As a teenaged girl I learned how not to cry, a legacy
handed down through the women in my family for generations.
Stiff upper-lipped working class British women did not
cry. It was in my fortieth year that I began the path
back to the beauty and sacredness of my tears. I was apprenticing
for five months to a powerful teacher. Nearly every time
we would sit in a workshop circle to speak, I would begin
to weep. By the time the talking stick got to me I'd be
starting already and would choke back sobs as I struggled
to get out what I had to say, which was rarely about my
weeping. I thought of my tears as a huge annoyance and
just wished they would stop. They were chokingly difficult,
embarrassing, and I just spoke through them, apologetically
and with my head hanging, at least in my mind.
A few weeks into my apprenticeship I finally "got"
one of the truths about sacredness, that everything can
be regarded as sacred. So I began to start to think about
how to begin to start to think about understanding how
to begin to start to think of my tears as sacred . A labyrinth
of a sentence to describe a labyrinth of a process. Of
course I passionately wanted the tears to just go away,
but I was unable to make that happen. So instead I passionately
chose a completely different path, one of honoring my
crying, taking in crying as nourishment, looking for the
gifts of my tears. Around that time I found a quotation,
perhaps by Hildegarde of Bingen, that said something about
tears being the aroma of holy work. That really made me
cry, which I noticed as well. I began to craft a theory
for myself that said when new parts of me opened, they
would be ritually bathed in my tears. I spoke about this
in circle and about my growing power to offer my tears
in beauty. I wrote this poem upon witnessing, in a ritual
once, a remarkable woman who had done some work in this
regard.
Priestess
The woman in the jaguar mask
knew why she was there;
Felt every step of her journey from scared to sacred
As she stood holding the heart of our circle
From her own place on the circumference.
We all sang generously as the small fire in the center
Licked at our boats of curled white bark,
At the leaves inside, cargoes of cast-off baggage
Set free to the passion of immolation!
As we sang deeply to open ourselves, her unscheduled solo
began.
It was a soft moan wrapped in a slow wail,
Her voice weaving the sounds in
With the music of our chant.
Staccato sobs suddenly tripped my heart on
The keening roller coaster ride.
Her lips spread in a narrow grimace gate,
We heard the pain rushing through.
The sounds tumbled us
Into old sorrowful corners,
Sang us the tune of
Our own lamentations.
And the tears that spilled from her eyes
Scalded all our hearts with grace.
I come to wisdom about grief from another path as well.
In my work with the four directions I have discovered
emotional attributes there; perhaps some essential qualities
about each direction that touch me in a particular emotional
spectrum. It makes perfect sense, if I am a being of Earth.
I have taken on the task of honoring these essential qualities
in circle and they have grown in power for me. West is
the direction of Grief and Joy, all the stories in between,
of sadness and loss and openings and letting go and the
mystery of love . In the West, Kwan Yin slowly practices
Ta'i Ch'i as her soft brown eyes speak compassion to our
hearts, offer arms to hold us as we grieve. Kwan Yin tells
us that when grieving is held as sacred, women will be
safe once again.
Divine Mother Kwan Yin
May I walk in peace and gladness, May I walk in mercy,
May I walk in peace and gladness, May I walk in mercy.
Divine Mother Kwan Yin, may this heart be home to you,
Divine Mother Kwan Yin, may this heart be home to you.
(1)
Grief is a normal complex response to loss. Loss of life
of course, but also loss of innocence or trust, loss of
hope or safety, loss of our way, so many losses. The small
losses of life are rehearsals for the larger and largest
ones.
In our bodies, grief can be a physical presence if we
hold it in - in our muscles, in our throats, our bellies,
our breasts, our hearts, etc. Emotions exist and travel
in waves, or spirals. The word emotion comes from the
Latin emovere , meaning to shake or stir up, to move out.
I believe emotions arise in our heart and, as their name
states, ideally move through us and out. Transforming
us as they move, often moving us to action.
It is essential to process grief over time, to literally
move it through our bodies. When we hold onto unfinished
waves of grief, or any emotion, those unfinished waves
have a charge, which grows over time. They can take up
residence in many parts of us, affecting our flexibility-spiritually,
physically and emotionally. These accumulations are not
toxins, needing to be cleansed. Instead they are memories
and reminders of unfinished business. If we do not experience
the transformative powers of feeling our own emotions,
we are unfinished, we are not yet mature. Emotions ripen
us.
