An Ending; and a New Beginning: Musings on Grief

Okay. So. Initiating a Substack newsletter has been on my list-of-things-to-do for several years, but I’ve always been waiting for the perfect time/place/space/way/entry point/topic with which to start. [In other words, I am a recovering perfectionist with an avoidant/disorganized attachment style]. My plan is/was to share occasional posts about dogs (a topic for which I am fairly well known in the world of people who love dogs and love reading about the love of dogs) and about my own personal journey of self-healing. Back in 2017, I was told by the Western doctors that if I didn’t have immediate spinal surgery, I would lose the ability to walk within six months. Then I was told by another doctor that I was not a candidate for spinal surgery, because my bones were too weak. I had what he called a “Ghost Spine.” [And here I must acknowledge that, yes, “Ghost Spine” would make an excellent title and that ghost-spine is also a very apt metaphor for how I have navigated my way through this life].

So there’s that journey (I am still walking, by the way, and my bones have been steadily regenerating for the past seven years, thanks to alternative medicine and mantra-healing and Tibetan Buddhism and all sorts of on-the-fringe healing modalities that work). I have seven years’ worth of insights to share on all THAT.

And then there is my journey as an artist with strong avoidant tendencies. For example, as we speak, my avoidant aspect [a clever saboteur I have named Hulga] is telling me that in NO WAY should I submit this post, given how unedited it is, and given the fact that I have no subscribers, due to the fact that I’m not really on social medial, and I don’t publicize ANYTHING that I write, sing, paint, draw, doodle, regurgitate, etc; so no one even knows yet that I am starting this newsletter; which is all likely due to the fact that I have a tendency to try to keep myself invisible as some sort of reptilian-brain survival mechanism. [And here Hulga is acknowledging that yes, this post is in fact a regurgitation. So be it.]

And then there is my journey as a meditation teacher and mantra singer—a semi-renunciate who keeps trying to “make samsara work” while also recognizing that the very nature of samsara is that is doesn’t work. (Riddle me that one.). What I’m trying to say is: It’s not easy trying to stay sane within an insane system. But perhaps we can all continue to explore this together.

All of this is prelude to my actual post, by the way, which will begin soon. The final thing I wanted to say in this prelude is: my best friend and soul-sister Debsi died of brain cancer last week. And I feel it’s really important to give birth to something NOW, before I get too lost in the realm of loss. So this is for you, my cherished sister. You always said I should write another book. So consider this step one.

If anyone happens to read this—may the blessings of the clear light open your mind and heart to vast wonders. <3

The Bardo of Grieving - 7/12/22

And like that, life goes on for the living. My closest friend in NY--my sister-of-the-heart--died just one week ago and yet here I am, on my way to “work” at the Omega Institute (I have to put that word “work” in quote marks because I teach creative writing-- I let the beauty I love be what I do--which all you Rumi lovers will get), and the strange, surreal quality of returning to “normal” after such a profound loss has me thinking of Auden’s poem “Funeral Blues,” with the opening line: “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone....”

This “returning to normal”--it’s almost like coming down from a plant medicine journey--that moment when you see clearly where the world we think we have subscribed to is actually false; that the real reality is just beyond some shimmering veil that we get glimpses of when we slow down enough and open our hearts enough to truly feel it. And I must say I WAS in what felt like an altered realty last week, sitting at my friend’s bedside in hospice, with her consciousness already half in the world beyond, and a radiance filling the room. And me wondering why we humans only truly feel that radiance when we are arriving (birth) or leaving (death) and what can be done about that, given that there are so, so many years in between.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve been grieving since I was born.

But life beckons, and I am supposed to be teaching creative writing. A voice inside me says: You shouldn’t be teaching poetry; you’re too sad. You’re stunted by grief. Your life force has slowed to a near halt. Your flame is barely a pilot light. The voice insists: How can you inspire students to write if you yourself feel no inspiration? Another little voice says: But this is a poetry class; does not most poetry have its origins in pain? (Hey, I went to graduate school for creative writing, so I know). And another voice says no; the best poetry has its origins in beauty. Poetry is the expansion of beauty. It’s a combustive medium. And then another voice says: “Combustive medium!?! Stop mentalizing everything and just BE.” [This is life inside my head.] And that that first voice says: but for you to BE means to be in grief. And the highest voice says: that’s perfectly okay. Grief is a part of life. One could even argue that grief in this particular era--in which we are witnessing the decline of basic human goodness, the death of so many beautiful species on this beleaguered planet--is the new normal. The highest voice says: To merely be born onto this planet means to accept that we exist in a realm that includes suffering, and our job is to find our way back to bliss while at the same time acknowledging and accepting the suffering. That last bit is key (this is me--mentalizing me--saying that). Just acknowledge. Just accept.

