The Magical Teardrop
So, if you bless the world and yourself with your sincerely offered tears…
…what if you’ve lost the ability to grieve?
What if the valves of your heart feel rusted shut?
I haven’t trained as a therapist, and I don’t completely understand these things myself. As a person who has struggled to reclaim the right to feel my emotions fully, and who has cast away pop-culture heroes who embody the inability to grieve, heroes who in fact ’succeed’ and ‘win the day’ because, according to the stories of this culture, they shed no tears, they knuckle down, and stuff their sincerity deep inside and far away, like a heart locked in a box buried beneath a boulder far off in the trackless wilderness.
As this person, I know what it means to struggle back.
I’ve also had the honor of the friendship of people who can grieve, and share that ability without shame.
I’ve heard in Traditional Chinese Medicine that human beings store grief in the lungs. Often, when really crying, I’ve felt this swirling power in there, deep in my chest. I’ve also felt the lack of expressing grief as a tightness in the chest and throat.
My friend Julie offered me a little tool she used herself. Though often well able to cry at the drop of a hat, sometimes she couldn’t get there. So she’d make the sound.
The sound reminds me of a little kid all alone, having lost their mom and dad at a crowded place, and crying so long they’ve exhausted themselves but can’t stop crying in a low groan kind of way.
Even just taking the breath to make the sound makes my whole body ready to grieve.
If you have a private place where you can go, perhaps a quiet room, or a green place with a tree to lean up against, you might experiment with adding the sound to your practice of paying daily attention to yourself and the world.
As Martin Prechtel says, ‘the heart is a muscle’. You have to work it to make it strong, you have to practice to make your grieving something worth a world full of bittersweetness.
March 8th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
The sound? That’s vague. Any chance of a Podcast?
March 9th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Haha. Maybe. Errrr…
The sound reminds me of a little kid all alone, having lost their mom and dad at a crowded place, and crying so long they’ve exhausted themselves but can’t stop crying in a low groan kind of way.
Can you remember a time when you’ve heard a kid cry like this?
March 16th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Wow, heavy! This makes me wanna cry. In fact, just thinking about “the sound’ sort of puts a smile on my face, a deep feelings in my heart, and a rumbling in my blood that I can’t control, that I don’t want to control. I just remembered that I always feel better after I cry/grieve, like unneed weight has released off my shoulders.
And, that comment, I must ask my self, “Have I ever felt worse after I let go?” Hm….
“If you have a private place where you can go, perhaps a quiet room, or a green place with a tree to lean up against, you might experiment with adding the sound to your practice of paying daily attention to yourself and the world.”
I got a few and wanna try. Now I just gotta remember with all my other daily skill upkeep.
March 16th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Awesome! Glad this clicked with you, Neighbor. I feel really good about that.
March 17th, 2008 at 4:35 am
I am soooo glad that you are writing the things you are writing dear Willem! May the Grief roll freely once again like silver rainclouds regrowing a living heart in the fertile soils of longing! Let’s grieve!
By the by, for all Grievers, a wonderful Grief Teacher, bringing a ritual from her native Dagara Tribe in Burkina Faso, Sobonfu Some (www.sobonfu.com), is leading a Grief Ritual at Rowe Conference Center on April 18-20. I did two rituals when I was going through a powerful transition in my life, and I grieved from the very pit of my being for two days…I came out reborn!!!!
Could I possibly be more honored to have my wierd sounds and snotty-face weeping become an offering to others! Thanks Willem, I’m honored.
March 17th, 2008 at 8:39 am
Ah, madame blesses us with a visit! Welcome, and you’ve in turned honored me with your comment.
Sobonfu Some? Hmm. Maybe I’ll need to look into that.
Thanks for stopping by!
April 18th, 2008 at 6:32 am
Yeah, I suppose I could recall a weary grief soaked sound or two if I tried.
Here’s a relevent poem that I read when I was a teenager. I can’t tell you what I thought of it as a teenager, I wasn’t much of a thinker, but I was a boo-hoo-er.
http://people.tribe.net/ddd823a2-a382-4594-b5b5-fdfeb020f118/blog/e6b37f34-ecc5-42e9-85c4-dea4c6e7158d
April 23rd, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Richard, thanks for the link!
Also, in my archives I found some more on grief you might find useful. check out:
http://www.mythic-cartography.org/2006/07/04/we-put-the-fun-in-funeral-a-game/