Life can bring difficulties, challenges and pain for us all, times when the beautiful motions of the heart stand still, hovering over an event in your life that vacuums the very soul from you.
I am sitting at my desk on a beautiful March day looking back at how far my grief and I have walked.
I am a traveller on a sacred journey through this one shining day.
Richard Wagamese. Embers
There's a sweetness of fresh grass wafting through my open window and a bee hovers, its gentle buzz and spinning wings ever moving. I feel peace and also some pain. I created this sacred grief journey, it began on an August day in 2022 when my doorbell rang at 6:20pm
As I approached my blue front door, I already knew intuitively something was wrong. I saw the letters
P O L I C E
Swimming chaotically before my eyes.
My heart beat frantically on the walls of my chest begging to escape. It knew what was about to happen. It must have.
A blonde woman police constable slowly and gravely imparted her news; my spine melted as I hit the deck. My son had died. Died by suicide and my world closed down to black. I was suspended in a place of pain and sudden, absolute grief. A black hole of grief, gravity defying, sleep defying grief. A grief so deep I had melted into it and became one with it.
It's the ordinary sounds that filter back into your life, wrapping sounds of whirring lawn mowers and birdsong around your silent ear drum; the sounds of children playing vibrates around your heart, pulling your cheek into a smile. Even though it may be watery at first. You see I am not my grief, I am Anni experiencing grief. In the beginning I had melted into it, I cried and cried and silently cried until I was so saturated with the grief it had no where else to go. It soaked into my bones, my hair, my whole body cells until I reached a point of fullness that I could not bear. So I let go and cried out into the world of darkness for help, I cried to Spirit, that intelligence of ALL life to help me and fell asleep curled up in grief. That night I must have had my petition answered, I woke feeling calm and safe for the first time in months. I knew in my every cell that I too was greater than grief. From that time onward my days have been lighter and peace lives with grief and me.
This is not my whole story though . . . it is a simple extract taken from my memoir.
We are all journeying through life and perhaps you have also felt a deep pain or longing for something or someone, a loved one you feel you have lost. Why not surrender that grief, let it go with as much gentleness as you can. It is exhausting holding on.
I still celebrate Ant daily, I know he lives on in spirit because I have so much evidence of this and it brings me hope. I also experience tears daily. I live in the grace of allowing, allowing the feelings to show up and move through.
I am a traveller on a sacred journey through this one shining day . . . every day. Come and travel with me and I can point you toward your peace.
Anni x
Please check my you tube channel for ideas of how to support your grief @AnniPoole
and my podcast. The latest one is here Podcast | Anni Poole