I had a few posts scheduled for this week. But in light of recent events, those topics can wait.
What feels more important right now is naming what many of us are experiencing in our bodies, whether we want to or not.
Collective trauma.
What it means physiologically. How it shapes the nervous system over time. And how we might thoughtfully support ourselves through it, including with herbal allies, without bypassing what is actually happening.
As a first-generation American, my relationship to this moment is not abstract. As a descendant of those who lived through World War II hiding in underground bunkers, surviving Auschwitz, and escaping Soviet POW camps not once, but twice, my understanding of trauma, displacement, and survival is shaped by lived history. I share this not to center myself, but to name the lineage I carry when I speak about fear, nervous system imprinting, and collective memory.
Recent events in the United States are traumatizing. For those witnessing them firsthand, …
