In the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquake
ravery and its transmission from one to another can be thought of much like a blood transfusion. As is well known, most people in good health have more blood than they need at any one time. As a result of this, they can safely transfuse their blood either into a ‘blood bank’ or directly into a recipient who urgently requires blood due to its loss through injury or surgery. The donor merely requires a few minutes to recover and a well sugared cup of tea and they are on their way again. However, they go away with a sense that their life’s blood is either now supporting the life of another or will do so in the very near future. I consider that bravery has been similarly transfused from one to another especially from time immemorial. In what follows is my attempt to render what I consider to be relatively commonplace to a ‘ritual’ which can be performed at any time and almost in any place. I use the term ritual as when I considered its commonplace occurrences, I realized these ‘transfusions of bravery’ took place almost always under extraordinary circumstances whereby one is responding to an emergency of another.”
A Ritual for the Transfusion of Bravery from one who has more than enough for the time being to another who needs to ‘recharged’ after having temporarily ‘lost’ their bravery.
David has recently submitted an article to Journal of Systemic Therapies where David applies the courage transfusion to the aftermath of the earthquake crisis. You can read a pre-publication version here called “To Christchurch with Love.”
Earthquake kata for 7-11 year olds
Here is a related YouTube Video by Walter Bera:
