Understanding Loneliness

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Society has lost its village structure, leaving modern people with unmet needs for connection.

Children sense a lack of connection, usually provided by the village, despite having loving parents.

A small ritual can begin to bring connection back, reviving the "village" in daily life.

Winter is the season of retreat. Bare trees mark the retreat of green, short days announce the retreat of light, and bitter cold broadcasts the retreat of warmth. It can feel as if life itself is withdrawing from the world.

There was one winter when this withdrawal ran too deep, when what was lost that season never fully returned. It began the morning of November 29, 1864, at a bend in Sand Creek in southeastern Colorado.

Here, among leafless cottonwoods, among buffalo grass turned still and pale, 20 tipis stood in a wide circle, smoke rising from a fire at their center. Most of the men were away hunting, leaving behind the women, children, and elders. Chief Black Kettle and his wife were there, leaders who’d spent their lives working for peace. They had signed treaties and trusted the promises these treaties held.

When soldiers appeared on the horizon that morning, Chief Black Kettle did what he had always done. He raised the American flag, the one given to him with a promise attached: Raise this, and you’ll be protected. No one will harm you. Then he raised a white flag beside it.

But Colonel Chivington ordered his soldiers to attack anyway. Two hundred people died that morning: elders, women, children. History would give this........

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