“In the village, there is the belief that when anyone passes, no matter what their place in the community, something valuable to everyone is lost. Every death affects every person. Everyone grieves together. One thing that is often overlooked in the West is the importance of collective grief. When a death is not grieved by the whole community together, it leaves the individuals who were closest to the deceased shattered and alone. They end up without a path back to the life of the group”
— Sobonfu E Somé from ‘Falling Out of Grace’

The K♦️ invites us into a difficult but necessary space. We are grateful to Sophy Banks and her work with others on Grief Tending.

This card encourages us to turn towards our grief, our sorrows and our sadnesses as well as their sources rather than avoiding them. Giving grief space, holding grief's teary face - preferably with others who can witness our sorrow and welcome us back home from the wilderness we can find ourselves in. You may want to hold other cards here, which ones call to you?

In his book 'The Wild Edge of Sorrow' Francis Weller describes five gateways to grief:

1) Everything we love we will lose. Losing the people or things we love, those who depart the earth before us, loss of homes, places, pets. Loss through injury and illness, skills and capabilities, the loss of our dreams

2) The places that have not known love. This is where our shadow lives - the orphaned parts of ourselves, the places never touched by love, places wrapped in shame that have been banished, places lived outside of compassion warmth and welcome, parts that we hate in ourselves and hold in contempt, outcast portions of our soul appearing as addictions, depression, anxiety and other things that call for our attention

3) The sorrows of the world. The losses of the world around us, the loss of biodiversity, diminishment of species, habitats, culture, the shared and communal sadness for the earth

4) What we expected and did not receive. Not knowing what we don't know- not being received into belonging/ into the village leading to unconscious disappointment, alienation, feelings of loneliness and aloneness, a diminished experience of who we truly are or could be if held in true community- longing to belong and longing to be longed for

5) Ancestral grief: the unacknowledged and untended sorrow of those who came before us - lost connections to land, language, imagination, rituals, songs, ancestral stories, orphaned between old and new worlds. the collective soul grief of the trauma of the story of our world

For more from Sophy, see the Healthy Human Culture Explainer 4. Tending to our grief allows us a path of return into the flow of life. Many indigenous cultures, have ritual and ceremony which help to hold and discharge grief, cleansing the village.

♥️ ♠️ ♦️ ♣️

C o n n e c t i o n s