Grief Ritual at Muir Beach
On coming home to yourself
Sometimes home feels like a long ways away
Sometimes life gets so full you forget to see yourself
Sometimes you’re so focused on what’s out there that you forget about what’s in here
Yesterday I attended a Grief Ritual at the Ocean guided by Zahava Griss who’s beloved teacher is Sobonfu Somé, one of the foremost teachers in African spirituality. Sobonfu held a vision for grief rituals to be shared in the U.S as she saw we needed these rituals more than her own village.
“For my people, the Dagara tribe of Burkina Faso in West Africa, we see that in life it is necessary to grieve those things that no longer serve us and let them go. When I grieve I am surrounded by family reassuring me that the grieving is worthwhile and I can grieve as much as I want. We experience conflicts, loved ones die or suffer, dreams never manifest, illnesses occur, relationships break up, and there are unexpected natural disasters. It is so important to have ways to release those pains to keep clearing ourselves. Hanging on to old pain just makes it grow until it smothers our creativity, our joy, and our ability to connect with others. It may even kill us. Often my community uses grief rituals to heal wounds and open us to spirit’s call.” ~ Sobonfu
This ritual was powerful. One of the most powerful ceremonies and generous gifts I’ve received to date. This ritual gave me a much needed opportunity to honor, name, purge and release all of the grief I’ve been holding within me.
While feelings like sadness, anger, hurt and grief can seem really heavy, uncomfortable, and untouchable, what I learned from this ritual is that at the bottom of the bundle is the most exquisite peace.
I feel lighter, calmer, more centered, more myself.
When we grieve we honor the human condition.
We honor all that we have loved and lost.
Through sharing our grief, we see that we are not alone in our pain.
In yesterday’s ritual, I learned about the Seven Gates of Grief inspired by the work of Francis Weller and Sobonfu Some:
1.) Personal loss - everything we love we will lose, everything we know is impermanent and will be gone
2.) Personal despair - when we long for something and don’t think it’s possible (ex. a peaceful world, partnership, parenthood)
3.) Dreams departed - what we long for and expected but it didn’t happen
4.) Collective grief - the sorrows of the world (white supremacy, racial injustice, economic inequality, the climate crisis)
5.) Ancestral - Our ancestors unfinished business
6.) Compounded grief - accumulated, happening over and over like waves crashing
7.) and of course ANGER….which is only unprocessed grief.
I felt my heart breaking over and over and witnessed myself putting the pieces back together again. The loves I’ve lost. The souls I passed on. The ways I’ve failed. The way I’ve been failed. All the patterns and toxicity within me. My thorns and my roses. The collective violence, destruction, injustices and terror of the world.
I felt what’s mine. I felt what’s others. I felt my lineage blood and spirit.
And through expressing my grief, I cleared space to come home to myself. And it feels like I haven’t come home like this in a really long time.
“In today’s world, most of us carry grief and do not even know it. We have been trained at a very young age how not to feel. In the West we are often taught that to be good girls and boys we have to “suck it up.” The consequences are that even with your most intimate and trustworthy friends you might feel like, “I am burdening them.” Crying in front of others is too often a forbidden fruit. We learn to compartmentalize our grief because expressing it in an unwelcoming place will only lead to more grief. We are taught that the people who are closest to us have no way of holding us when we fall apart.
Yet we are born fully knowing how to grieve. We cry naturally to feel better, to unburden ourselves and take a few pounds off our shoulders and souls.
Communal grieving offers something that we cannot get when we grieve by ourselves. Through validation, acknowledgement and witnessing, communal grieving allows us to experience a level of healing that is deeply and profoundly freeing. Each of us has a basic human right to that genuine love, happiness and freedom.” ~ Sobonfu
So thank you Zahava Griss, Sobonfu, all the angels, helpers, drummers and friends. Thank you Mazin Jamal for being right there with me
Thank you for helping me heal my grieving heart.
Thank you for taking me to the waters of the soul.
Thank you for showing me that grief belongs in love.
#grief #griefritual #healing #heroinesjourney #yearofsoul
magic: Corie Bidgood Photography
Learn more: http://www.sobonfu.com/.../writings-by.../embracing-grief/
