When darkness reveals itself

and the salve of accompaniment

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A song I’m loving:

texture of Yellowstone, 2015, 35mm film

There is an invisible grief I’ve been quietly tending to the last two years. Some losses happen in ways that aren’t so recognizable or obvious; there’s no death, tangible ending, or publicly acknowledged void. Instead, some of our losses crystallize underground, in the privacy of our hearts and lives, only known to those closest to us. Sometimes, the true width and depth of our losses are seen by no one but ourselves. They fester in silence and quietly change us from the inside out. They emerge as a shock and slowly fade into normalcy, the pain morphing from sharp to a constant dull ache. They are murky. Ambiguous. Confusing. Lonely. They ignite a search for clarity, the kind that isn’t always available. They insist on our willingness to surrender, to soften in the face of what’s occurred, to remember life outside of the loss, to remember there is more than what the loss introduced us to. In the grip of these kinds of losses, we can easily forget we’re not the only ones — that others are tending to their own unique and particular forms of grief every day, in ways most of us don’t see, not because we don’t want to, but because we haven’t been taught how to.

paused, 2015, 35mm film

The dance with loss feels lonely until I remember it is a dance all of us are acquainted with. It is isolating until I remember grief is a language spoken by all living beings, a language we become fluent in only by being willing to fully experience it. It is overwhelming until I remember there are many hands that can hold it with me; there are many people that want to offer their loving support; there are many people who can say, “me, too.” It is shameful until I remember it is perhaps one of the most human experiences we can withstand. It is filled with sorrow until I remember that within it is some golden knowing, something weaving me together with all of life, some kind of magnifying glass illuminating the very thing I couldn’t quite see clearly without it.

My life has been peppered by losses of all kinds, most of which I never knew how to turn toward until the last many years of intentional learning. And it has been in the turning toward these losses that I have discovered the aliveness I thought only existed in avoiding them. It is in the meeting of the grief that I’ve found my capacity to also meet beauty, joy, connection, vitality. It is in the expanding of my arms to wrap around all that has hurt that I’ve come to fear grief less, and listen to its inherent wisdom more. And what I’ve come to know most intimately is that all of this is a lifelong practice, not one we can perfect or perform but one we must learn to do imperfectly. One we must stumble through until we find a steady path, only to stumble again. One we will forget and have to do the work of remembering, over and over. One that requires our courageous looking. One that will change us continually, if we let it. I don’t always want to let it; when I do, though, something unexpected and true always seems to root through the cracks, finding me in awe.

weaving through, 2015, 35mm film

The sun is fading and fading. Darkness always becomes more visible this time of year, whether we like it or not. It’s the time of year where the dullness becomes a bit sharp again, as though to speak through sensation: “please accompany me.” I’ve learned to welcome this rising darkness as a beloved companion, as an opportunity to tend to what often goes missed in our society, as a nod to all we can easily run or busy ourselves away from, asking for our sacred attention again. I feel all the people I miss, the long list of those I love who have died, asking me to remember them a little bit more clearly. I feel the tenderness of the particular loss I’ve been tending to rising, asking me to offer it more love. I feel the fragility all around, right beside the sturdiness always there to be found. I feel the weight of our collective losses, right next to the insistence of dreaming something more beautiful in place of what is decaying all around. The darkness helps me contact these parts of myself and life; it helps me stay tethered to what needs my care, my company, my listening ear, my steady adult self. I feel the way love is somehow woven into all of it.

“Grief and love are sisters, woven together from the beginning. Their kinship reminds us that there is no love that does not contain loss and no loss that is not a reminder of the love we carry for what we once held close.” Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow

encircled, 2015, 35mm film

Those who will not slip beneath
the still surface on the well of grief,
turning down through its black water
to the place we cannot breathe,
will never know the source from which we drink,
the secret water, cold and clear,
nor find in the darkness glimmering,
the small round coins,
thrown by those who wished for something else.
David Whyte, The Well of Grief

May you find something golden as you slip beneath the surface on the well of grief. May aliveness reveal itself more and more as you trust yourself to dive into the dark.

Thank you, as always, for being here.

What has caught my attention most has been rest from consuming. Quiet. Simmering in what is already here, noticing what is asking for deepened and sustained attention. The only link I want to share this week is the link to what longs for more space — the people, places, and things all around you that might want you to linger a little bit longer with them before moving onto something new, before making room for more. Ingesting less isn’t as easy as it sounds; staying with what you already have isn’t always as neutral or relieving as you’d think it would be, in this world so hyper-focused on consumption and owning, grasping for more and accumulating, getting ahead and more more more. And yet the practice alone can reveal something we might need to know; may it be so.

With care,
Lisa