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This article appeared in the May-June 2004 issue of Spirituality & Health.
Healing From the Darkness of Torture
by Barbara Stahura
by Barbara Stahura
A Cherokee creation story holds that after the Cherokee country was created and the sun lifted to the right height, the animals were told to keep watch for seven days. But by the seventh night, only Owl, Panther, and a few others stayed awake. Because they did not succumb to sleep, they were given the power to see in the dark.
A small group of poets in Tucson, Arizona, has adopted the name Owl and Panther for itself. It’s appropriate: at one time, remaining watchful in the dark helped them to survive. They, or members of their families, are torture survivors. But now, having escaped to the United States, they have discovered the wondrous powers of poetry. With members ranging in age from 6 to adult from countries including Mauritania, Mali, Uganda, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Mexico, these poets meet once a week to learn about poetry and to compose their own poems within the embrace of caring teachers and others who understand their pain.
Owl and Panther member Wendy Jimenez knows what it’s like to fear sleep. In Guatemala, her father was kidnapped and tortured for four months because of his human rights work. When he was released, still threatened with death, her mother found enough money to take only part of the family out of the country. Wendy and her sister were left behind in a safe place until their parents could send for them. Those family members who fled had a long and fearful struggle for survival that included begging, taking food from garbage cans, and always being prepared to run. Finally, the family was reunited and brought to Tucson. In an Owl and Panther assignment to write a poem about hope, Jimenez wrote: “I hope never to sleep with my shoes on anymore.”
“Everyone in a family is impacted when one person is tortured,” says Marge Pellegrino, poetry teacher for Owl and Panther. “Many such families don’t stay together. Sometimes a family is separated for years, and the kids can’t forgive the parents, and the parents can’t get over their guilt.”
Writing poetry aids in healing from their ordeals. Says Pellegrino, “For the kids, I think a lot of it is empowerment and a safe place to express. For some, particularly those who witnessed or experienced torture or trauma firsthand, it’s a way to take that pain and history outside themselves and express it, sometimes reframe it.”
