Singing Our Grief

A group of Aborigines were hiking through the outback. When a Westerner walking with them commented on their periodic halts for rest, an elder gently corrected him. “We do not rest. We wait for our spirits to catch up.”

A good practice for us now in this time of wild change. First, a virus turned our lives upside down in ways we never anticipated. And now things are reopening before sufficient testing, treatment and vaccines are in place. When sudden and profound change comes with a life and death component and is steeped in so many unknowns, we humans have reactions. 

We are not machines. We are emotional beings. And many of us are struggling now. Researcher Jennifer Leiferman reports that Coloradoans are now experiencing mental health issues nine times the usual rate, with 23% showing symptoms of clinical depression. Other studies report figures as high as 50%.

Preventive medicine physician James Hamblin writes “The pandemic is a moment of historic loss” a statement that accurately identifies our reactions as natural, even healthy, grief. Too many of us grieve for those the virus has killed. Most of the rest of us are grieving the loss of our former lives…the ability to casually walk into a store, hug a friend, earn a living, or rub our faces with unwashed hands. 

Poet Meghan O’Rourke articulates well our current mental health challenges in this “moment of collective trauma… (with) multiple layers of loss…grief laced upon grief.” In a recent article in The Atlantic, she writes, “Grief needs a vessel: It needs language, it needs lamentation, it needs expression, it needs demarcation in time; it demands a pause in everyday activity.” That last line echoes sweetly the voice of the Aborigine elder quoted above. Grief needs us to wait for our spirits to catch up.

There are many things we can do to nurture ourselves during this time. We can maintain a supportive structure for our days, eat well, and limit the use of drugs, alcohol and other easy, but ultimately harmful, go~tos. Regular exercise has also repeatedly been shown to have a positive mental health effect, particularly the aerobic exercise so important for metabolizing stress hormones. And grief, as O’Rourke so beautifully reminds us, also needs to be expressed. It needs to be shared.

I recently took part in a Zoom conversation with loved ones near and very far away. One sweet soul on the call was stuck in a painful grief, unable to move forward into her next stage, caught as she was in the one that came before. Yet as she shared her pain and it was received with love, something seemed to shift. In her lyrical language, she thanked us for “opening the gate (so) my song can be heard, be sung.”

What a lovely metaphor. We each have a song uniquely ours, over time and within particular experiences. That song may contain choruses of joy or lamentation, outrage or sweetness. But it is our song and one we must sing. We don’t need to be changed or fixed or cured. We certainly don’t need our voice to be silenced. We need our song to be received by at least one other and received with love.

Another dear soul on the Zoom call stated, “Love is the medium.” Medium is defined as “the intervening substance through which a force acts or an effect is produced.” It is also defined as “the element that is the natural habitat of an organism.” Both are true in the case of us humans. 

Love IS our natural habitat, the one in which we thrive. It is also the intervening substance through which we connect with others, heal, and grow. And Love is the medium through which we survive a pandemic more or less emotionally intact.

So we pause to allow our spirits to catch up. And in that pause, we sing the songs that are uniquely ours. And we do it all within this gorgeous, scrumptious, life~sustaining and life~enhancing medium called Love.

Be wise. Be well. Sing your heart out. And receive the songs of others with Love.

Leia

And here are some links for you, should they appeal...

The image in the upper right~hand corner of this page is of a homeless woman singing her heart out in an LA subway station. For the NBC article that includes a video, click here.

James Hamblin's article can be accessed by clicking here.

Meghan O'Rourke's article can be found here.

And if you are someone struggling with an intensity of pain that feels overwhelming or a numbness that feels deep and soul~crushing, please sing out and REACH out. May Love surround you. May Love fill you. May Love claim you...again and again and yet again!