Grief in the aftermath
Recently, with all that has been happening in my immediate world with Helene and in the greater world with the elections, wars, floods in Spain, etc. I have felt removed, or maybe the word is distant. Distant from myself and distant from life in general. I think this process of disconnecting has been slowly happening for a while. Subtle, slow shifts that have pulled me away from engaging with my interior, with my practices, and with a spiritual community. I found a comfortable place in my head where I could rationalize anything away. Hurricane Helene was a jolt to my well patterned thoughts that lulled me to sleep. Then, the next shoe dropped with the elections. Sometimes, it takes the extreme to pull one out of the mundane.
I see the devastation of a storm fueled by climate change every day I drive my daughter to school. I see the cold encampments of people who lost everything huddle around their outdoor fire pits as we turn towards winter. I see trees in heaps like dead carcasses everywhere. With the election coupled with knowing how things went the last time Trump was in office, I see that my children have fewer rights than I did at their age. Moralism has shrunk their reproductive freedom and made expression of identity dangerous.
The forest service has closed the national forest where I take my daily hikes. It was my place to ground, seek perspective, move my body in beauty, and ritualize the start of my day. I now walk on trails near my home, but it is not the same. It is more urban, so I have to navigate culture bound rules to a greater extent. I am grateful for these trails, and I miss my old ones.
This feeling of being removed or distant closed in on me yesterday. I felt as though I was not myself, that I was not moored to anything. A memory came to me of a time when I was deep in my shamanic practices, journeying every week, growing herbs in my garden, etc. This image of who I was felt far away and strange. I paused and wondered if all that I was had passed, that it would no longer be a part of my life.
And then, grief. It hit me like a title wave. Unexperienced grief was keeping me from part of myself, and I cried. I cried for the devastation of our community. I cried for the animals who died in the flood. I cried for the destruction of our planet who is suffering tremendously. And through the grief, I found anger. The tears of grief transformed into tears of anger. I cried for humanity for turning its back on Mother Earth. I cried in rage for the animals in the natural world who were killed in the recent storm – a storm whose intensity increased because of human caused pollution. I raged for all of the dead trees that were snapped by the winds and washed away in the landslides.
As I opened and started to collapse into my experience, I realized there was no turning back. I allowed myself to surrender to grief. I know that it’s important to keep feeling it, and as a way of trying to contain and hold my experience, I turn to the theories. I am well aware of the fact that I am not the first one to experience grief, so I found on my bookshelf a book that I purchased a long time ago but did not touch it. It was as if it was waiting just for this moment. Its title is The Wild Edge of Sorrow.
Some of the words that captured my attention as I read through the first chapter, “Our soul is designed for a bigger, more imaginative, more sensuous life….We were not meant to live shallow lives poxed by meaningless routines…. We were meant to encounter life with amazement and wonder, not resignation and endurance….The dream of full-throated living woven into our very being is often forgotten…Every sorrow is linked to our not being able to engage in this ‘One most wild and precious life.”’
Being ensouled means that we are capable of experiencing every emotion. Along with this, there is a necessity to experience every emotion because this is where we gain clarity about our next steps. What comes with this step is, as Francis Weller states, a “full throated life.” We can, as Mary Oliver says, live into “our one most wild and precious life.”
Brene Brown and numerous other psychologists before her have said, if you block or restrict one emotion, the you run the risk of blocking all of them, even joy, wonderment, curiosity, love, etc. I am reminded of a the Rumi poem, The Guest House:
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
Admitting grief into our house is not easy. Courage is necessary. I opened myself to this, and I discovered the anger, and I discovered deep fear. I am scared for the planet and the life on it. I am scared for my children. At this point, I would love to say that something creative is emerging and that I have achieved clarity about my next step, but I have not. I am still in the process of experiencing sorrow, fear, and anger. And I know, for now, this is where I need to be.
