ABOVE PHOTO: Nicole Chandler (Photo courtesy: Nicole Chandler)
By Constance Garcia-Barrio
Like the alchemists in medieval tales who turned lead into gold, West Philadelphia resident Nicole Chandler has found ways to turn her early trauma into healing,
“My father was abusive,” says Chandler, 54, raised in southwest Philadelphia along with her sister, Toya, and her brother, George Jr. “I didn’t have a childhood — I got pregnant at 13 and had my son at 14. I struggled, but I kept him and finished school.”
Chandler has gone to therapy, but she has also found healing in less traditional ways.
“I live across the street from Morris Park,” said Chandler of the 64-acre site that led her to buy her home in Overbrook. Caring for Morris Park put her unexpectedly on a healing journey.
“The City of Philadelphia had written the park out of its 2005 budget,” Chandler said. “They were going to let it naturalize, which means let everything grow wild.”
Problems soon surfaced.
“There was an overgrowth of invasive plants,” she said. “Trash was dumped. Dogs got ear mites because of the tall grass.”
Chandler didn’t let matters rest there.
“I love the park,” said Chandler, a SEPTA bus driver when she moved to the area in 1999. Now she works in SEPTA’s Quality Control Department, ensuring that vehicles are well maintained and ready for service.
“I would get off work, then spend two or three hours tending the park,” she said.
Chandler also responded to the city’s decision by forming the Royal Gardens Association, a nonprofit devoted to maintaining the park. She recruited corporations to do days of service by cleaning the park. Students from Penn State, Drexel, Penn, and Villanova, eager to take part in service projects, helped as well.
Chandler’s work won recognition.
In 2021, NBC 10 profiled her on “Philly Proud.” In addition, 2013 Keep America Beautiful gave her the Mrs. Lyndon B. Johnson Award, the organization’s highest honor for volunteers.
“Nicole has empowered …[Philadelphians] to take pride in their community and clean and beautify Morris Park, part of the Fairmount Park System,” the award committee wrote. “Nicole continues to secure … in-kind donations and to forge partnerships with local businesses and global corporations to ensure [that] the work continues.”
Besides creating an urban oasis, Chandler discovered that the work brought greater balance to her life.
“I found that connecting with nature heals me,” Chandler said. “Nature doesn’t exist just for our pleasure. It’s also for the cleansing of our mental and emotional health. We must embrace that blessing.”
Research supports Chandler’s view.
“The term biophilia refers to the idea that we’re drawn to and benefit from nature,” said Anjan Chatterjee, MD, 64, professor of neurology, psychology, and architecture at the University of Pennsylvania and director of the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics.
He has conducted research on the topic.
“Our attention is opened up because we’re not so overwhelmed as we often are in urban or built environments,” Chatterjee said. “We find that people are most drawn to nature with a slight … human imprint. For example, for most people gardens and parks are more restorative than a dense jungle.”
Building on that idea, Chandler began doing healing workshops in Morris Park, emphasizing tuning in to nature’s organic guidance.
“The “Removing the Vines” workshop focuses on the similarities between the effects of leaving vines wrapped around a tree and leaving a problem or trauma unresolved,” Chandler said. “The vine-covered tree can’t get nutrients it needs, and neither can we [with unresolved trauma].”
A rites-of-passage program Chandler took with Yoruba priestess, life coach, and OWN star Iyanla Vanzant has led Chandler to develop a new workshop, “Speaking from the Heart.”
“One key focus of that program was claiming one’s voice,” Chandler said. Many of us struggle with speaking our truth due to personal and ancestral reasons, she added.
“Our enslaved ancestors often had to keep silent,” Chandler said. “Speaking up could mean horrible punishment. In some cases, it could cost people their lives.” The pattern of silence may have become ingrained over generations, and our upbringing may also have led us to protect ourselves with silence, Chandler said. “In a situation of abuse, speaking your mind could have come at a high price,” she said. “However, now that we’re grown, we can release silence. We can claim our voice, speak up for ourselves and others. It’s part of being our authentic selves. It’s a step toward greater emotional wholeness.” The workshop will focus on the seven chakras, energy centers in the body that help regulate all the body’s functions, Chandler explained.
“Each chakra has its own vibrational frequency. We’ll work with those frequencies to help balance the chakras. That will create alignment in both your physical and mental state,” Chandler said. “That balancing, in turn, will aid in developing your voice.”
The workshop will still include the nature, Chandler said. “We’ll use grounding [or earthing], a healing approach where you put your bare feet on the ground to bring the body into more physical and emotional balance,” she said. “We’ll also use essential oils.” These two techniques help to free one’s voice and create better health on all levels, Chandler said. “Matters of the Heart,” will take place Saturday, September 23, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. The workshop includes lunch. Donations are welcome. To learn more about the workshop or to volunteer to help maintain Morris Park, please email: [email protected] or call: (215)768-9419.
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