“The hallmark of the coming decades will be grief.” (Francis Weller)
I’ve had an unsettled feeling lately, even though things in my life are going well. It’s like an absence, a loneliness for something that I didn’t know was gone. Lately I’m missing the hummingbirds, but their leaving is a scheduled departure, and my heart was unsettled before that.
Underneath is grief – the grief of looking at the beauty of our world, and wondering how long I will hear birds on a spring morning. It’s watching the news, or social media, and wondering how long we will have anything resembling peace. Or how long we will have stability before the bird flu becomes something like the “Spanish Flu”.
This spring it was the frogs. There seemed to be plenty of “spring peepers” but all summer long, only one deep voiced frog called from our pond. Last year was so dry. The water was exceptionally low. Perhaps the herons and mergansers were happily feeding on frogs who had nowhere safe to hide. I hope it’s that. I hope frogs will be back next spring. I really missed frogs.
I know I am not the only one feeling the deep grief. I catch tears running down my cheeks unannounced, when I don’t even think I am feeling sad. It’s something deeper than sadness. It is deep deep grief that I can’t avoid. I might distract myself, but Francis Weller says we need to learn “to sit in that space and not flinch.” And to do this together. We are all grieving, if we allow ourselves to notice.
I watched this video, How to Navigate Our Collective Dark Night, a year ago, and wrote a draft of this post immediately thereafter, to remind me to watch it again. Today was the day.
Francis Weller describes himself as “psychotherapist, writer, & soul activist”. He talks about the “Long Dark”, the change we are facing – now, not somewhere in the future – changes big enough that the future is likely to be something we won’t recognize. He has written a book about grief, The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief. I expect I’ll be reading it soon.
Meanwhile, I will allow myself to feel. Just feel.
Dream Bringer’s Studio 