The relief of grief

Dear Ones,

1/

It has been a revelation this year to discover that from the 5 element theory of ancient China, grief and sorrow are a part of the autumn season. 

I can remember standing in my red velvet dress and white tights surrounded by the church congregation for midnight service on Christmas night. It is a memory in my body, the Wisconsin winter outside biting cold and the warmth of all the people lit only by candlelight. We stood as we sang the hymns and I would cry through all of it. I longed to sing along, to be part of the current, but it was so overwhelming - the fleeting inclusion of the moment. I felt how precious it was, how miraculous and whole, and how soon it would be over. 

I’ve always felt a shadow of sorrow in the holidays. 

This is a time of conclusion, leaves falling, plants settling into dormancy, the birds migrate and the animals settle deep into nests and dens. The bustle of life for the year is ending. That’s all.

I have come to see grief as the decomposition of past joys. The entangled life of fungal forces in the soil breaks down what was alive so that it can return in new form. The more I make myself available to the ebb and flow, the light and dark, the forces that are digesting and providing all around me, the more I can welcome in ease with similar familiarity to joy. My own soil is enriched.

Here is a poem from Rosemary Wahtola Trommer, writing just now, a year after her son took his life...

Of Course I Am Grateful, And

December 12, 2024 by Rosemerry
 
Forgive me if, as we wade through
December’s blue shadows,
if, as we pull the wood toboggan
across the basin of field,
if, as we wander through spruce,
as we traverse the crystal petals
of hoar frost, forgive me if, on this most
perfect day when I am so deeply
in love with my girl and my husband
and the day itself, forgive me if
as we cut down the finest,
most symmetrical Christmas tree
we’ve ever found, if in the midst
of beauty and luck and laughter and joy
I also feel inside me the ache
for the boy who would now
be a man who is not
with us here. Forgive me.
It’s all so beautiful. And still
this sorrow. How they mix together
like vinegar and pure water—
completely dissolved into each other.
I couldn’t begin to tell you what it means,
this tear.

2/ 

The depth of autumn was a stranger to me. I’ve found the grief creates a softening, an opening and I am more available to wherever I am. What is here with me? I am available to the unfamiliar; even and especially the aspect of me and my loves that I just don’t know yet; seeing the adult arriving through my child and meeting them there, anew. And as I noticed, of course other conversations of ‘strangers’ showed up in the magic of my life.  I share one here with you:  A Stranger's Love discussed and recited by David Whyte. absolutely worth the 8 minute listen. Enjoy.

3/

My crying in the candlelit church had a desperation. Please don’t go, I was calling to the light and the sound. Please stay. Please don’t change. But true Nature is change, and change is everything. 

I devoted the past year to the deeper wisdom of the seasons. I am grateful-er and grateful-er for the practices that make it possible to see instead of run.  They enabled me to revel in a moment even as it passes. 

In the coming year I will keep my 40 day online offerings aligned to the outer seasons and in 2025 we will add the wisdom of our inner energies, the chakras. 

Join in as you will. Live practice Monday Wednesday and Friday mornings 8am EST starts Monday, December 30 for Winter 1. Register here. 
...
Take your time. Let your heart be heavy and slow sometimes. I think this is part of the colds and flus of the year, a general running against the pace of the dark. If we slow sometimes, listening, there is plenty of space and energy for the light of the holidays as we gather. 

my best to you, Martha
...
TRIBE will be closed December 23, 24, and 25. We reopen to a regular schedule December 26.

I will teach the morning of December 31, 8:30-9:45am for a special end of year class.

I will lead Kundalini by Candlelight January 1 4-5:30pm (note the time!), 

and a half-day retreat with Lola January 4 to trace the maps of the year ahead through our bodies, minds, and spirits. Will be a remarkable journey! January 4, 1-7pm at TRIBE. Register here. 

Online with me Monday Wednesday and Friday mornings 8am EST starts Monday, December 30 for Winter 1. Register here. 
...
"I have spent my life learning to love these shapeless hours before the light finds us, these shadowsome nights when my whole being seems to stretch beyond the bed, beyond the room, beyond the home, beyond the valley, beyond even the globe, as if I rhyme with the dark all around us, the dark that holds us, the dark that surrounds this whole swirling spiral of galaxy." - Rosemary Wahtola Trommer