Letting Grief Resonate Through Our Work

This summer I had the great honour to be back with the team of the Summer University for Alternative Monetary & Economic Systems (short: AEMS) in Vienna. It is always a great gift to be called back in and feel how trust is growing in the shape of more responsibility and freedom to bring creativity, embodiment, and participation.

What I did not expect at the start of the 3 weeks, guiding about 50 participants through their learning journey, was that my life would change drastically over night. One week into the program, my grandfather passed away. Very quickly, very unexpectedly for all of us, including the medical staff that sent my parents home the morning he would leave his body. A shock, or even more than that. The message paralysed me, as I wasn't only losing the second close family member within a year, but also my best friend, my only source of family history on my mum's side, and my oldest witness. Within 4 hours after the call reached me, I found myself at the airport, taking a ridiculously expensive flight back home. There's moments in life where shared humanity shines through the cracks, such as in this moment when I was all up in tears staring out of the airport windows. A guy all dressed up in business attire came, gently asking if all was ok, passing me tissues, and taking a minute to converse. What a gift, what a teacher.

Back home, I followed my intuition to tend what had to be tended. Space felt timeless as I placed myself under Opas mirabella tree, tightly holding the feather of a heron he left for me at the entrance. Moments of greatest importance passed, such as a shared cry with my dad, who until then would never speak about his dad, and now opened up about the role Opa played for him, even before his father passed. Precious, sacred moments my soul took all in, soothing a heart that was shattered into pieces.

Grief shutters the body and sharpens the vision.

3 days later, I found myself back in class, different. One of my elders recommended to only go back when ready, and if I did so, to observe the difference. And certainly, I had no option but to host from there, from a place that felt more profound, clearer, and also more vulnerable. Smaller gestures, less small talk, deeper questions. Facilitation from this place felt compassionate and sharp like a sword that cuts out the bullshit. Clarity both for what the program needed, and for myself and my boundaries. Where was my presence needed, what was my role here? Often, my presence was more needed under the maple tree in the park instead of the classroom, witnessing a lecture that wasn't meant for me and that my blurry mind wouldn't have been able to take anyway. A blurry mind, and also an aching body, so much so, it would be hard to get out of my bed and onto my mat, even just for some restorative motions. I did get up every day, even on the weekends, offering space to the pain that came in so many ways and waves, and that was welcome, not only by me, but also by my loved ones and colleagues who offered their arms and ears even though there often was only silence.

Giving our grief body allows others to do the same.

Shelby B Larson describes grief as resonance in the field, which can only transform in the physical, through tears and felt embodied motions, to metabolize into new shapes of relationships. I sense there are a lot of things that have been mutating for me ever since my grandpa's passing, and that giving voice/body to the resonance (or lack thereof) will allow others to do the same. There was a moment with one of the participants where I got to share about my loss, opening a door for them to speak about the loss of their close relative, which has been pushed aside for far too long. Release, relief, and a shared connection that we both will be taking forward. Grief releases grief, and isn't it the process of grieving we denied ourselves for so long, to survive the pain? Grief for ancestors passing, grief for dreams we had to give up, grief for our joyfulness and play in a grey everyday existence, grief for the state of the world. Where does the deep pain go? How many of us have never learned what to do with it? How many are without a community to hold all of the ripples and motions?

I made it through the last 2 weeks of the program, and even enjoyed it, honestly. With the collaboration going so smoothly, and everyone being so understanding, I found myself opening from a new, deeper place. I was gifted a level of trust you won't find everywhere, trust in that things will be tended & space can be given. What I observed was participants who took in more than just a course with lots of mind-opening content, but an experience marking everyones journey in one or another way, an invitation to reflect and shift pace & directions. Learning, in its purest form. And communing - even though this word is still a forbidden one in an academic context. A tremendous shout-out to Carina, Magda, Dani and the whole team for making this possible!

Don't rush the pain to leave.

My mind remains blurry today (and it's normal. People out there don't think your grief will go away in a week. Don't rush the pain to leave. You're ok. I am still crying almost every day, I am still navigating pain across my body, after months!). And amongst it all, I start seeing the first signs of change, a change in my relationship to my grandfather, who is now an ever-present ancestor. A change in my heart that is reassembling into a wider, more profound state, A clarity of soul that I have been missing for the past years. Slowly, steadily, with patience.

Are you sitting with grief?

Please reach out if you want to speak, sit in silence, or play together. It's time to free our relationships, allow them to take new shapes, metabolize what was never meant to be a heavy burden stored in our organism.

You are not alone.

S/T

Death finds us in the most unexpected shapes, in the most unexpected moments. How do we respond?