Reflections of Grief
by Michelle Katz
Through the dense and snowy junipers and the growing night just outside my bedroom window, a light suddenly come on in the distance. It is glowing brightly right in my line of sight. I wondered if it was a reflection from me just turning on the light, but it is not. It just sits out there, mysterious to me. It’s small but prominent and seems to be flickering as if the cold and dark are in battle with its warm glow. Like a candle frame on windy dark night. I cannot help but resonate with this battle.
My current bout with grief began in early autumn, when the leaves were changing colors and just beginning to fall off the trees. When I took myself to lay on the earth and parts of the ground were still warm as it held me. When I took myself out to a cabin in the middle of nowhere so I can go out and scream and wail with my sorrow. A time when I felt I could call on my community and they could come to surround me and witness my grief when I was ready or more so, when I wasn’t ready but needed it most. Now the snow has come, the earth cold to lay on and the holidays have my allies called to family. I feel the quiet of my grief now.
The stages of grief move through us in a pace that is completely out of our control. The seasons have changed and I wonder how much I have distracted myself in the past months, how much I busied myself with work and commitments, and hid from myself with too many outings and distraction in isolation. Only to feel that next season come in an abrupt way. Time has moved and the silencing of the landscape had me wake up with that familiar feeling, visited by the overwhelm of grief. The I-will-not-leave-bed-island-all-day sort of grief. The time-passes-and-I-have-no-sense-of-it grief. The all-I-can-do-is-cry-or-stare grief. The everything-around-me-is-silence grief. The I-feel-utterly-alone grief. The denial-bargaining-sorrow-and-repeat grief. The my-heart-cannot-possibly-take-this grief. But it can, and it does, and grows even more resilient.
Nature teaches me a way through, as always. The snow covers the landscape and it seems like nothing can flourish or grow. Seems like the whole earth is hibernating under this blanket, it’s breath shallow and soft, quietly questioning life.
The landscape seems to be mirroring my grief. At times it feels like I am not able to flourish or show up fully, but for a single bud that sticks out miraculously above the snowline, saying, “I’m here, there is much more of me, it’s not able to be seen right now, the rest of me need times in the dark.”
The sunlight is bright and glowing, though the night approaches quicker now and the clouds cover parts of the light. On the other side of the sky a storm is brewing in its dark greys and purples, contrasting with the snow covered landscape even more. I am reminded of how so much exists at once. How nothing is completely dark and nor completely light just as I know grief and love are truly elements of the same experiences.
Months have passed since the beginning of my current round with grief and I feel like I am back at the beginning again. It’s a strange thing grief does. As a friend put it, “We can wake up and spend all day climbing a tree only to realize at the end of the day we are still at the bottom, sitting on the earth.” We live in a culture that revels in continuous motion. Winter offers us the much needed pause; the invitation to silence and solitude. I am taking this time to pay attention to what I hold close to the heart. My grief has lived through a season, and in its way, matured and passed into the silence and solitude of this season.
I sense this season asks me to fully embrace the grief journey, to see my unwillingness to cross that threshold, to notice my avoidance of the silence as it amplifies the depth of my loss. It is in the ceasing of doing that I know I will reach a new level of intimacy with grief, by being open to what is present. (I feel the difficulty of this as I love doing. I really have to force myself to stop.) It is not easy to step into grief, to give grief our attention and affection, to humble ourselves, to feel our deep aloneness. Silence is a process of letting go, or emptying space. So that we can see the howling of our heart, and feel the bittersweet memories of our love, the artifacts of betrayal, and the truth of impermanence. In silence we remember again how love and loss are intricately and beautifully woven together. When we know this place well, the person we wish to present to the world gets stripped away. Grief takes us, it’s agenda is different than ours. We become wild and we must find a way to be devout to ourselves, wholeheartedly faithfully committed to our process. Allowing grief to seep in means to feel the heaviness in our chest, to carry its weight in our shoulders, to feel it in our bellies and in the muscles that grow weaker every moment and to feel it rest into our bones and the marrow of our bones. This is how we know we have truly let it in. To endure grief is to know ourselves more fully, to feel the weight of who we are, for in grief we have humbled ourselves completely.
The weight of the snow on the branches of juniper, pinon and chamisa has the whole plant life bowing down humbly. Though a single flake on its own feels light and fluffy, accumulated it weighs the boughs down, almost too much for it to bare, if not for its incredible flexibility and desire to live.
I feel grief accumulating overtime inside me, growing heavy and having me bow humbly to the ground, testing my flexibility to be with what is and my passion for this life.
I remember that in time, as seasons change, because seasons always change and we can count on that, the snow will melt, the buoyancy of the plants will be revealed and the snow will melt to its feet and provide for so much of its continual growth.
Grief offers us the same reward.
How intimate do you get to be with grief and yourself? Explore grief and the cycles or human nature with Oaks Counsel.