Our capitalistic, patriarchal, militaristic culture here in the West wants us to pretend that everything should be fresh and shiny, and if it isn’t, we should eliminate it. Or pretend it doesn’t exist.

But there is so much beauty in things that aren’t fresh and shiny. There is beauty, even, in decay. Because there is just as much truth in decay as there is in freshness. And, as Keats already told us: truth is beauty, beauty is truth. Think about that.

We now have something in this world called “Bereavement Leave” which is a set period time in which people are allowed to tuck themselves away and mourn--perhaps tidily. In secret. So as not to disturb the “normal” people. So as not to disturb all the people who are trying to pretend that their lives are fresh and shiny and sharing all that pretense on Instagram (note: I am saying this lovingly; not with scorn). I am not disparaging bereavement leave; I think it’s beautiful that our culture finally recognizes--or rather, remembers-- the importance of ritual mourning.

What I question is that we set an end point to grief; we decide at a certain point that it’s time to “get on with it.” But maybe there is no true “getting on with it.” Maybe, one could argue (there’s that “one” arguing again) life itself is a form of bereavement leave. For those of us who believe we are divine spirits who have temporarily left a heavenly realm to spend a bit of time in a human body in this shoddy Earth School to learn essential lessons before returning once again to our true home of Divine Source...well, it’s understandable that we would always feel a low-grade sense of longing or loss. The longing is a momentum that propels us toward love. So perhaps grief, too, is a momentum that propels us toward love, toward community, toward continuity.

In Tibetan medicine, there is an understanding that nothing should be suppressed--not sneezing, not passing gas, not destructive emotions, not sorrow. Things in motion must be allowed to complete their motion. So if any of you out there are feeling temporarily sad, I say: be sad. Let it flow. Let it flow in a way that, to the best of your ability, does not cause harm to others, but understand that sorrow, too, is an energy that needs to move through you and beyond you; if you suppress it or deny it, well; that is not the best resolution. Is it possible to love and honor the sorrow as much as we love and honor the joy?

Remember, too, that grief--like everything else in this cyclical life--is part of a cycle. Think of how many times in a day we experience mini births/deaths/rebirths/re-deaths/bardos, etc. I’ve been aware for decades that there is still a part of me that has been continually cycling through grief almost daily since I was young. Most of this stems from the ongoing, mostly unresolved grief of losing my mother at a young age, and having to suppress that grief because of the societal and family systems I was raised within. I’m also constantly cycling through the more current, ongoing grief of not feeling a sense of belonging within those systems. (And here, the highest voice reminds me that there is no “they” or “them:” only us. The highest voice reminds me about Right View--to not think in terms of duality).

I often wonder if this quality (of eternally cycling grief) freaks people out. Or if this quality is what draws certain kinds of people to me. I don’t know. But it’s a cycle. I keep saying this--it’s part of life, it’s part of the cycle. And it cultivates compassion. Anyone who visits the dark realms returns with yet more empathy for other people’s moments of darkness.

So I truly appreciate those who bring their grief --with all its messiness and awkwardness--out into the world, into day-to-day life. I encounter too many people who are pretending to be happy because they think that is what is “expected” of them. What is required. But this is pretense, and pretense, in my humble opinion, is also a form of suppression. Isn’t there a way to honor our pain without fetishizing it? Can’t we find that fine line between being authentic and not being seen as a “downer?”

I think of how my Tibetan teachers--the great masters of my lineage -- will talk about the suffering of human existence and then burst out laughing. They can laugh because they take an expansive view - Rigpa -that sees beyond the trappings of an unawakened mind.

So I will bring my sad, cyclical self to the classroom, knowing that grief is simply another authentic starting point from which to create. And knowing that the key word is “authentic.”

The great doctor, visionary, and culture-shaker Gabor Maté said recently that “Authenticity isn’t a spiritual concept. Authenticity is a survival necessity.”

So, yes. Let’s bring it on. Bring your messy, grieving, glorious selves to this table, and let us break the proverbial bread together. And let it all flow.