Sacred Grief

It's a tender time. I want to go inward, to nurture and soothe. I want to fast forward past this part. It's a month-long portal. September 21st to October 20th. Almost exactly Libra season. The beginning of autumn. My son's birthday and death day. If I skip it will it not be real? Can I pretend it didn't happen? I can try but the reality is it did, this is my life now.

Fall was always my favorite season. For a few years I dreaded it. This portal, this passage of time - to remember his birth, his life and his death. All of it you can't skip the good parts or the hard parts. That's the deal. As humans we get all of it. The full range of emotions. Sometimes I question that. Did I really sign up for this course on Earth School? Did I know it would be this hard but also this beautiful. Glennon Doyle has a word - “brutiful,” life is brutal and it's beautiful. I get that now. 

What to do with this tenderness, all this emotion and grief and love and anger and joy? Feel it all. Allow it all. It's the Human Experience. As an embodied person we get to have all these big juicy feelings. They are not bad or good, they just are.

On the Celtic medicine wheel we are in the west direction this time of year. This is the emotional realm; water is the element that rules here. This is the Autumn time. The time when we harvest but also put the gardens to rest for the winter. It's a time to go inward. It's also a time to connect to our loved ones in spirit. They say the veil is thin this time of year and it's easier to connect. Celtic guides for this direction include salmon, jaguar, nymphs and selkies. This is the time to embrace the sunset at the end of the bright summer sun. A light dimming, moving towards the darker time of the year. 

So, if you're feeling tender right now it's the season for that. Emotions can be tricky; they can run the show if we aren't paying attention. If you're feeling watery, grief or perhaps the collective sadness in the world, you are not alone. Whether it's a personal grief - a loved one, a relationship or a way of life - grief is a universal emotion. The universal Passage. If you are a human you know grief in some way shape or form. Your grief is sacred. Your grief is present because you have loved. There's a morning there. Something or someone lost.

My heart knows this space well. I have traveled the grief road for 4 years now. It's still tender at times. The path it's taken me on is quite wild and I don't always know where it's leading. I trust the breadcrumbs to arrive. Great Spirit, guides, ancestors and loved ones on the other side provide support, guidance and encouragement. They are always with me for my highest good and my highest purpose. Yours are too; they are here for you.