Experiencing a Grief Ritual — Holding Space for Grief When It Doesn’t Come Naturally

The world is experiencing immense grief. Has it always been here and we are more disconnected from it in this age of separation through technology? In the absence of interpersonal community and the lost ritual of coming together for sharing and storytelling, many of us are lost ourselves.

• “We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.” — — Pema Chodron

In my experience, grief has always been around, hanging out in the house, drinking my teas and making a dent in the couch beside me. It’s something I’ve learned to live with every day as a woman and as a black woman. Grief, my old friend, is just another fact of life I have accepted as unavoidable, unshakable and a part of the dance.

I recently attended a grief ceremony held by Witch Mama of ATL Craft in my hometown, Atlanta. This ceremony was held to be a container for womxn to come together and hold each other in whatever grief they are experiencing and also be able to express it out loud together.

I’ve never experienced anything like it. I never even knew it was possible to express grief out loud, freely, without judgement or fear of someone calling the cops. So, even though I took a hot bath before hand and came into the ritual with an open heart, I wasn’t surprised by the struggles and blockages that appeared as I participated.

I have never felt safe enough to express my grief out loud before, ever in my life thus far.

We sat on cozy floor mats with blankets and created a very warm and inviting circle. An altar was dressed with red candles, totems and offerings by the window letting in a luminous view of the full moon.

We started by introducing ourselves and sharing what brought us to the space. If you chose to, you could share the story of the grief you were there to express.

I didn’t share a specific story because I feel I’m experiencing grief all the time. I shared that my intention was to simply experience what it’s like to express myself out loud this way, with others, in a safe container and see what happens.

There were many heartbreaking stories shared of what the womxn were battling, and it helped to feel their honesty and openness. It helped me feel more open myself. We were all there to hold and be held, together in a radical act of self care and community building.

Once the stories were told around the circle, we made individual art pieces with wateroclor and colored pencils, drawing a small image of what our grief looks like to us. This was done to materialize the visual representation of our grief before expressing it auditorially.

When we were done, we got into a pile in the middle of the room to hold each other and breathe. Eventually, the energy shifts and people will begin to express their grief through different sounds like sobs that turn into wailing, that then turn into screams of anguish.

I focused on mirroring the sounds and vibrations running through me as we held each other in the center of the room. Whenever I tried to scream, however, I was met with a rock in my throat. I was deep in doubt, thinking “Why can’t you rage right now?” “Man, this feels so strange to me. I wish it were easier.” Then, I chose to simply be a part of the holding and mirroring as best I could, just allowing this new door to be opened.

This is something my mother, her mother, and her mother before her never got to do. Of course it would be a challenge the first time. Grief for us has always been a “dust it off and move on” sort of thing, a “persevere with a smile” thing, because if you’re not pleasant you are a threat, an angry black woman. Angry black women don’t usually get any sympathy and don’t tend to get very far.

Holding grief in silence has caused me to be numb to it, to have a detachment from myself in order to carry on. I have accepted early on how cruel the world can be. Death has greeted me at an early age, society has shown me opposition from birth, and experiencing the shadows of the underworld as a sex worker has truly shown me how hell exists here and now.

I’ve sailed in darkness, I still have dinners with death and I’ve tasted the air of cruelty so densley that I choose to live my life with as much joy as I can muster because the other option is to succumb to inevitable suffering.

I grieve for the state of the world at war with itself. I grieve for my past selves. I grieve for my mother’s silent grieving. I grieve for her mother’s unacknowledged grief. I grieve for my future child’s suffering. I grieve ideas and shattered illusions.

And I accept that grief doesn’t go away. It just gets easier to manage. It certainly hasn’t been something I ever felt I could release. I have learned to live with it as a part of life, never fully expressing it, accepting it as a part of the suffering we experience just by being alive.

After participating in the ritual, I realize that perhaps my unexpressed grief has kept me unable to fully experience joy, never fully being present with it; Believing that yes, the sun is here now, but night always follows.

Today, there is some pain in my body from where grief comfortably sits inside of me that came bubbling up to the surface during the ceremony. In my chest I feel a pulsing tightness. My neck feels like there are two strings pulling it back from each side of my skull. My hips are cement, all after effects from attempting to push my rage out all at once.

Overall, I feel a little less heavy than before and that’s progress.

I’ll be easy with myself for the next couple of days as this moves through me, nourishing my body with care and attention: Hydrating, doing light and loving movements. One day, it will be easier for me to scream, the screams of my ancestors that long to be released. It will flow through me like a river so it can flow through my descendants.

In spite of the hardships we are given in this life, in order to be a beacoon of light, we must know darkness. We must be able to sit with it and know its place as the other side of the coin. We must know what it looks like, what it feels like to be in its presence, so we can conjour the will to change it.

I’m grateful to know it’s possible to create a container for grief to express itself and not keep it so tightly wound that it becomes its own demon, with its own voice that whispers in your ear influencing your choices.

I want my choices to be made with feather-weight lightness. I want to choose with compassion and openness. The beauty of these choices come from releasing heavy burdens with safety and support. I’m overwhelmed with gladness for being held this way for the first time, and I’m sure it won’t be my last.

I envision getting more comfortable with the action of expressing my grief in a curated container, and one day carrying on the tradition for even more womxn to grow from. What a beautiful vision that is.

What glorious progress can be made from being able to put down the weight of the world even if only for a moment? When we lift each other up this way, nothing can hold us down. Nothing.