“To honour our grief, to grant it space and time in our frantic world, is to fulfil a covenant with soul – to welcome all that is, thereby granting room for our most authentic life.”
Francis Weller 'The Wild Edge Of Sorrow'
Spring has truly arrived and green blooming hope cracks through the pavements of life. Something in the cells knows it's time to get moving, to stretch, dream and expand.
Except maybe we stall. We stare at the sunlight and feel unknown, a shell surrounding our senses as a new circadian year gathers pace.
We are grieving.
When my sister Gemma passed away in 2023 it was February, the liminal time of late Wintering. Christmas with its lights and desperate celebrations had passed and we were in the hard lane of losing her.
Still on the Spring Equinox I stepped into the glistening shocking sea and felt christened somehow. I had a sense of resilience and believed I could emerge from the trauma and maintain a spiritual perspective.
I didn't doubt for a second there was more to this journey than a body cremated and a sibling tragically gone and with Spring glowing bright it felt easier to sway towards an expansive and hopeful understanding.
However, as the year unfolded I learnt how feral and subversive grief can be. How it can hide in the animal body and erupt. I also discovered how important it was to embrace seasonal grieving.
”We shake with joy, we shake with grief.
What a time they have, these two
housed as they are in the same body."
― Mary Oliver, 'Devotions'
Losing a loved one can involve tremendous amounts of emotional and physical distress. It can be incredibly taxing for the body.
It's essential we take a somatic approach to the grieving journey so that we do not hold on to stuck emotions and states of trauma freeze, especially when dealing with prolonged illness, family dynamics and for some multiple bereavements within a year.
There are many wonderful emotional support services available for those experiencing a bereavement but something that helped me immediately was medical herbalism. My hormones were shot to hell with the stress and I needed professional support to rebalance them.
My local herbalist Yeli Williams took a full consultation assessing sleep, menstruation, diet etc as well as offering a kind, listening ear.
Recognising our health as a holistic and cyclical system is wise and grounding. With any bereavement or loss we really need that. Our ancient ancestors knew this wisdom of honouring the seasons within us and followed these rhythms during their own life journey.
It's also an intelligent mirroring of the nervous system and the natural sequencing needed for healthy releasing of trauma (caveat: healing C-PTSD trauma requires slow capacity building and is not the same as moments of strong cathartic release).
Spring Grief Tending
Seeing grief through the lens of the seasons can help us hold space for its myriad expressions and how to support its unfolding.
Spring has a bright dynamic energy where we may feel more philosophical and spiritually open to new perspectives about dying.
This can include an acceptance of the Otherworld, the unseen dimensions where the soul returns and includes our ancestors. As the weather warms we're naturally inclined to be outdoors and this is where we often connect with them (rituals and meditations with candles and the fire element is great too).
Why? Because the natural world is our shared language.
When a kestrel soars across our eye line or the wind gently strokes the cheek these are the experiences our ancient kin knew. It's what Romany Chivaho teacher Patrick Jaspar Lee relates as the 'common wild tongue' and it allows us to connect more through the elements.
Summer is also a time of being out there, sharing and socialising more. The natural world mirrors abundance back to us and we may find it easier to reach out to others...or not. It can paradoxically jar as we see the world dancing in the sun and we're not feeling it.
And then comes Autumn - the grief awakener. A time of catalyst, gathering in the harvest of clarity as we slowly move through illusion to reach the truth.
This was where the rubber of grief hit the road of rawness for me.
As the skies grew darker in the Northern Hemisphere I felt an upsurge of repressed rage and deeper questioning. What needed to leave my life fell like leaves to the ground.
For a recurring aspect of grief is the confusion. Temporality can fade.
Ancestral traumas may surface and relational dynamics that are not truly balanced are revealed. We may uncover truths about ourselves and the deceased that suddenly feel more present than any recent physical memory we have of them.
We may live in those memories, scratching to make sense of it all.
Attending Five Rhythm dance groups where I could be present with this in my body and share in circle was crucial for allowing this raw powerful energy to move through me.
Autumn is bold in colour, all the reds, oranges and yellows of the lower chakras that point towards the power of the pelvis.
So I would recommend finding something regular and with others that supports your whole self through the journey - mind, body and soul.
'Contrary to our fears, grief is suffused with life force...it is not a state of deadness or emotional flatness. Grief is alive, wild, untamed and cannot be domesticated. It resists the demands to remain passive and still.' Francis Weller
Grief is radical.
It brings forth who we truly are in our hearts and it may not fit the life we've created and/or the society we live in, especially if our culture is grief-phobic and communal tribal thinking has largely been lost.
It takes courage to stand in your truth. To refuse to play meek and conventional so others can temporarily feel bigger and more secure.
Grief can hold tremendous psychic energy and to bypass it and remain in the Summer of perpetual positivity or hyper busyness doesn't allow space for its authenticity to surface.
And then we go into Winter. A time when our bodies need to rest more and inner truth surfaces in the silence of slower embodiment.
A time when we may contemplate our mortality and the web of life.
When we mourn the losses even deeper and the soul trusts what the wounded heart cannot see ahead - a new Spring.
It's important to remember grief doesn't need to be a physical death of a loved one. It can be an upsurge of parts of ourselves long neglected or hidden.
It can result from any kind of loss (whether individual or collective) or a major life transition. It can paradoxically arise right when we feel settled, like a seed of repressed pain sprouting out of our safe arrival.
Francis Weller's Five Gates Of Grief are a tender opening into where we may hold grief that needs to be expressed.
The Gifts Of Grief
Grief led me to the seals of Winterton-on-Sea.
Grief led me to understand the impact of birth trauma.
Grief led me to fully release people pleasing tendencies through healthy grieving like Autumn leaves gently falling.
Grief can cut through falsehoods and take us on an instinctive journey to where our soul needs to reside. It can sieve through fear and stand up for joy as a birthright to true authentic living.
There are things I miss about my sister. What stands out for me is her outspokenness and bold humour and so I celebrate those qualities where ever I find them now.
I feel them as characteristics growing within me as if her essence has been released into the winds of time for those who knew her.
I was gifted an intention by my ancestors that Spring Equinox sea day I didn't fully comprehend at the time - I was going to live this first year of grief through the turning of seasons and the full wisdom of my body.
As the cyclical wheel turns once more I give thanks to their foresight.
Thanks for reading ✨
Note: If you are struggling with a bereavement and experiencing suicidal feelings please seek immediate professional support.
The Samaritans, CRUSE and The Good Grief Network are all wonderful organisations to support you during this challenging time. I would also check out the wonderful community work of St Michael's Hospice.
Photo of painting by Catherine Kay Greenup on Unsplash