun and powerful project with such a talented soulful filmmaker and incredible musicians including Dr. Tyron Cooper and Krista Detor.

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Comments From The Gathering Of Spirits Community

This winter has seemed exceptionally long and dark but there are bits of joy to be found, even in the darkness! A determined chickadee whose song still accompanies her work of staying alive in subzero temperatures. A single stalk of hearty kale, a striking green testimony to persistence in my garden, long buried in snow. Children stuffed into bright snowsuits, like sausages into their casings , excited to make new patterns in the unbroken whiteness. Beauty is all around us and seems even more vivid against a backdrop of cold grayness and despair. - Billie Slade

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Music Always Music

I love this John Prine song about healing, Summer’s End. Its haunting and beautiful.

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Concerts and Workshops

To check out my upcoming shows and concerts visit www.carrienewcomer.com/tour

These are times to gather around music, art, community and affirm a Great Wild Mercy in the world and in our lives.

Hi Folks, I want to let everyone know that Gary Walters will be debuting some amazing original new string quartet pieces with bassist extraordinaire, Peter Hansen, at the legendary Jazz Kitchen in Indianapolis IN on February 22, 2026 at 2pm.

I highly recommend attending this show if you live anywhere in road trip distance! Here’s the Link

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Booking

If you are interested in bringing me to your community for a concert or workshop contact Jim Chaffee Management Group