Being at Home With Grief

A crash course in suffering

Dear friends,

Anyone who is paying the least bit of attention to what's going on these days is most likely on a crash course on how to suffer. Sure there's plenty of joyful news to celebrate, but the bad news feels absolutely crushing and utterly relentless. And, I don't think it's going to stop anytime soon (and, just on cue, the Pedo-in-Chief starts an illegal war!). Everything we have known and loved (or loathed) in our lifetime is crumbling away, and the sense of loss is everywhere. With loss comes grief.

As Thich Nhat Hanh says, "If you know how to suffer, you suffer less", and the Buddhists in general, like to say that you keep getting the same lessons until you learn them. Personally, I think our collective lesson just now is how to be at home with grief. I don't think we have much practice in our North American cultures in welcoming grief to our door and sitting with it a while without immediately trying to chase it away. A year and a bit into Pluto in Aquarius and post US elections (fuck!), I'm getting to the point where I'm realizing that the sadness arising from the willful detonation of Life-As-We've-Known-It has moved in and made itself right at home. Rather than draining my limited energy yelling about it, wishing it would go away, and aggressively trying to shoo it out the door, I have decided to welcome this inevitable awkward guest, while continuing to focus my energy on working around it to get shit done.

We are living through some truly revolutionary times

Times like these require us all to step up and throw our personal oomph behind the collective efforts to create the best possible outcomes from a world turned upside down. These old patriarchal systems are so tired and broken, and they are crumbling under the weight of their own nastiness. A better world is possible and we get to decide what that looks like. But, of course, times like these are not without their woes. Over the past few years our hearts have been broken as we've watched Russia hammer on Ukraine and Israel commit genocide with impunity. We have experienced just over a year of some of the most egregious behaviour from the orange menace and his fascist enablers, every bit of it worthy of our rage, every bit of it worthy of our tears. Just this week alone I've been floored with grief by such deeply disturbing events as Kansas fucking over trans folk, the cruel ICE murder of Rohingya refugee Nurul Amin Shah Alam, the ongoing abuse of women and children imprisoned in the Dilley concentration camp, and, of course, Captain Dementia and his war criminal buddy Netanyahu unlawfully bombing Iran, to name just a few. Relentless grief.

Unfortunately, it's quite likely that things will get worse before they get better. I mean, fascists don't stop fascist-ing just because we tell them to. They cling to their (diminishing) powers, and they lash out like cornered beasts, while dialling up their cruel-ometer to the highest levels. They only stop destroying things when we become so powerful that we destroy them. My goodness, do we ever have our work cut out for us! We will need figure out how to sustain our energy and our ability to focus in this growing chaos. I'm finding that being at home with my grief rather than battling it has freed up some of my energy to keep fighting.

Reframing pain - How do we get comfortable with grief?

I recently heard Toronto-based Anglican minister/author Maggie Helwig being interviewed about her book Encampment (an excellent book that I highly recommend). The interviewer asked her what went through her mind when she realized that she had a bonafide homeless encampment in the front yard of her parish, and she responded with something to the effect of, "When challenging situations come up for me, I think 'Well, I guess this is what we're doing now'." I just love this response to an unexpected and potentially difficult scenario! My friend Lisa said that, in a similar way to Maggie Helwig, when she is faced with challenges, she muses about what it is that she is being invited to do in this situation. Such wonderful responses to uncomfortable situations - accepting what the moment is offering and trusting that we have the wherewithal to address it. After a lifetime of being reactive in the face of adversity, I am personally working on acceptance and trust. Just to be clear, I am accepting the fact that the world is in utter chaos wrought by the rich and powerful, but I am NOT accepting that this is how it has to remain. There are a bazillion injustices in this world that should not exist, and yet, here we are. Our job, our invitation, is to roll up our sleeves and do what we can to protect that which is, and those who are in harm's way.

How will we meet this moment?

Or, as my friend Marianne said in her recent newsletter, "The apocalypse, in its many forms and articulations, one way or another, has been visiting us since the beginning of time. Devastatingly more to some than others, but we all go through the fire. There is more to come, for sure. And the enduring question remains: How will we meet this moment?"

At the risk of being a Pollyanna about current affairs, I can't help but notice that for every heinous assault perpetrated by this vile regime, a tsunami of care has arisen from good-hearted citizens who are driven by their rage and grief to stand up for each other. As the suffering of others comes to our attention, more and more people are allowing their emotions to motivate them to fight for justice in the most unexpected ways. We are meeting this moment with love, with creativity, with justice, with our collective power, and, of course, with an overwhelming sense of grief. We must celebrate the moments of joy while also honouring the ever present grief. This is how we are meeting this moment.

May your tears flow freely and water the seeds of resistance,

Jessica (she/her)

Here are some actions of love & solidarity you can take this week:

• Loudly and publicly show your love & support for trans folk. Every time their rights & safety are threatened, we need to show up for them.
• Write and/or call politicians to demand NO FUCKING WAR IN IRAN.
• Share food with neighbours, strangers, whoever.
• Donate and/or volunteer with your local immigration centre.