Soul Activism
Leaning into grief and our full aliveness in troubled times
I facilitated a post-election grief circle last week in my local community. As we gathered together, a group of about 11 people, there was a feeling of anticipation and nervousness in the air. For many participants this was their first time in this sort of space. As people settled into their seats one person noticed a box of kleenex in the center of the circle and said, “Are you going to make us cry??” I laughed a little and said, “No, I never make anyone cry. I just invite people to feel things and if tears come they do, if not that is fine too.”
As a culture we have forgotten the practice of grieving together, of coming together in community to share in our personal and collective sorrow, pain and also gratitude and joy. The trepidation, anxiety and fear that people feel coming to a grief circle is normal and valid in a culture that is grief and death phobic. Yet, we lose so much of our shared humanity and collective resilience when we don’t have these communal and ritual spaces to gather, integrate and metabolize all that life has to bring.
My journey as a grief tender began when my life as I knew it was turned upside down and completely upended by several personal losses of immediate family members starting in 2017. I was a changed person, my grief and loss was so raw, real and BIG. I knew in my bones that my grief was important, sacred and holy yet I felt shame, isolated and alone in my experience. As I learned the skills of tending to my personal losses, pursued training in grief facilitation, ritual and trauma, my heart broke open even more. The aperture of my heart widened, and I started to feel the collective sorrow, the pain of the world in a new way.
It was around this time that I found the work of Francis Weller and his soulful book The Wild Edge of Sorrow. I was immediately drawn to the way he spoke of sorrow and loss. He was speaking the language of the soul, providing a framework for what I had been feeling and experiencing yet didn’t quite have the words for yet. Francis teaches about grief work as a form of “soul activism,” a way of engaging with soul, tending to soul, and choosing to live outside the cultural norms of disconnection, anesthization and control. The first time I heard the term soul activist I knew that was what I was being called to do in this world. I didn’t yet know what that would look like or what form it would take externally but the calling was alive in me.
Francis Weller writes,
"It is grief, our sorrow that wets the hardened places within us, allowing them to open again and freeing us to once again feel our kinship with the world. This is deep activism, soul activism that actually encourages us to connect with the tears of the world. Grief is capable of keeping the edges of the heart pliable, flexible, fluid and open to the world and as such becomes a potent support for any form of activism we may intend to take.”
Joanna Macy, the amazing activist, Buddhist scholar and creator of The Work That Reconnects, speaks to this as well in her work. A key component of The Work That Reconnects is connecting to the pain of the world by honoring our grief, while also holding deep gratitude and reverence for what is life giving and joyful. From this place of fully honoring the sorrow and grief, something shifts and transforms within you, allowing you to see with fresh eyes what might not have previously been possible. This porousness and permeability to each other, the more than human world and the unseen world is NECESSARY and NEEDED to navigate the times ahead.
Francis Weller teaches that we are currently in a time period called “The Long Dark.” Joanna Macy calls it The Great Turning. As a collective we are experiencing a time of darkness, descent, collapse, and falling apart. I remember hearing Francis speak of the Long Dark for the first time a few years ago and surprisingly feeling comfort in having a name and context for what I could feel in the collective field. After the recent presidential election in the United States this feels even more true, the darkness and descent are front and center in the news every day and in many people’s lived experience.
So how do we navigate The Long Dark? How do we hold the immense amount of suffering without getting lost in despair or hopelessness? There are no easy answers, lists or a 5-step solution. As Sarah wrote last week, this is a time to grow our capacity to “not know.” To be with uncertainty and fear while still finding our center and our anchor. The Long Dark requires that we root down into the darkness, into the underworld, and reach for one another-just as the mycelia form networks of reciprocity down in the dark soils of the Earth. Forming webs of connection and belonging.
WE. CAN’T. DO. THIS. ALONE.
Rugged individualism and self-sufficiency are part of the systems and structures (i.e. capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy) that have led us to the crossroads we find ourselves at. We are being asked to “grow immense” as Francis Weller puts it. To root down and reach out for one another, for community, for relationships, for the natural world, for ancestors, and to the teachers and practices that sustain us.
“Like all other living things, we must make our descent into the darkness then wait for some new kind of wisdom to take root.” -Valerie Andrews
I am writing to you today asking you to join me on this journey of Soul Activism. This path of leaning into grief and the sorrows of the world. Dipping your toe in again and again to the well of grief that’s present-coming new each time being willing to be changed by what you pay attention to and tend to.
What seems to surprise people when they attend the grief circles I facilitate or when they participate in the Mindful Grieving Program is how much vitality and aliveness is present as they explore grief work. People expect to come and cry the entire time or feel mopey or down in the dumps. And of course that happens at times.
But what is more common is people come with their broken open hearts, vulnerability, fierce courage, and curiosity. What emerges from their time in the depths of grief when held in the container of community is almost always aliveness, access to deeper wisdom and intuition, and increased compassion and connection to themselves and others. Francis says, “We are most alive at the threshold between loss and revelation; every loss ultimately opens the way for a new encounter.”
I feel myself in that place right. Grieving the loss of the election and the larger collective struggle we find ourselves in. Holding fear, holy outrage, and sorrow close to my heart. AND I feel the deep aliveness of this moment. Not knowing what is yet to come or what is to be revealed in The Long Dark. I am here to stay open to the “new encounter” and the possibility of a future I can fall in love with.
Will you join me? Will you stand beside me as a soul activist?
Sending our roots down and reaching out for one another in the dark.
Sarah and I invite you to join us in community with a new virtual circle we are offering starting in January 2025.
This offering arose from a call both of us feel to support, connect and empower those who are changemakers, advocates, activists, leaders and tricksters within The Long Dark.
Rooted Tenacity is a group coaching circle that meets twice a month for group coaching sessions and embodiment and soul activism practices. It is an opportunity to find a sense of deep rootedness to your longings, purpose, and vision for a future we can fall in love with.
We are inspired by the image of a tree, deeply rooted into an ecosystem of reciprocity, belonging and connection. From this rooted place the tree reaches up and out, its gnarly knotted branches continuing to find the tenacity to sustainably move towards what is life affirming.
Find out more information HERE.
Register HERE.
Please message us with questions about this offering