THE ANCIENT ART OF GRIEVING


By Grandmother Kaariina of the Turquoise Heart

Ahhhhh I exhale at the ocean shores, tide is out. Details reveal themselveswhen these northwest Pacific waters recede.  Here SHE leaves behind her movement outwards to that vast deep darkness, a litany of pieces telling another story.  Driftwood soggy logs heaved over and over again , back and forth,into the beach and then out again, logs from the old logging days.


Dark green sage, bull kelp, heads bulbously full of her waters, tails streaming gelatinous, just lying there on the sands of times and tides.  Broken shells surviving her invincible potency of waves, some crinkled at the edges, others coral coloured, some complete and whole , two aspects met by a cartilege reminding observers that there are other halves.


And the skittering red sand crabs, sideways, tracking thin trails through wet dark sands, ahhhh, yes she is also inhabitted by the wee ones.


There is a narrative here when the tide is out that is billions of years old. While we two leggeds occupy our cocreated time and space for hundreds of thousands of years old, she continues to shape shift and leave her marks upon this earthen body in ways that we have yet to fully appreciate. 

Mother ocean rising and falling with grandmother moon, sparkled into by the family of stars, stunningly shone through by seasonal sun and its intelligence,all was here long before our seeding, cultivating, evolutionating, and nowimaginating!

YET we two leggeds GRIEVE!  Our waves of fear, our frequencies of sorrow,our restrained regret, resentment indicating unfelt love, we two leggedsGRIEVE and many have forgotten its true purpose, its true cyclical nature.And so, we mask our vulnerability, we shy away from others, at least 6 feet,so that their GRIEF does not infect and amplify ours. Hmmmm.

GRIEF is an artful way of fully completely living and yet, where and when do we dance this pain and celebrate the deaths of lineages and families?

I live now for 5 more months in a condominium development: UNIT 28/10 a return to innocence and curiousity as to what can I cocreate here, including a small yarded garden?  Food sovereignty and sharing my foods as medicine are two of my intentions.

And what of these units? Incomplete projects, invested in by humans 42 years ago, they were thrust upon this rocky soil not far from forests by mining industry owners in order to house men and some families thus employed.  And when the return on those investments  were declared insufficient, funds were removed, employment slowly ebbed beyond back to source, and what was left, like scattered trails of red crabs, a few long living folks and empty spaces undone.

GRIEF remained. Projects incompleted, consultations between owners and miners,the heirarchy of investors untouched by the GRIEF of unfulfilled dreams of families.Hmmmmm

Tides come bringing new possiblities, life lines sing songs of the wounds of families and men grieve, daring to hope once more.  Wounds are masked. Investments in stuff seems to outlast investments in charity and goodness and love….Until now.

Endings are unfolding, creations impulses are rising again as enough of USreturn to curiousity and love.  Enough of us GRIEVE the disappointments,the despair of generations leaving space for dolphins to return to oceans waters.  In the warmth of sunlight, children return with families to play in the pockmarkedholes of outgoing tidal sands, basking in those gritty holes detoxifying the sorrowbodies of those unfelt pains.  Children run with dogs and strip naked paddling bare feet steadily along those sands of times and tides and what miracles are revelled in as we see a RETURN.

We are itchy to return as well to childlike wonder, nakedness calling for mirrors of reflections so that intimacy re emerges! We are longing to swim upstream with salmon and return to source waters with mighty tails forging pathways up rapids and rivers.  Returning to breeding waters, shapeshifted into full bellies and long hooked snouts, salmon just follow instinctual knowings as ONE with all salmon.Waters welcome this great cocreationary mythic poem of life itself.

Tides and salmon and women’s blood comes and goes with these full flowering blood moons.  All woven , interconnected, women generously are returning to these souls purposes, guardians and keepers of the eggs of future cultures.  Women are returning to VISION QUESTING upon the lands of earth, remembering our common wombs and blood.  Women are recovering from heirarchical industries of no consultation or mutual respect for HER and claiming the RITUALS of starmaidens, of first sex, of partnering, of marrying, of mothering. And Grandmothers are holding this BUNDLE of the Thirteen Moons with fierce protectiveness, for tenderness is the way of women emerging.

Souls and bodies invaded long ago or recently, bodies excavated , invested in,prostituted, used and just cast aside, all is being GRIEVED these moonthly ways.And the GRIEF returns us to the incoming tidal waters of rebearthing and returning to HER that SHE may hold us, breathe us up and inwards, that we are now unmasked and being held naked as the babes rolling in these sands of time.

Left unfinished, like this condominium project, sistars are gathering and cocreating sacred containers for GRIEF! Misspent youth, loss of rites of passage,forgotten vows of mothers to daughters, these are grieved, that all may experience good and fulfilled life and easeful death.

These lunar rituals, circles, large and small gathering raise frequencies for all beings; more than young humans, all manner of creation experience the coming together again of wildhearted women.  Sistars leaving luxury liners, women leaving convenience and comfortableness, wives remembering souls truths and purposes of our blood and cycles WITH our MOONS WITH our OCEANS WITH our WATERS WITH our EARTH!

In her 4 -5 billion years of orbitting within the vast space of this universe, our planetary system called earth has continued to reveal, like a piece of great art,consequences of our perceptions, results of our behaviours, and SHE is emerging through millions of women recircling, remembering, leading, guiding this grand return and rebearth!

SHE offers us medicines for these times of transitions and transmutations:zeolite from salt waters and volcanic rock as antidotes for heavy metal detoxification; she offers us aromas as calmants: lavender, chamomile;she offers us remedies for the souls forgetfulness: homeopathic remedies for the roots of amnesia of great spirit; arnica for the aches and pains of jointsneeding the oils of olive, of avocado.  Crystal essences resignaturing our waterswithin, washing away the traumas assumed by our very genetic accordsassist us in our return to HER.  Forest essences carry us back to ponderosa pine for creativity and adventures in living fully.  Ancestral seeds now replanted at Uluru in Australia, assist us all in reclaiming our indigenous roots. Sharing seeds at community gardens is our currensea and VICTORY over the fear of dying unseen.

GRIEF brings us to the spices of life: cardamon, cinnamon, ginger,nutmeg,cloves. Herbs from ancient cultures; ashwaghanda, ginseng, turmeric, peppers,trifala. SHE is the medicine for our grief and dances vibrationally within those seeds, cultivated and cared for, they are the harvestsof generationsof natural healers who truly KNOW THAT THE GREATER VIRUS IS FEAR.

So accepting our incompleteness, acknowledging that information is NOT knowledge and is not WISDOM, we young humans are finally returning to HERwisdom, her ancient seeds, her ancient temples, her sacred sites.  We are inviting destroyed locations to lie fallow like fields, readying them through regeneration for a new seed for new earth sharing ways.

Turning our weapons into rakes and shovels, ploughshares and hand tools,we reincarnate the pioneering spirits and become more resilient, more resourceful,more accepting, that the DEATH GATE has openned for millions not just because of this virus, but rather because we  have forgotten our place in this cyclical nature of life in this universe.

So with humour and with humility may this lunar eclipsia remind usof that which has been hidden: our capacities to love, to listen deeply,to grieve profoundly, to celebrate the narratives of individuals and of familiesand of earths re emergence. May we complete our assignments on this planetbefore we leave,returning back to the starry realms, with the joy and innocenceof our imaginative cocreative childlike wildhearted nature.

May we grieve well in these receding tides and know we are held by HER!