Blessed be these tributaries of Grief

These Rivers, Streams and Creeks each

Pouring into the mouth

Of the Ocean of Sorrow

From which we each drink

The salty Tears of Mother

We gather them for the altar

In praise and love

For Grief is not separate from that

Which we love nor praise

Grief is a form of worship,

Praising that which we love

For there is no love

That does not contain loss

And everything we love,

We will lose

To love is to accept the rites of Grief

And where these tributaries meet

The Ocean’s mouth - we gather

For Grief is rarely personal

It is intertwined

With Fungi and Pine

And Whale + Salmon + Soil

This very Water mixed with Oil

This Grief is fresh

From murdered siblings gone

For the color of flesh

And lives gone missing

Along with language and history and culture

And fading Bird Song

And flapping Wings

This Grief is pulled by gravity

From pains repressed through collective

Mentality...and vitality - lost

In the absence of ritual

In death, birth and initiation

“where are our Elders?!”

We should be washing your feet

This Grief is from having to be

The Mentors that we are seeking

This Grief arises from the collective Pelvis

Screaming, “we did not consent to this!”

And the fall of democracy

Collapsing beneath life as we know it

Compounded layer upon layer

This unmetabolized Grief... in isolation

And we didn’t even get the chance

To heal the wounds of stolen people

Genocide, immigration and deracination

We are becoming hardened

Because we don’t open the door

When we hear the knock

Of Grief standing humbly on their knees

Waiting to be seen - and - rocked

Instead they fester

Growing into shadows

That haunt us for lifetimes

And make us ill

Causing such deep aching

That we keep hurting...each other

And rage, you who lies restless atop Grief

You are welcome here

Your embers of Fire fueled by passion for justice

And numbness and shame

You are are welcome here too

You are protectors from the pain

That we just couldn’t bare

And the body’s innate wisdom

Desensitized the parts that needed to be shut off

In order to survive in a culture that depends

On our disembodiment

Yet here we are today

Because of the ways

Our bodies learned

To keep us safe

A breath of honor

For these technologies

Intrinsically strategic

A breath of honor

For the cries trapped inside

Waiting to be called in by the village

To be witnessed in decadent listening

As this apprenticeship with Sorrow is invoked

And these hearts break

Until they crack... wide... open

And love can re-permeate

And seal what has been... broken

May these Songs of Lament be an opening

For that which has been hiding

And meant to be forgotten

May they be transformed

Into being held holy and remembered

So that we have more access to our aliveness

And the wonder and awe

Of this one, wild and precious life

Our inherent birth right

As we open the gates,

May the Spirits holding onto the dream of our wholeness

The dream for our Souls to be nourished

And connected to the Watershed that we each make up single drops

May those beings - seen and unseen

Across time and space

May they be with us now

May we be cloaked in a blanket of their protection

As we enter this sacred Soul work

“oh YES,” i hear them whispering...

“we will enter these healing grounds at your side....

You were never meant to go at it alone.”