Too often, we treat grief like a problem to be solved or an ailment to be cured. We try to push them down, numb them, or rush past them. But what if we understood grief as something that is alive, with their own purpose and trajectory? What if grief is sacred?

As an animist, grief is alive, and they recognize their own agency. Grief is not simply a state of being, but a being with whom we are already in relationship.  They are a journey that, at times, we have no choice but to walk with. If we can recognize them as alive, a being with agency, we can change how we are in relationship with them. This understanding allows us to stop fighting them and instead, to learn their language, to become conjoined narrative  around loss so that we produce lore to pass on to the descendants. It allows us to stop fighting ourSelves. What is grief trying to teach us? What parts of our life is grief asking us to acknolwedge? Release?

In this crucial time on the planet we have to realize that we are living with grief every day, if not every time we slow down and feel the loss of ‘everyday’ as we knew it. Not just the loss in actual death, but loss of collective freedom, body sovereignty, basic life choices and needs. We are also simultaneously experiencing anticipatory grief–that which has not yet happened, though is felt all the same. 

The next time you catch yourself saying, “I don’t know why I feel so tired,” “I just can’t figure out what’s up with me,” “Why can’t I remember things?” recognize these states as grief visiting.  By acknowledging the living nature of grief, we can move from resisting them to collaborating with them. We can give them space to move through us, honor our process together, and trust that they are guiding us toward a new kind of wholeness. The goal isn’t to be “over it,” but to have walked with it and come out changed.

@kelleysoularts

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S. Kelley Harrell, M. Div.

Kelley Harrell is an animist, author, deathwalker, and death doula held by Tuscarora, Woccon, and Sissipihaw land. For the last 30 years, through Soul Intent Arts she’s helped others ethically build thriving spiritual paths. Her work is Nature-based, and centers soul tending through the Elder Futhark runes, animism, ancestral tending, and deathwork. She hosts the podcast, What in the Wyrd, and also writes The Weekly Rune as a celebration of the Elder Futhark in season. Work with her in the Runes for Change community or in her intensive soul tending training, The Spirited Path.  Full bio.

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elder well, die well, ancestor well

@kelleysoularts