Reflections on Loss
August seems to be riddled with anniversaries of those who have left their bodies. Last year, around this time, I wrote a goodbye note to a dear friend for her mom to read her while she laid on her death bed, fighting cancer, as she had been for a few years. She taught me my first lessons of loss, of losing a friend. August also marks the passing of my husband’s mentor, who taught us both so much in the realm of spirituality, psychedelia, and the deep unknown. For the Deadheads, August is a time of mourning mixed with celebration, as we remember the life and death of Jerry Garcia. With just 8 days between his birthday and ascension day (someone once referred to their friends’ death date as an ascension day, which I’ve grown quite fond of) it’s hard not to think of the formidable event we’ll all eventually succumb to… death. Beyond that, my community is mourning, too. It seems like each day there’s a new post or story memorializing someone who has also ascended. After the last year of grieving, questioning, and searching for answers in my friend’s death, it seemed like an appropriate time to share some of my reflections on loss.
Time doesn’t heal all wounds.
I don’t know where the hell this saying came from, but it wasn’t from anyone who had experiencing ravaging loss. The idea that time can go on without those we love is actually quite devastating to me. You’re allowed to feel the freshness of someone’s death regardless of how many days or years have passed. Like all things in life, the grieving process is not linear. Creating space for ourselves when the depth of loss and longing feel just as new as the day we received the news is integral to keeping our hearts open. It’s easy, maybe instinctual even, to close ourselves off, distract and disassociate. Choosing to crack yourself open and face the harshness of your grief typically leads to freedom. Freeing ourselves from the pressure to “move on” without our loved ones can remind us that they’re still here with us, just in a different form.
It’s cool we’re not just our bodies.
This is something I said to myself, out loud, during a plant medicine journey and it made me laugh. Because it’s true. It IS very cool that our spirit can live on well beyond the finite existence of these meatsacks we occupy. We’re so caught up in the material world of things and matter and stuff, that we lose sight of our spiritual selves. Our day-to-day lives are really just dress rehearsal for the main act of our life - our death. Choosing to cultivate a relationship with our spiritual selves can really aid in coping with loss and our own mortality. By making a practice out of transcending our physical plane of consciousness (through meditating, breathwork, psychedelic journeying, etc.) we become aware that there’s nothing to fear in death. Ram Dass encourages us to see death “as a culminating adventure of this adventure of life. It is not an error, it is not a failure. It is taking off a tight shoe that you've worn well.”
Talking to the dead helps and don’t let anyone tell you it’s “weird.”
Because we’re not just our bodies, we can communicate with the spirits of those who have left theirs. Being raised religiously, I was conditioned to fear anything that didn’t directly align with Christianity. That definitely meant mediums, witchcraft, and most things in line with “spirituality” were to be questioned and cast aside. It wasn’t until much later that I learned anyone can connect to the spirit of someone they’ve lost, and it’s not going to send you to hell in a hand basket. Replacing fear with curiosity can open us up to an entire world of new connection with the deceased. You don’t need to be a medium to connect with someone’s spirit, it requires stillness and openness. You also don’t need to justify your communing with the dead to anyone. Those who haven’t experienced the devastation of death may question the reality of your signs and conversations from the spirit world, but don’t be discouraged. Finding a safe place or person to share these experiences with can help. Or maybe reading this poem by Mary Elizabeth Frye will offer you some momentary solace:
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there. I do not die.
Being angry is part of grieving.
Experiencing rage wasn’t something I was prepared for after my friend died last year. I felt ready to embrace my sadness, but the anger came as a surprise, and then the guilt came after. Being mad at someone for dying isn’t what I expected to feel. I remember thinking that she finally had the answers to the secrets of the Universe and wondered why she had left me here, stuck on Earth, to keep going without her. And then I was plagued with immense guilt. How could I be so selfish to think of my own loneliness when a mother has just sat with her dying daughter? This is the recipe for avoidance, once again. By finally allowing myself to ride the uncharted waters of mourning, I made space for any emotion that swelled up. Offer yourself grace through your grief and know your process may look different than other peoples’.
Western society doesn’t champion, or discuss, death enough.
Since diving into the world of consciousness and spirituality, it’s become so clear that in the West we see death as a stopping point. Ram Dass tailored his life’s work to making friends with death and he really brought this Eastern mindset, that death is simply a transition and something to celebrate, into our Western viewpoint. In a culture so obsessed with youth, how is there any room to learn from our elders or even from the dead? We’re so caught up in this single incarnation that we’ve lost sight of the worlds beyond this one. Talking about death, the dying process and coming to terms with that this isn’t all there is, can help soothe the discomfort around our physical expiration. When you become so hung up with this one plane of consciousness, that’s all there is for you. A few months ago I was talking to someone fighting their cancer battle and we laughed at how few people wanted to even say the “c-word” around her. CANCER. As if she was unaware of her current reality. We tip-toe around the hard truths and then wonder why it’s so hard to deal with the truth when it comes for us.
The Art of Grief
I started making friends with death by diving into the life and work of Ram Dass. He has some profound lectures and writing on the topic and I wanted to share this brief (8 minute) talk he gave on the art of grief in hopes it will bring you insight or perhaps, peace.
We’re all going to die.
Ultimately, this is all I know for sure.