Dearest seekers,

My baby Zachary Michael turned one year old on the 11.22. I haven't slept much this year and in that sleeplessness, I aged like the presidency. It shows on my face, the grey hairs, and in my neck, as someone pointed out recently. (Thankfully, I had never noticed my sagging neck in the mirror.) But he's a year old, strong and healthy, smiling and goofy. Since his birthday, we hit family markers every week, it seems. Blessings and grievings. Celebrations and inner journeys.

 
My second daughter died on Winter Solstice. And I begin to step palpably into grief, as though I am curling up with an old friend, after Thanksgiving. I am not sad, per se, but that feeling of longing for my daughter, missing what could be, what was, what never will be. And then the gratitude comes, for what is and the children in my arms, how quickly that could change. Last Thursday at mentoring circle, a violent, traumatic accident occurred right outside our classroom door. A student came inches from being killed. Seconds difference on either end would have left some of us severely injured or worse. But it didn't. Rather than feel like a telephone pole and car were aimed at us, we felt protected by an army of angels at every turn. It was shocking and strange, and we all reacted differently in the moment.
 
I wept when I got home. I just allowed my husband to hold me as I wept for the lives that are lost every day in an instant, for our own losses that came in like that car throughout the years, sweeping so much with it, hitting unlikely targets.
 
We are lucky, I whispered. And then I cried for our luck and for our losses in equal measure.
 
Grief rides in on other emotions. It is why holidays and celebrations often tinge with the grey of grief for us. Joy and pain intertwine, dance if you will. Humans have this beautiful capacity to hold complicated emotions at the same time --joy and grief. Because joy remembers the pain, perhaps it exists because of the pain. Do not allow others to convince you that grief is not healthy and will negate the joy. We must feel our feelings, articulate them, own them, before we can decide what is or isn't healthy.
 
I wait for grief to arrive, grateful for the space in the frantic month to love my beautiful, deeply missed daughter. During the holidays, I actually budget the grief days into my schedule. A day to be silent and walk with intention as a bereaved mother, rather than a healer, or mystic, or reader, or a wife, or a mama. I take the time to invite Grief to the table for a chat, honoring this deep shadow part of my life, the great man that lurks behind all I do. For grief was my great opener, My daughter's death was my event horizon, as a friend once called it. The moment everything else in my life was sucked into, and through which I see everything else. But through that moment, I received the gifts of the path I walk, the deep connection I feel with all living beings, the humility and service to which I dedicated my life. My daughter gave me the gift of art and writing, of healing and sobriety and true mothering of my self. I began to work on all that shadow shit that arose after grief gutted me and in that work, I found myself and in myself I found God.
 
So, this holiday season, budget a day to invite Grief in, have a conversation with Him, ask Him what gifts He brought you. Whether you grieve a child, a divorce, a job loss, a family of origin that is dysfunctional, death of any one, allow yourself a day of silence and honoring of this sacred part of our humanity, and then move into the joy of the season with dark and light in balance.  

So many people have asked about my intention classes for the new year. On January 9th, I am holding a Women's Visioning Retreat at Alta View Wellness Center. It is an all day affair with lunch included where we will be setting intentions for the new year, and creating vision boards. Such a gift of a day, and I hope you can share it with me. I also am doing my monthly crystal class on Intention Setting. I have changed those classes to the third Thursday of the month, rather than the first one. So, check the schedule and join me for some classes at Alta View Wellness in January.

Much love,