Grief Is a Portal

A sanctuary for grief

Grief is a Portal 

to healing 

to ancestors

to beauty

to remembering

to release limitations

to love

to knowing 

to the deepest cave

to the home of grace

I invite you to add to this poem in the comments

This weekend, I visited Unashay, a grief sanctuary on the ancestral lands of the Tewa people in northern New Mexico. Beautiful spaceholders led us into song, held space at the Ancestral altar, and guided us through a powerful grief ritual. Philosopher, writer, and public intellectual Dr. Bayo Akomolafe spoke about healing, wellness, and restoration vs. transmutation. 

Sit with loss as an ally as opposed to a pathology. —Dr. Bayo Akomolafe

We need space for grief; we need to grieve in the community, and we need to be seen, heard, and felt in our sorrow. Because we are not well. Because Earth is not well. And we cannot remember the connection. We are grieving the loss of loved ones, of memory, of the beautiful places both inside and outside of us. And so much more.

I am still processing the experience and all that transpired, especially the dream I had a few weeks ago—before this sacred gathering—of sitting in that very grief ceremony next to a new friend I had only met once in person. That "deja vu" felt like the part of me that holds the past, present, and future all at once, rising to the surface. She has called me to go deeper. 

Grief can take us to lands we don't know about. —Dr. Bayo Akomolafe

Self-Inquiry: What does it mean to be well? 

Photo credit: U.S. Forest Service