Tuesday 11 October 2016

Grief is the Gate

When I am sad, as I am just now, my mind often turns more deeply to Will, my Deptford boy, river man, and broken love, and all that we went through together. It is a blessing to be loved in all worlds but it is also hard to give enough time to grief and the depth of the journey when there is a new someone to love. I am filled with gratitude both for that love and for anything that opens my heart a little more to the grieving, and which gives the space for tears that feed from that deep well. More and more I see the connections that Will made for me, with the heart of the land that he loved and fought so hard to live on in his own way and on his own terms, with music which is where I so often find him, and with love itself. He taught me what meadowsweet tastes like, how to gather and cook with comfrey and three-cornered garlic, how to live on, and listen to, the water, find shade beneath the leaves of butterbur, how to sit quietly with the earth, how to fight for my lifeHe named me 'Honeybee' and we met and he died at Imbolc when the wild swan was flying. I taught him to see the beauty of herons even when he was sad. That kingfishers matter. And I loved him. He was an extraordinary man and I am scarred and blessed by my relationship with him and by his passing. I am grateful for it all. I see how this life that we have built around us conspires to shut down our hearts and I know more and more that that is what I must write about; the brokenness and the mending of our disconnection with the Land, which is our deepest love and our deepest loss. Will understood and is in so many ways my guide. Grief keeps my heart open. Grief is the gate.

Let us honour all our beloved dead, who take us to the edge and invite us to step through, and the beloved living, who hold the thread of our return.

"There are those, however, that are not frightened of grief: dropping deep into the sorrow, they find therein a necessary elixir to the numbness. When they encounter one another, when they press their foreheads against the bark of a centuries-old tree...their eyes well with tears that fall easily to the ground. The soil needs this water. Grief is but a gate, and our tears a kind of key opening a place of wonder thats been locked away. Suddenly we notice a sustaining resonance between the drumming heart within our chest and the pulse rising from the ground"

-David Abram

(Image: Kelly Louise Judd https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/swanbones)




9 comments:

  1. Beautiful words. And I love David Abram's writing.

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  2. Thank you, Therese. Me too. Often I find just the right words from him when I need them, and the same with Gary Snyder and Mary Oliver.

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  3. The last line of the quote is just perfect - especially for this time of year... As the leaves fall, our tears fall, and I think our connection to Earth is stronger than any other time of the year. Yes, grief is but a gate - thank you x

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    1. Yes, it is such a wonderful quote and explains just what I had been thinking myself. It is always magical when just the right quote comes at the right time. Thank you so much for reading, Claire.

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  4. Lovely, I am now following your blog. I need a social media free winter so have hilariously signed out of Twitter after 2 hours of compulsing. I do want to keep in touch with some folk though, you being one. I know you're busy so i'll just be reading and maybe commenting here from time to time. Best of well wishes xxx Miss birds and bees

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    1. A beautiful post! X wish I had read it earlier before commenting all over it. Love x

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    2. Dear Miss Birds and Bees. It is a privilege to have any words of yours here, wherever they may have chosen to perch, and I am so so glad that you are following my blog. I am hoping to write more soon and it is lovely knowing that you will/might read it. A social media free winter sounds perfect to me. Sending love to your wild wings and your honey-making magic xxx

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  5. You are such the kind, generous, wonderful woman and I am very glad to have discovered you. I will definitely be reading your blog, and I do believe I still have a few pasts posts to catch up on :) Love to you and yours. Stay cosy xxx

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    1. Thank you so much, Mr/Ms Anonymous. I have only just seen this comment, for which I apologise, but it was lovely to find it today and I am so pleased that you found my blog. I hope that you have enjoyed catching up and that your winter has been blessed with much loveliness xxx

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Thank you so much for taking the time to comment. I genuinely do appreciate and value what you have to say. For some reason I am currently struggling to reply but I am reading everything you say and I am grateful. I will work on the replying!