Taking the Time To Honor Loss
I know I have mentioned this but I have been feeling a sense of underlying sadness in one moment and great joy, grace and excitement in the next. You may be feeling this too. And it is completely natural as we are at a Threshold moment. Not just this year, but at this time every year. It just so happens this year it is at a planetary level, it can be felt, and (I feel this is a gift) COVID has forced many of us to slow down, take a pause and feel that we are in transition. We are standing at a threshold between knowing (whether we want to acknowledge it or not) there is no "going back to normal" which wasn't very normal anyway, and NOT KNOWING what the future holds. Which by the way...we NEVER know what the future holds. I believe we are on the threshold of some real magic, real creativity, and many of us are excited for the New Earth and doing things differently, even if we don't know what it will look like. And for me praying that the pain and suffering of the planet and all its beings can begin to lessen and be healed.
But this doesn't come without some level of grief and loss.
And for me, in order to vision into how I want to do things differently, what I want to dream into I cannot do it without honoring my grief over the pain and suffering, my grief over losses of life, but also losses of what no longer is, and what perhaps was never birthed. It is important we all do this as a way to heal so that we can move into the next version of this human experiment we call life. It can be deep work, I am going to provide some resources that I have been working with. Encourage you to create some rituals around what you are feeling loss around....and it doesn't have to be people or things, it can be dreams, situations, things that did not happen the way you had hoped they would. And get yourself support if you need it. I am here, and I have mental health resources as well. I am being asked to do this work yet again, as part of a program I am in. And I am grateful I am doing it, because it is helping me to move these feelings through my body, mind, and spirit...AND then to dream.
AND, as we approach October 31/Nov 1-2 besides Halloween, many wisdom traditions around the world are celebrating and honoring their ancestors. It is really all a part of honoring ways to be with our grief, but also get wisdom from our ancestors if we are open to it. It is the time of year we naturally begin to slow down, honor, dream, and vision. And they say the veils between the worlds are thin and the ancestors are more easily able to communicate with us. So ask them to provide you with whatever wisdom you need to hear. In the wisdom traditions this IS the threshold moment as I mentioned, between the light and the dark, time shifts, and we are in what is called liminal space.
So it is an ideal time to begin reflecting on our year, celebrate the gifts and honor the losses, so we can dream into what we desire next.
Taking time and space to be with the grief is actually a magical process, because it is through grief that we more easily recognize joy and grace. And this time of year is in flow with taking a sacred pause. AND there is no time limit on a sacred pause, just like there is no time limit on our grief. I am going to share a few things I am grieving so you understand it doesn't only mean when you lose a loved one. And below I am providing a resource to a book I am reading that is fabulous, and a video by the same author, Francis Weller- The Wild Edge of Sorrow:Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief
Some things I am grieving:
The loss of life due to COVID (and all loss of life)
The devastation of the wildfires throughout Colorado, the West and the world
The fact that my son has not really had the opportunity for a "real" high school experience-(I am pretty sure I care more about that than he does)
The fact that I haven't seen my beloved Mother Ocean in nearly two years
That my studio never became the community I was hoping for, the one I dreamed into not only for others, but because I NEEDED community. (And that dream could be re-ignited at some point, but for now I am grieving)
And some personal lineage root stories, that I don't yet quite have the language for.
Here is an amazing video from Francis on the different types of grief, and how grief is one hand and gratitude is the other. It's fabulous!
I would love to hear where you are in life, how you are doing, and if there is any way I can support you.
Love and Light,
Dina