To Live is to Grieve

To be alive is to live with grief.

Grief that time passes like sand between our fingers, that yesterday will never return.

Grief as we slowly watch ourselves getting older, looking back on parts of our lives we can never get back.

Grief for moments we can relive only in our memory.

Grief for the choices we made, which inevitably created choices we left behind.

Grief for desires and dreams not yet realized, that may never be realized.

Grief for the ways of living we’ve forgotten, that have been forcibly stripped from the cultures who carried them.

Grief for our separation and isolation - our separation from the Earth, from each other, from the other plant and animal life on this planet, from something greater than us.

Grief for the unprocessed pain and trauma, individually and as a collective, that will never be healed.

Grief for the violence perpetrated against each other and against our planet.

Grief for the people we’ve lost and the people we never had a chance to fully know.

Grief for all we didn’t get as children, and for all our ancestors didn’t get in their lives.

Grief for the tears of Mother Earth as we’ve used and abused her without a second thought.

Grief for being disconnected from our bodies, from being conditioned to despise them and ignore the infinite wisdom we hold within ourselves.

Grief for the way we live now, in isolated plastic boxes with so much of what we don’t need and not enough of what we do - true connection to ourselves, each other, all life on this planet, and to the energy that connects us all.

And yet…

the capacity for true connection to ourselves and everything around us is still there.

Some of us are waking up and slowly, painfully, remembering. It’s hard work to remember, because to remember is to feel the vast oceans of grief we couldn’t feel before.

Sometimes it feels exhausting to reclaim, to feel, to remember and reconnect to all that we’ve lost.

With all of this to grieve, it’s no wonder we live so disconnected from ourselves. To grieve and remember is overwhelming.

It’s no wonder we work so hard, distracting ourselves into forgetting.

It’s no wonder we fill our days with endless tasks and meaningless conversation.

It’s painful to remember.

It’s painful to feel all of the grief that was never felt.

It isn’t quick, it isn’t easy.

It’s a life’s work, and it will never be complete.

All we can do is surrender to it. Feel it when it comes. Let the sadness wash over us and ride the wave.

Let it move us. Scream and cry.

Let it move through us. And welcome it.

It’s part of us.

It’s part of life.

It’s here to stay.

To be alive is to live with grief.

To learn to let it seep into our very bones, to weave into the fabric of our lives.

To recognize that it’s part of us.

To live fully with our grief

is to live a full and beautiful life.