Thoughts on Grief
By Jeff Firewalker
Welcome to the September issue of the Eagle Condor Council newsletter. Many folks in our community have been discussing the emotional storms they are witnessing and sometimes experiencing at this particularly intense time of evolution. So in this issue we thought it would be good to share a few words that may be of service.
As I write this, I am in England at a planning retreat for a new conference/festival called “the Medicine Festival.” The aim of the festival is to be a convergence point between people engaged in social/environmental justice and people who carry indigenous/ancient wisdom. Because I was invited to co-facilitate one of the planning round-tables, I sought the insight of my Grandfather plant teachers, rather than solely rely on my very limited perspective. The message from the Grandfathers was very clear, “son it is not time for crafty solutions or strategies, it is time to grieve. In your solitude grieve. Bring your brothers and sisters together and grieve. After that time good and just solutions will come.” The Great Medicine River (Oren-Da) is made from the water of our tears. This is a message of solidarity to Pachamama. The truest measure that we are living in our hearts.
Grieve Deeply.
Grief is an important topic in our healing education programs. Grief is an essential expression of our humanity. Unlike despair, grief is a river. It moves. Grief has its destination and that destination is grace and joy. There is an aspect of grief work that is worth considering as we navigate the atrocities unfolding in the world around us – to not get caught in examining the motives of the perpetrator(s). When we play the role of the apologist, the therapist or decide to let them off the hook, we are bypassing our direct experience, preventing us from the essential and complete grief work. Sure, it is good to understand what is underneath the circumstantial unfolding of events, but for us to be clean and clear, we focus on our inner experience first.
“Grief un-resisted is grace” – Adyashanti
There is also the matter of ‘compassionate accountability’ which means to clearly hold the perpetrator(s) accountable as part of your prayer. To do this without anger, remorse or victimhood, says to the universe that you are truly standing up for yourself, to stand up for what is important. To grieve without examining the motivation of the perpetrator(s) allows our deepest healing intelligence to awaken. Inside each of us is a jewel – a creator given gift – and it is worth protecting. Likewise protect and make space for your grieving.
“Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life's search for love and wisdom.” – Rumi
So, based on the Grandfather’s advice, I am giving myself the invitation to open to whatever pain, the overwhelm and heartbreak arise. I know that these are the doorways to grief. And as I lean into the undeniable suffering that is happening all around, I affirm to myself that “I am up for this work” thereby stripping away the drama of “it’s too much to bare.” I am strong enough to find the still point in the discomfort. I vow to not resist any aspect of grief, lest I remain stuck at the threshold. This is Medicine, it is yanantin and the teachings behind the Taoist yin-yang symbol, a seed of the opposite is always found in an expression at its purest. In the deepest expression of grief there is a seed of untainted joy.
My grief reminds me that I simply give a damn and that If the cycle of suffering and atrocity continues for one living thing, we all lose.
"The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end. It is the highest emblem in the cipher of the world.
St. Augustine described the nature of God as a circle whose center was everywhere, and its circumference nowhere.
We are all our lifetime rending the copious sense of this first of forms. Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth, that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning; that there is always another dawn risen on mid-noon, and under every deep a lower deep opens."
– Ralph Waldo Emerson