In her book Music and Women, (2) Sophie Drinker speaks
eloquently of ancient and traditional religions who knew
the importance of honoring grief.
"It is easy for us to misunderstand these primitive
wail songs because, with our overintellectualized and
overdepartmentalized approach to music and to life, we
have lost the simple yet profound consciousness of the
oneness of joy and pain, of birth and death, that is in
them.
The wail alone..... sounds mournful in our ears.
To observers of women who sing with tears streaming down
their faces, it may seem an expression of inconsolable
grief. But its intent is actually to ensure rebirth."
(3)
The traditional women she spoke of in her book often
used sound to move the energy. Keening is a sound of wailing
practiced by Irish women at wakes and funerals. Arab women
have used wailing for centuries; there are strong traditions
in Islamic countries where such practices still live.
Women of many other countries - Greece, Italy, Sicily,
Eastern Europe, China, the Pacific Island nations, etc.
- also use wailing, wild crying, moaning and other sounds
to express the pain, and to speak out loud for the community's
grief. Some teachings of the Mayan culture say that grief
and praise come from the same place. Grief is thought
of as praise for what we have lost, and praise is not
sincere unless the realization of mortality and loss is
brought to it.
For a few years I searched in vain for someone to teach
me how to wail. I also searched for those sounds within
myself and in circle with other women. In workshops and
rituals we invited and evoked the sounds in different
ways. Spontaneous crying is not the same as formalized
grieving, so we have sought specific sounds of grief together.
As students of women's mysteries, we consciously asked
to remember the sounds of grieving. Within chants we found
musical phrases that sounded like moaning or wailing.
We sang them over and over so we knew the sounds, knew
the pathways in our throats. Then we would do a ritual
for this work, taking on the roles of the wailing women.
It has felt like a learning and a remembering.
What do we wail for? We often call upon a grief we all
share, a grief for the hurts and violence around children,
around women and the earth, around animals, the loss of
species because of greed. Or we mourn all the witches
who have died from hate and intolerance, Or we mourn those
who have died unmourned, forgotten and alone. There is
never a lack of reasons to grieve.
In a women's circle, the grieving feels like old territory,
ancient knowing. Everyone holds the space; some women
weep or cry or moan, some sob quietly or loudly, some
stare in silence, some drum or chant, some move and some
stand still, each holding a place in honor for the tears
and the grief. Loss is part of life. When the fabric of
our family, community, world is rent by loss, grieving
helps reweave the torn places. Whether we make the sound
or hear it, something shifts in our nervous system. One
of the reasons an infant cries is to reorganize its new
nervous system, particularly if he or she has been taking
in a great deal of information. It makes sense for adults
as well; loss is a lot to take in.
When we love, we open our hearts to take someone in.
When we lose them, we must open our hearts to let them
out, more difficult since our stories and lives are woven
with theirs. The sounds help to shift the grief so it
is reorganized, not all of it, but enough to make room
for life to continue and eventually, for joy again. It
is an enormous gift of our tears, the capacity for more
joy. When we hold something as sacred, we don't try
to ignore it, or medicate it or run from it. What is sacred
is respected and held in wholeness and holiness. What
is sacred is safe. When we have the support of friends
and family in our grieving, we are not alone. Grieving
together truly makes community and helps heal pain as
we gather to tell praises and stories of beauty about
the one we have lost.
Wanting to do magic to heal the spiral of life that is
my family, I have wailed for my grandmother and her sisters.
For my grandmother's mother, whose name I share. I offer
my wailing to the women long dead in my family, and their
many many unshed tears. Blessed be the tears of the women.
Let us all make such offerings to our ancestors who could
not weep. Let it be in beauty. Let it be in sacredness.
Let it be for the healing of all.
Footnotes:
(1) lyrics to "Divine Mother Kwan Yin", a chant
by Marie Summerwood copyright 1999
(2) Music and Women, by Sophie Drinker, The Feminist Press
at The City University of New York, 1948
(3) Music and Women, page 26
Marie Summerwood views
grief as a spiritual necessity. She teaches grieving from
a Wise Woman perspective. Her own experiences and her
observations of women inform her teaching where the truth
and beauty of grief free the heart. Marie has been leading
workshops on this topic for nine years.