It’s the holidays.Bah.
Don’t get me wrong, I usually love the holidays, but let’s be honest: this season is hard for some of us… and this year, I’m firmly entrenched in camp “some of us”.
No, I am not depressed.
No, I am not in despair.
I know what I am: grieving. And grief, especially when you had to tuck it away for awhile and not let it do its full course… well, Beloved, grief is patient, but when it comes, you don’t get to put it back in the box.
It’s like one of those mattresses you order online and it comes all contained and tidy. There is this small warning label about expansion and then the usual suffocation warnings with the packaging. Grief, I have found, is like that. This dense package that you can let sit over there in the corner for a year or two or five, but at some point the external wrapper you’ve had it stored in, maybe hung a few coats on and tried to pretend that it was part of the furniture… you know, that, “Yeah, I see you over there, but you are going to stay over there under that pile of coats or fancy hats or self-help meditation books and affirmations… just stay over there and let me get through this very, very real situation called life. And sometimes that life is a living hell you have to navigate through. You forget about grief because you are trying to survive. Maybe there are kids and a spouse in the mix and the “survive” becomes infinitely more complicated. Throw in pets and yeah… grief… I ain’t got time for you today, tomorrow, or anytime soon.
Wounds need tending. We have to deal with them. They sometimes feel like grief. Wounds may naturally have elements of deep grief woven into their fibers. You may feel that as your trauma heals over the years and as you get on track with this new version of your life, that you’ve dealt with grief. And you have indeed with a certain level of grief, but the grief I am talking about is the kind that once the container you’d kept it in disintegrates, that dense grief expands into an ocean so breathtakingly deep and wide it engulfs you completely and you are unmoored. Adrift in a sea of tears, anguish, and heartbreak.
Therapy. Trusted friends. Journaling. Long walks in nature. Breathing. Boundaries. Sovereignty. Music. Drawing. Painting. More breathing. More nature. Community work. Service work. Mothering self care. Grounding. Prayers. Baths. Rituals. Gratitudes.
Yes. Do all of the things. I’ve done all those things and then some. Ended up in the top 10% of Taylor Swift listeners… there are songs and playlists on repeat that if it had been a vinyl record, I surely would have worn the groove out. Same for Jeremy Soule’s work. Walked hundreds of miles. Journaled books worth of pages. Spent ample time in talk therapy… enough to know I am sane and “doing all the right things”.
And so, for 15 months I have been here. Decades of trauma before that. Other pockets of deep grief before, but nothing, nothing to compare to this vastness.
There are times when it feels like I will drown, but I won’t. I realize that now. There are islands in this sea… sometimes just enough to catch your footing for a few moments. Days. Weeks even. Fulfilling work. An interlude of tenderness. A walk down at the ocean’s edge to play in the surf like a young teen again. The hugs from those you love or deeply care about. Last week, it was a squirrel, who dashed up to my second floor gable window, straight at me as I chose my outfit for the day. We stared at each other and his little perfect paws scratched against the pane, like he wanted to come inside for a cup of tea… or that handful of acorns I had gathered from the library. I laughed and the spunky creature didn’t run away. I stared at him with his dazzling tail and chipper beady eyes… and whispered to him, “good morning”.
Last night, I emailed a most trusted friend my angst about, “this was not the life I signed up for: a simple life, a pleasant life… a life filled with love, laughter, and song. I didn’t want to be the patron saint of tears.” I was pissed… and so frickin tired of grief. Overtired period. This morning I woke and though none of my circumstances had changed, my perspective had.
I do actually have a life that is filled with love. With laughter. With song. Perhaps not in the way I had imagined it. Or always wanted it. Or expected it. But it was there. Well and truly there. There in the wry smile glimpsed on the face of one who matters to me. There in the blue jay’s screech as he points out his empty dish. There in the gawky, goofy gait of a son who has not quite grown into his feet yet. There in the pansy’s cheery bloom. Here it is now in the feel of velvet and feather and satin…in this merry outfit I’ve chosen to greet the day with. The sunlight touching the treetops this morning as it rose all golden and red… the trees were singing this morning… deep and sonorous… harmonic even… with the light that played and glistened on their glowing leaves.
So I joined in the song… saying the words to weave me into the patternwork of my place within the sphere of the here and now. Joy is not happiness. Happiness is ephemeral, like the dew. Lovely and short lived, returning each day in breaths and light breezes. I welcome it always. Joy; however, is able to coexist with the deepest grief. Joy is not giddy. She can be still and even, at times, quite solemn. She can be a fiery column, taking grief and transmuting it into something bearable. Joy can likewise be the soft ember that you can trust to warm you and light your path in the darkest night.
Joy is the wisest and truest of mothers. Able to hold and cradle us… like the ocean itself if we will but relax into her embrace and trust that even if plunged beneath the waves, the slip of joy, like a mother’s hand, or a fond memory within the mind’s eye, will pull us up again to the surface. Perhaps, the deepest joy is the counterweight to the most wretched of griefs… and only able to be found there. Joy is not grief. But true joy perhaps is its foil. How odd that joy can seemingly be sparked by something as ordinary as a fallen leaf or a drunken bee or a fingertip ever so gently tracing skin.
We are held. Embraced. Cherished in her tender arms. Joy is the tendrils woven through all of nature, Joy is. Everywhere present. Filling all things. Sometimes as small as a dust mote sparkling through the windowpane. Noticed or not. You and I are never truly alone.
For today, Friends, I shall be as the otter upon the waves…
Erica Sittler is a Witch practicing her craft in Mississippi where she is an active member of the Temple of Witchcraft. Her magick is in the mundane and in bringing honor and attention to those small things that build a sustainable and adventurous life. She is a Temple Mystery School student under the instruction of High Priestess Sellena Dear.