Contacting the Spirits

All Souls Day, Nov. 2

Today we honor those who have shown up at crucial times in our lives and helped us survive. The roots of the observance are thousands of years old in a time when people tried to ward off Death and the wandering, malevolent spirits that took family and friends away, often without warning. While modern medicine has subdued some of these spirits, we still fear the long-leggedy beasties and queasy, uneasy, things that go bump in the night. Too many people we love die unexpectedly, and too many die young for us to rest easy.

Talking to Trees

When a friend received bad news about her cancer, I thought, “I’ll go out and talk to the trees.”

Bear with me a moment. I used to light candles, think of those who needed support, and prayed. I sometimes still do, but talking to the trees seemed to be the right thing to do here.

Faith and Grieving

If you’re grieving and a person of faith, no matter what religion you follow, you are probably torn between how you think you should feel and how you actually do. You sense a distance between the assurance of faith and the raw emotions of death. 

An Honest Journey Through Grief

What we want from a memoir, when matters of life and death are involved, is honesty. We don’t want sugar. Sugar doesn’t give us real hope. Sugar melts away when tears begin to fall. We want truth because we know that one day we will face what they have gone through, and we want to know how to survive. 

Elaine Mansfield’s book, Leaning Into Love, is honest about her husband’s struggles with cancer and chemotherapy, her tiredness of trying to help, and her struggle with grief and beginning a new life alone.

Clowns Are Bearers of Compassion

I like clowns. Some people don’t. Maybe they’re thinking of birthday clowns who entertain children and make squeaky balloon animals. Or the demented creeps who terrorize the woods. Or maybe the neo-fascist I-hate-people clowns. If this is the case with you, then think about fools instead. Fools like Buster Keaton, who, through his innocence and vulnerability, made us laugh and changed the world around him. Shakespeare had his rustic fools.

Hiking Through Grief

            When men grieve, they often need to do something physical to help them along. Some men build things with their hands. I go hiking. My goal each day was to reach a scenic viewpoint, but more importantly I wanted to find a place along the way where I connected to something solid and real.

            In the months after my wife’s death, home was an unending flurry of details, doubts and despair, and I was unable to focus on anything for very long. Buddhism calls this “monkey mind,” when hundreds of thoughts are screeching, chattering, and jumping around, wanting my attention.

Bang the Drum

From a hard time, the need to share the depths of grief.

Bang the Drum: Elegy for the Grieving. {poetry} http://www.rebellesociety.com/2016/07/26/markliebenow-drum/

Searching For Joy

Grief, Play, and Religion

Joy is really hard to muster when we’re grieving.

So is smiling. And if we let ourselves feel any joy, we then feel incredibly guilty for taking pleasure in something that our loved ones no longer can. In the beginning of grief, it’s a struggle just to get through the day.

Compassion is a River

How do we kindle compassion for others? And how do we as ordinary people (as well as hospice workers, home caregivers, grief counselors, and palliative care people) prevent compassion burnout? 

A few of my thoughts published in Mindful Matter:  https://www.holstee.com/blogs/mindful-matter/54387205-compassion-is-a-river

Riding Shotgun With Grief

Exploring Your Grief

Many of us go into nature to unwind and be refreshed. Some of us go into the wilderness to work our way through a problem that befuddles us at home. Yet when we try to talk to others about what we are discovering in nature, or how our experiences there are transforming us, we find it hard to express this in words.

Where the Dead Pause

Book: Where the Dead Pause and the Japanese Say Goodbye, Marie Mutsuki Mockett

            Marie Mutsuki Mockett’s Where the Dead Pause and the Japanese Say Goodbye is a sumptuous book, filled with details and insights into Japanese history, culture, and spirituality. Marie grew up in the United States to an American father and a Japanese mother. As she is dealing with grief over the death of her father, she returns to Japan after the tsunami to bury the bones of her grandfather and explore how the Japanese grieve.

We Are Rivers in Spring

Signs of recovery, or are we just thawing?

When we are stuck smack dap in the midst of grief’s armpit, it’s hard to tell if we’re making any progress or if we’re slowly slipping back into the yak morass. There is so much movement backward, spinning in circles, and being yanked off on detours that we don’t seem to be getting anywhere. The parade of Life is passing us by and we’re waiting for an unscheduled bus to appear and pick us up.

* If you would like to read the rest of this post, let me know and I’ll send it to you. *

     *
One Breath Out, my essay on grief, breathing, Pema Chodron, and Tonglen meditation has been published by The Manifest Station.

 http://themanifeststation.net/2015/05/17/one-breath-out/

Comfort in a Time of Grief

There is little comfort when we’re deep in grief. When we’re done actively grieving, it’s different. But not completely, and it comes so slowly.

It will never be all right with me that Evelyn suffered for years with physical aches and pains, worked hard to recover and was almost back to full health when she died of an unknown heart problem. She was only in her forties when she died. I was bitter about that then, and I’m bitter about that now.

* If you would like to read the rest of this post, let me know and I’ll send it to you. *

            (A version of this was first published by Refuge in Grief.)

Grief a Month In

Journal entry 12      

My grief hasn’t gone away.

People around me said they thought I would be over my grief after one month. It’s not. In fact, it’s worse. I feel like I've barely started. This is going to be a long journey and not something that I can jump over. 

I feel no gratitude for anything good that happened in the past, so please do not talk to me about feeling joy that Ev was in my life for 18 years. I might feel that eventually, but not today. Not today.

* If you would like to read the rest of this post, let me know and I’ll send it to you. *