Listening to Spring, Listening to Hope

How quietly the earth breathes forth new life. 

I am listening. 

I am listening to the seeds breaking open, 

to roots growing strong beneath the ground, 

to green shoots rising up from winter wombs. 

I am listening. 

I am listening to the forest filling up with song. 

I am listening to the trees filling up with leaves.

I am listening. 

I am listening to the sky with its many changing moods, 

to flashes of lightning, peals of thunder, 

to opening buds and greening grass. 

I am listening to the breaking forth of light 

in the vestibule of dawn. 

I am listening to the freshness of the morning.

I am listening. 

This is a beautiful description of Spring, which here in the Piedmont is splashing across winter's tattered brown canvas in welcome hues of vibrant yellow and delicate pink. Finally, after a long gray winter, there is color appearing here and there, rising from the darkness of waiting as this week’s Spring Equinox ushers in the season of growing light and warmth. 

It is also a beautiful description of the healing nature of grief. The growth and renewal that is possible even in the seemingly endless darkness of utter devastation. The insight, compassion, connection, love, clarity and personal power that emerges from that barren ground, that darkest of soils. For more than 20 years I have listened to grief, and I hear what Macrina Wiederkehr hears as she listens to Spring: 

seeds breaking open 

roots growing strong beneath the ground

green shoots rising up from winter wombs 

opening buds and greening grass

Yes, there is breaking — unbearable, overwhelming, meaningless, paralyzing breaking. And there is breaking open, like a seed, something new emerging and growing as the husk is split and shed.

When we are breaking, we need safety, shelter, rest, understanding, time to comprehend the enormity of loss, time to adjust to an unwanted new reality and to begin healing. When we are breaking open, we need to pay attention to what is emerging, carefully tending our new tendrils, patient with the slow uneven pace of growth, trusting the life force stored in the seed, trusting the roots to their underground work.

As Spring arrives, you may be experiencing both of these aspects of grief, confused by the tug of war between pain and possibility, between wanting to retreat and wanting to emerge. As the pandemic itself enters a more hopeful season of greater social possibility, you may be weary of isolation yet reluctant to reengage with a bigger, faster world. You may be eager for something new yet afraid to leave what feels safe and familiar, fearful of the unknown.

Most likely, you are realizing that you are changed. And feeling somewhat unsteady in this new self. After a year of bearing your personal loss within the losses of a global pandemic, you are not who you used to be. You may be confused about who you are now and struggling to imagine who you will be when this is “over." You may see nothing but bare dirt or a tangle of weeds in your garden patch. You may see green shoots emerging but have no idea of how to care for them, unable to picture what they will grow to be.

In such times, listen. Listen to Spring, trusting in what it has to tell you, the ancient story of renewal. In those liminal moments when you sense yourself emerging from the darkness but cannot yet see clearly, trust this season of growing light. Trust the innate power of the seed; trust your own slow unfurling. Trust what I trust for you: that the heart that breaks can also break open.

Find the seed 

at the bottom of  your heart 

and bring forth 

a flower.

~Shigenori Kameoka~

Listening to Spring (excerpts) by Macrina Wiederkehr 

https://healthyspirituality.org/finally-march-im-listening-spring/

Photo credit: Jelleke Vanooteghem on Unsplash

Befriending Yourself In Grief's Lonely Moments

Is it just me, or has February been a long month? Day after day of gray rain and bone-chilling cold — the icy grip of winter squeezing tighter just when we needed a break. From everything! 

And it has already been such a long, long year. A year saturated with loss, touching every aspect of our lives. A year of constant wariness of Covid’s invisible threat; a year of profound insecurity, with political and societal turmoil providing no shelter in the gathering storm. Many of us are worn thin from coping, depleted by the effort it has taken to get this far and daunted by the long road ahead. Even as vaccinations get underway, we mark 500,000 American lives lost to Covid-19. Even as we face a more promising spring, we are beleaguered by winter’s powerful hold.

Anyone familiar with profound grief knows this feeling — beginning to hope that things will get better, perhaps even beginning to feel things getting better, only to wake up to an ice storm where we are suddenly frozen in place, every step challenging in the slippery landscape, our power out. We thought that a certain calendar date meant it would ease up at last — only to wake up to more of the same. We had already had enough — more than enough — and suddenly there is even more.

And, for this past year, most of us have endured this grief alone, struggling to bear our own very personal losses while also having to adapt to a dramatically changed world upended by communal loss. Grief is inherently isolating, but grief during a pandemic means that we are often even more alone, cut off from the very things that sustain us in hard times and help us to eventually rebuild. At times, when we have no energy for putting on a strong face, the isolation is a welcome reprieve from having to meet social norms. At other times, we are swamped by it, in danger of going under. We are social creatures and human connection is our lifeline, a very tenuous one after a year of pandemic isolation. Even if we live with others and sometimes yearn to be alone, our grief is still a solitary invisible burden, a heavy box lugged around with no safe place to unpack.

What to do when feeling alone and overwhelmed? Put your hand on your heart and feel the life  — and the love — that is beating there. Trust it. Love it back. Talk to yourself as you would talk to a cherished friend, a hurting child, a beloved pet. Be tender, soothing and validating until the pain eases — THEN offer encouragement and help yourself to get back on your feet. Yes, this takes time — but ultimately less time than the ever-tempting tried-and-untrue shortcut of trying to yank yourself back onto your feet when you are down, ignoring the pain that felled you. One of my clients names this critical self-talk “Drill Sergeant,” a motivational style that might be helpful when training for battle or a triathlon but is rarely effective in grief’s vulnerable moments: You think YOU’RE suffering? You should be grateful for what you have. Get up out of yourself and just DO what you are supposed to be doing!  

But what we are supposed to be doing in these moments is exactly this. Experiencing the grief (or fear or anger or guilt or despair) so that we can move through it and then beyond it. Metabolizing the pain so that it can move through us and then leave us, instead of taking root and reseeding like an invasive weed. As a grief counselor, I have learned to trust this painful part of the healing process. Over and over, in big ways and small, I have witnessed the shattered human spirit, exhausted by determined efforts to “hold it together,” gather itself once again after a necessary time of “falling apart.”

Falling apart is natural as we move forward through life, encountering our loss in new and sometimes deeper ways. When this happens, we are hurting; we need to pause in order to keep moving forward. We need a friend to listen and to stay with us, just as we are, until we are ready to go on. The next time you are alone and feel yourself falling apart, be that friend to yourself.

Begin by placing your hand on your heart to connect to your source of love. Talk to yourself as you would to a beloved friend. Acknowledge the pain that is happening: I’m sorry this hurts so much. I know this is scary. Of course you are tired of this struggle; it’s hard to keep going. Remind yourself that you are not alone: I am here with you. I love you. Soothe and reassure: There’s nothing else we need to be doing right now but this. We will make it through. 

Notice how your feelings shift and eventually dissipate as you pay soft loving attention to them instead of trying to yank them back into shape. Notice how the distress eventually subsides to a point where you can breathe again. And begin again.

You are never truly alone if you learn to befriend yourself. My wish for each of you in this difficult time of isolation is to become the friend to yourself that Henri Nouwen describes here so eloquently:

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.” 

       (Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life)

 Photo credit: Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash