Sadness and grief come from so many directions and so many conditions, times and circumstances; the internal landscape as well as the external. In working with clients one of the most entrenched situations I encounter is the inability to grieve. When I give a workshop or retreat, one of the greatest blocks in the participants ability to receive the dynamic energies is their unexpressed grief.
Often, they don't even know this.
Our world is not kind to our grief; it does not invite it with warmth, curiosity or patience. So there is simply so much, held in the body for so many years that sometimes to try and touch it feels paralyzingly overwhelming....
One of the kindest and most honest gifts you can give another person is your steadfast, vulnerable presence. When you are open to your own losses and can mourn in the way of water, meaning taking the path of least resistance and allowing the flow to move and eddy as it will, then you open a door for others as well if they are ready. No force. No expectations. No need to have anything happen. Trust arises in pure, undisguised presence and open state of "don't know."
In relaxing the barriers to what you really feel, you open the conduit between yourself and the Earth as well. And this is where there are great resources for one's spirit despite external circumstances, for the heart of our Earth is uncritical and emanates great Joy and she can remind and entrain us by her songs.
So, I grieve with all that is happening on and to my dear Mother Earth. But even as she so readily accepts my tears, what I receive back and learn from her is the way of Joy. I am not familiar with the Mother Earth who is so often defined as being in despair or angry or vengeful. I do sense the awareness for all the neglect and abuse she receives from us, but that is a lesser quality compared to the unimaginable power and knowing she has, and her ability to resource herself in ways we rarely consider. She is a true Boddhisatva, a master, and she has her own mysterious connection to creative power in the Web of Life that our human mind, historical perspectives, future fore-tellings and emotional patterns have a hard time imagining, accepting or even understanding.
So today, in grief, I sit here surrounded by the friendliest trees. Each one seems to be beaming quite specifically and personally at me and seems to preen and shine brighter from my attention and praise. In this relationship, the trees teach gratitude, which for me is the foundation of the nature of true Joy. And they show me how Joy grows on the inside, like the concentric layers of the innocent, wise and vibrant tree, or it's roots thrusting down into dark rich soil. The joy grows without being seen for how it happens, but it shows through in the bright gleam of the leaves, the flexible, playful sway of the branches, the strength of the bark, the generosity of its refuge, the life-giving oxygen that is freely shared with anyone and all. This Joy comes unbidden--we don't have to seek it or buy it, barter or beg. It is a gift from Mother Earth and from the Great Spirit of Love to each of us, daily, to receive or not in the circle of relationship. If we only knew how deeply loved and held we are and how much our attention, care and partnership is being asked for, we would be expressing our Joy, freely everyday, in sight of the river of grief.....and we'd be aligned with Mother Earth, the nature of our soul and all that is.
My body, greening, happily......