The call to grieve

23. This is how old I was when I lost my dad. Life changed forever. He was a man with great authority and integrity, but in a quiet and gentle way. In the end he had lost the battle with depression. A disease that is eating away at the core of many families at this time.

I understood and granted him the liberation from the diseased material body. Free to fly and finally at peace.

I realised I now had the baton fully in hand and needed to craft my own unique path. Who am I and what would that entail?

This year all my kids – both batches that is – lost their dads within 2 months of each other. Double tragedy in a short span of time. The shock. The immediate disbelief as we wrestle with reality. Also a third nuclear family member left this plane… last granny standing.

So a year of great loss and deep shifts. As a family in mourning, we have a sad year to look back on and new life to contemplate without these important souls to rely on. Nobody will ever be the same.

 

We grieve because we have loved so deeply and are bold and brave enough to march through the fire for our beloveds. We can also connect our grief with the greater grief pervasive on this planet.

We think of those in the war-torn areas and the immensity of their loss. How desperately sad it must be to live in those dangerous circumstances. Connect with all the mothers across the planet who cannot feed their children – surely this breaks their hearts. People who go to sleep hungry, scared, in danger … women, girls and boys being abused. So despair can also elevate us to join the greater grief as an unavoidable part of the human experience. Harsh, brutal, but natural. Like birth and death there is the ebb and flow always.

For earth keepers also there is immense grief at this time. For the loss of the biosphere, the oceans, rivers, clean water … for creatures dying out, the loss of biodiversity. We mourn the loss of safe and predictable weather patterns we can rely on. And of a secure future.

There is huge climate grief and distress. Many are coming together to do this grief work in groups via physical gatherings, online groups or social media. We have a Facebook group called Ecological Grief, where we simply feel together, express and understand. And it helps. It helps us to share and know that we are not alone. We need each other for comfort. To cry the salt sea of loss, to let if flow and release the pain.

 

In complete awareness and honesty we can grow the new human, determined to evolve a harmless life. Allow the inner steward to guide in us every single behaviour at home and at work.

“Instead of seeing the rug being pulled from under us, we can learn to dance on the shifting carpet.” – Thomas Crum

Transforming how we see life and what we expect from it, we can allow the challenges and deep disappointments to craft ourselves into passionate forces for change. We can call in the New Earth that we all want to live on … a place of compassion, love and reverence.

We know that our beloved South Africa is sliding into harsher realities with more violence and crime, a deepening distrust of our government’s ability to behave responsibly and take the urgent and difficult decisions to steer us into a brighter future. We know how to deal with whatever is thrown our way – and to fight for what’s right. This is the mission of an environmental life as part of the circle of life – and not apart, as some still see themselves. And so we rise to the challenges with courage and tenacity. Brilliantly crafting a more benign way of living that supports more and destroys less.

 

We are learning to be flexible, adaptable, to find new ways and make new sense of life in this sunny corner of the world. To shake off the disappointments, release the delusion of separation and the obsession with materialism. Mindful that we are spiritual beings having a human life. To remember our place in the family of Life on Planet Earth.

We are but a drop in the vast ocean of Nature. No more and no less. We are one with Nature and there is no separation. What happens inside also happens outside. Inner kindness radiates outer kindness. Living a beneficial life on this planet entails a mindset of benevolence and grace towards all.

Social and environmental care is indeed an inside job… it starts with a soul decision and from there our love-in-action ripples across the planet. Every moment is a sacred opportunity to contribute what’s good – to myself, to others and to Nature.

As we heal ourselves inside we can also become a healing force on this planet. This is the call that that is rising our consciousness and that gives me hope.

Humans are learning the lesson of interconnection. Humbled by the pain we feel we also understand the fragility of the fibre of Life and the immense honour it is to have a moment here.

By Elma Pollard