Time to Grieve

Dear Drummers on the Heart of Life,

I've been told that it's time for a grieving ceremony. So, at 7PM this Friday at Spring House Center (28th and Garfield, Minneapolis) we will open a safe, protected sacred space for you to grieve. It's set in motion already, I've been making prayers for you. 

We need to grieve because we are human, and because we store grief in us, and if we don't run it through us, it eats us, and it eats the people in our lives. We grieve because we don't heal without it.

Our lives are full of grief, small to large, and in our culture it is largely unattended to. We turn to blame instead of grief. We turn to intellect, to TV, to sugar, to sarcasm, to shopping - rather than to the grieving.  But we need to run the grief through us, and into the other world, so that we may live well in this life.

We grieve because we are human beings, and to be human is to be battered by awareness of horror, and by awareness of death and injustice and unfairness, and to be reminded of our powerlessness (and our power). We are human, and to be human is sometimes to be wrapped in confusion and shame over what has happened to us or what we have witnessed, or what we have done.

Without grieving, there is no forgiveness of self or others. Without grieving, there is no "moving on." Without grieving there is no re-centering - there is lumbering clumsily under the weight of that which should be shed. Without grieving there is no cosmos, there is only the small, enclosed world of trying to not to grieve.

So, for you who will enter into it, at this Friday's drum we will move into safe, protected sacred space so that you may become open and grieve, so that you may enter into your humanness, and so that you may restore your fullness, so that you may re-center yourself.

If all of this makes you nervous, it's a signal for you to come on Friday and grieve. If you want to you can bring an offering or anything that symbolizes your grief. You won't get it back. Please make sure it is biodegradable.  Offerings can be food, candy, alcohol, milk, herbs or flowers, incense, dirt, a drawing, a poem, a prayer, words of anger or shame or forgiveness  - whatever carries symbolic power for your grieving. If for some reason your offering is meat, it's okay, we will send it to the crows. You don't have to bring an offering - your grieving is an offering of beauty. Your grieving makes you beautiful.

If you don't need to grieve but you want to be present to help create the safe container, please come - you are needed! If you want to do some supportive ceremonial tasks in advance, contact me. I'll be grateful, as will all those who come to grieve, as will the spirits who will be watching over us with love.

Seer you soon.