| Beloved,
I'm here today in your inbox with a personal share on the holiness of grief.
If this feels resonant for you, I invite you to settle in and be with me for this transmission.
If not, that's okay too.
Grief is like that... it ebbs and flows. The metaphor of the ocean is startlingly accurate. Fathomless, bottomless, vast, mysterious, beautiful and unknowable. The waves come sometimes gently lapping, other times in ferocious sets, pummeling the shores mercilessly.
I remember decades ago when I lived in Humboldt county and I was learning to surf in the cold waters — days where I would get caught in the set waves, praying for my life, praying for grace, as I got tossed and crushed by mother ocean again and again.
About 4 weeks ago, our beloved feline familiar Chuckles stopped eating. We took him to the vet and discovered he had hyperthyroidism. The next three weeks were a rapid and total system collapse for his little body, and on Saturday February 17th Ben and I had a veterinarian come to our home, where we said our final goodbye and laid him to rest.
This process has been sacred, beautiful, heart-opening and so brutal.
I had no clue how hard his departure would hit me.
I've had the honor and delight of participating in three grief rituals over the past 5 years, where I learned a lot about how to be with grief. But this was something new. An apprenticeship with death, and an initiation into the rites of death doula work.
Near and dear people in my life have passed, but I hadn't yet witnessed the moment of crossing over with my own eyes. I hadn't held a being so precious to me as their spirit and life force left their physical body. And I had never before laid a being I love unconditionally in the ground.
It felt like burying our child.
And bewilderingly, there was a critical voice in my psyche saying, "but he's a cat." This is what the Buddhist's call the "second arrow". The first arrow is the pain, and the second arrow is the judgement, self-criticism or additional suffering you add by beating yourself up while you're in pain.
I feel like I've joined a club I didn't know existed before, occupied by humans who've experienced deep unconditional love with an animal and felt completely sidelined by the power of their grief when that beloved pet crossed the rainbow bridge. Wow wow wow! What an illuminating experience.
The morning we said our goodbyes, a clear prayer dropped in:
May this bring a miracle.
And it has. Ben and I have never felt so connected in our 11 years of being together. We're having conversations and sharing depths that we've never danced with before. The gifts are coming, and I am so grateful.
Another miraculous synchronicity of this experience has come from the plants. Even before we knew Chuckles was ill, I had proposed to Ben that we dedicate a week in February to detoxing, media fasting, juice cleansing, and working with a plant ally called Bobinsana in the form of a tea. I met this plant 9 years ago in the Amazon where I had the privilege of working with her for 10 days during a silent retreat. This time around, our weeklong diet with Bobinsana happened to be during the final week of our time with Chuckles, and over the weekend of his departure. Talk about a miracle.
Bobinsana is known as a heart-opening tonic that carries the essence of rivers. It's often sung to as the "sirenita de los rios" and indeed, we were carried on gentle currents of so many tears. She's also known as a lucid dreaming plant who blurs the lines between waking and dreaming life. It's impossible to describe how deeply nourishing our work with Bobinsana was during this period, but I can say with certainty that I am in awe of the divine timing at work, and the divine support that is present.
I'll conclude with this: in our greatest moments of need, we are held in the arms of Grace.
There's a teaching that says grace only comes with suffering— I see Grace as an angelic being, riding on the back of a white horse who embodies the wisdom and transformative power of suffering.
In Women Who Run With The Wolves, author Clarissa Pinkola Estés refers over and over again to the "life/death/life cycle"... I feel rooted in the knowing that what we call "heartbreak" is really the heart cracking open even wider to Beauty and Truth.
I give thanks for this initiation even deeper into Love.
I give thanks for every sweet snuggle we had with our little man. For every rascally moment, and the everlasting nourishment of a cat purring on my chest.
Sigh...
Blessed be, this holy ground sown with seeds of grief and gratitude.
Thanks for being with me in this gentle ocean today, and thank you for those who have sent prayers and love our way.
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