(From a newsletter November 2021)
Sat Naam
Dear every one,
You may know because I shared with you about the recent appearance of grief in my life. It came in the form of the sudden death of my beloved 8 year old nephew. The tide has permanently turned for me in some way, and for my family, and of course most especially my sister and her other sons. Tragedy could really strike any moment. Death really is a real thing. All the mystics say, those who live without the awareness of death as a constant companion are not really living. Life and death are inseparably intertwined with each other, so to deny one is to deny the other. It’s the yin and the yang of existence.
I say it is the appearance of grief but actually it is not new. Grief has been there for a long time in me, even before this more obvious loss. We carry ancestral grief. We all know loss. You cannot live and not lose. You cannot love and not lose. Heartbreak and loss are part of life, are they not? Grief is now my teacher - the one who leads me to the river bank to kneel and take teachings from the very place where life and death hold hands. I discover these days some very wise elder voices that are speaking about grief. One of them says, grief and praise are close to each other. You can’t grieve something if you are not loving it, praising it. So love and celebration are part of grief. Grief keeps the sharp, awake edge on the heart’s love and pain. In that sharp edge place of paradox we feel, we exist, we are human. Don’t let it get blunt and numb.
My sister has said, there are many different ways that people can communicate with someone who is grieving that are right. And there are a few ways that really miss the mark. One of them is not acknowledging it at all. Not even saying those well worn words, sorry for your loss. Perhaps people think they are helping by not mentioning the tragic. I understand it. This could even have been me a few short weeks ago. Yet not mentioning the thing that is most pertinent, most acutely relevant in that moment is to have a communication that has no basis in reality. Here in such communication there is a great loneliness behind the smile. The real is not touched or referenced. Perhaps it is because the mind thinks it should not mention that which it cannot solve. You can only really be with it and be with the person who is with it. Simple acknowledgement is just stating what is real and letting it be real. It’s not solvable and can we just be with that? Death is not a problem we will ever be able to solve and that’s a fact. Grief like birth and death, like all rhythms of a human life, has its own season and reason, and for it to move on as nature intends and for it to deliver its significant gifts of grace, beauty and, yes, joy and renewal, it needs to be allowed to be what it is and it needs a certain witnessing – a being with. And at the most small level, acknowledgment.
This is what I am learning.
This brings me to other griefs that we as humanity are experiencing. The loss of the life we once had. A loss of carefreeness and innocence. The widening divisions in our society. We are also facing potential future loss of what we have known of our lives on an unprecedented level, and many people feel this and are grieving in advance.
For me, there are many times that Mother Earth herself inhabits my body suddenly and I cry from the depths of my being for the destruction and disregard of the earth and her plants and creatures. I weep her tears. I feel a gap opening up in me inside which is a deep deep river of things that have been forgotten. A way of living that involves elders, nourishing traditions, community and a life that is not inflated but in proportion with nature. The name of the river my nephew drowned in is Deep River. Between the 2 banks of the river is a deep current that can be devastatingly dangerous and wildly beautiful... just as it can be calm and safe. There is wisdom and poetry in it. It speaks of a continuity from the past to the present and things we have lost that we now need. We need them and we don’t even know how much we miss them because the loss is not acknowledged. And that is the greatest loss of all.
Well, I am here to acknowledge it.
I am not given that longing, that weeping and that realisation and awareness of a grief that has really been there all along so that I can drown. No. I am given it so that I can give words to it and so it can be a healing force. Where many are saying nothing I will say something. I’ll put it in the room. Or rather point out that it is already in the room. The deep sadness of what we don’t have and need. The ignoring of the liminal, the mystical, the non rational. And of our common humanity.
Only then when a loss or any kind of ailment is properly named can it begin to be healed. I am full of hope actually, because although nature can seem so cruel and we can wonder what kind of God if there is one would let the things that happen happen, I trust that I would not be given this grief and lack to feel if it wasn’t also possible to discover beautiful ways to live with it and let it lead us towards a life that is healing and beautiful.
As long as I feel the loss or it is at least accessible to me then I am OK. That’s what grieving people say – the days when the tears are flowing and the grief is felt are the better days. It is also, like a river, a constantly changing flow. Now dark and awful, then it rounds a bend and suddenly it is sunny and light sparkles on the water and we are laughing. The days when the flow is blocked or numb and nobody is acknowledging the loss, including yourself, are the worst. Most of the planet is living in this denial of grief, or blocked grief, and THAT is making us sick.
Was I not going to talk about numbers? Ah.. I have been all this time!
Number 2 is the number of the gap, like the gap between 2 things. A missing and an emptiness. In feeling terms, sadness – which is not badness. Grief. That which we long for and miss is made present through the missing. Next year is made up of 3 twos. 2022. Along with a widening gap of division amongst us, there could be deep dark holes of depression opening up and we need to learn how to not fall in either of these holes, whilst not denying them. The sum total of the year – 2+0+2+2 is 6 which, as well as being the number of conflict, revolution and war (real possibilities and actually inevitabilities on some level), is the number of poetry, of grace, of song and dance. That human expression which can take emotion and elevate it. Turn it into art in some way. Grief can’t be fixed, but expressing it helps. Putting flowers on a grave, lighting a candle, singing a song, scattering ashes – or any small act that enacts, expresses and makes external what is inside, so that it can keep shape changing. This is the way we won’t go mad. It fixes nothing to place a flower on an altar. That person or habitat or species is still gone. It’s a non rational act to place objects in a coffin with the dead person’s body to be buried or cremated. Yet it helps. The non rational helps. And we need so that we don’t go crazy.
Also, our longings when listened to will bring us clarity, also number 6. They will point us in the direction we always wanted to go anyway. For some of us the revolution we have long longed for may be about to begin. We need the faith (6) to let the longing loose so that it can show us the way to fulfilment.
There is so much magic everywhere. So much poetry, metaphor and symbolism in this mythical life. So much meaning and purpose. And this also helps keep me in a relationship with the divine hand that is moving through everything in life. EVERYTHING. And in this way, trust. In this, faith. Where we are going, nobody knows, but I am starting to feel really ready to go there.
Please stay in dialogue with me and with each other. Our words, our expressions, help. Naming things, saying things out loud, putting words to the things that are moving inside us, helps. There need not be an immediate solution at hand in order to begin speaking about things that trouble us. Together we weave and find new ways. We are going to really need each other in the times to come.
Looking forward to seeing you soon perhaps,
Jai Ram Kaur