Hail the Heal

To be seen and understood as whole, uninjured and standing in a sea of stories

I've been thinking a lot lately about healing. Perhaps it is in the conversations I have been privileged to have, or the revisiting of ones never had, but always hoped for.

The more I spend time in the company of the concept and construct of healing, the more I understand it to be a timeless thing.

When it comes to healing, there is no start clock, no stopwatch, and certainly no past due date.

And still, in our desperate measures to try and control aspects of our human experience we attempt to containerize that which cannot be contained. We recite trendy quips and taglines such as "Let the healing begin." As if it were some sort of Olympic opening ceremony, or gladiator games, or a long-awaited societal procession to an agreed upon destination. It is none of these.

On the day I am writing this I am reminded of a military tradition termed the “Hail and Farewell.” I attended countless in my time in service and in uniform and always felt like a stranger amidst these movements. Despite the belief by many scholars and historians that it builds upon the pillars of camaraderie and espirit-de-corps, I always felt like a wayfaring stranger amidst the ranks, and on those parade fields. Drifting, listless, like in an open sea in a small moor. I did not know then, or perhaps remember, that the name of the movement stems from the last words of a poem:

"Atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale."

Meaning, "And forever, brother, hail and farewell."

It is in fact an elegy.

Of course after rereading the Latin poem, I had to further understand its origin and thereby the origins of the words we use: Hail, Hale and Heal.

To hail is to call, to signal and summon.

To hale is to drag or draw something out forcibly.

And interestingly both word stem from origins meaning "whole." It was often used as a way to exclaim wholeness or wellness upon arrival or as a salutation to attract attention or inform an action or present a whole view.

And when we look at the origin of the word "heal" it is much the same. Resting in the action of making something whole, sound or well. And despite the movements and marches and motions, as Gaius Vallerius Catullus describes, "these things which in the ancient customs of ancestors are handed over as a sad tribute to the rites..." it is not something that can be staged, summoned or serenaded. Certainly not forced. For it is divinely personal and in as such, is timeless.

In the Hail and Farewell ceremonies, a formal welcoming in of the new and an honoring of the old takes place. This is often accompanied by a breaking of bread and sharing of stories. And while we afford these rituals in organizations and institutions, I wonder why we don't extend the same such honor to our own healing journeys. Our own hail and farewell if you will to the persons we have been and the humans we are becoming. And because it is timeless, you are never too late. And this is not a regatta nor a race, it is in fact a return…a return to self.

It only happens because there is first a departure from something that once was, to embark and make room for all that is soon to be. Are there not inherent reflections and lessons learned lapping against your vessel from your time spent enduring and growing? The lives we lead come with inordinate amounts of heartbreak, and it is up to us to find equal parts healing. Do we not get to hail or hale on occasion to the mirror or even the passing marauder to let them know we are whole, we are healthy, we are healing?

What if you took that call? What if you waved back to affirm, acknowledge, and accept the passing of story that is uniquely yours? You traversed those tides, you found the treasures, and you found the port of call, to pass on your tales of tendering and tenderness.

I have learned these past few months, in my own journeys, that healing is not a solopreneur job, nor is it a one-man crew on the open seas. It will never be a single player game. For that I am glad. Healing, like hailing and haling is an exchange and a calling. Perhaps even a summoning. A timeless summoning.

What is summoning you to know your wholeness and be held in the honoring of your story?

How do you know when healing happens? How do you know when you have found your shore?