Sadness & Joy

How do we breathe in the presence of so much grief

For the last several weeks, almost correlating with the current Mercury retrograde, folks all around me have reported feeling a deep sadness. The sadness doesn’t seem to reflect current events as much as it is rooted in past grief and despair that seems to be resurfacing during these grey days of winter.

I feel it as well. Long held grief erupted to the surface for me starting in December. And now, I begin sobbing at the least frustration or the appearance of an obstacle. I ask myself, “What the hell is happening to me?” I feel like I was once made of stronger stuff than this!

But this journey through the halls of loss and regret is not due to some weakness or regression. We are sad because the world around us is literally dying. Nature itself is grieving. And the chord it sounds hits our internal orchestras of emotions causing our resonant instruments to sound out the corresponding notes of loss.

Our minds struggle to keep up with our bodily responses so we reach nervously to attach such sounding to our memories. We rationalize that this sadness must be of a personal nature. But no, we are all experiencing the grief of Mother Earth.

And her grief is so ever present, it seems to emanate up from the soil, from the trees, from the skies, the rivers, the mountains, the animals, and yes even we humans express her pain and sadness. As an empath, I have felt the grief of the land many times. I felt her grief in the mountains of West Virginia at the site of a massacre, I have felt her grief in Maryland at a station on the underground railroad, I have felt her grief so deeply at a clear cut that I passed out. I felt her grief at battlefields in Pennsylvania . I have felt her grief in neighborhoods of Washington DC. I felt her bleed during 9/11. And now she is weeping for the loss of life worldwide.

Yes, we as animals, as children of the earth, as humans are reflecting the sadness of Nature. Conversely, we humans are also grieving, calling out in our loss, our fear, and our deep sadness and Nature in turn listens to our pleading and she responds.

She calls to us to rest, to slow down, to turn toward our love ones in any way it is still possible. She covers the world in the northern hemisphere with snow and ice to encourage our inner turning. She supplies beauty, sweetness and moments of deep contentment.

And yes, nature also challenges us to make a choice, a decision, to make a change. We can continue to live out of synch with the rest of nature, or we can join in with our siblings and long distance cousins in the work of repairing the world, reimagining the world, coming back into harmony with the world.

I asked a lovely young woman this week, what should I discuss in this dark moon message. She replied with a single word, “Joy!”

Ah, yes. Joy.

Many folks equate happiness with joy, but I don’t. To my ear, happiness is a state of the mind. While joy emerges from the body. Joy is not the result of some action, or inaction. Joy is always inexplicable. It makes no sense whatsoever. Joy is contagious. It sneaks in through touch, even if you are separated by glass, by walls, by thousands of miles. All you need is contact. A glance, a sound, writing on a piece of paper, or a taste of remembered smiles.

Even through this time of sadness, joy is available. A bright red scarf on the head of young poet. The inquisitive turn of a dog’s head. It is in the playful spirit of the panda’s in the snow of the National Zoo. And the squeals of children everywhere making snowmen, angels and snowballs.

Joy can erupt from the voices of women singing remembered songs in the camps. Or the smells of traditional recipes being served amongst strangers. Joy is the football game amongst men who have no other language in common. Or in the resolve of the young women and men in Paris to hold the older men accountable. Joy is in the faces of the antifas standing against white supremacy. And joy is in the black mothers everywhere holding each other up while they collectively hold the entire world accountable.

If there is tears, there is also laughter. If there is fear, there is also courage. And if there is grief, there is also joy.