There’s a hollowness to grief. An emptiness. A something that was and is no more.
Emptiness doesn’t exist without boundaries. Without holding. Without feeling the loss of what is not.
We meet at boundaries. We come and go. Hello; Good-bye. Good-bye; Hello.
Our meditation garden is a hallowed nest within the larger Story Garden. Its floor is the ground. Its walls are bushes grown tall. A willow’s branches bow to form the ceiling. As spring approaches, her tears will form and shelter us until they fall.
Soon, the willow will weep. As I sometimes do.
The meditation garden is a sacred space. In part, of course, because of its separateness. And, notably, because of its emptiness. That which is sacred offers the disconnection that facilitates connection.
Flowers decorate the northern border. Fairies peer out from their home among the southern bushes. A bench that rests next to the gate along the western wall supports me as I sit to face the east. A compass reveals that a water fountain marks the easternmost spot. I wonder if it was aligned with intention.
With intention, I placed the bench to face the direction in which the sun rises. It’s the direction I face for prayer and meditation.
Even on this foggy morning, spring approaches.
Soon, the willow will weep. As I sometimes do.
Grief comes and goes in waves. It’s a wise visitor, approaching when we, (sometimes unknowingly) open a welcoming door.
We invite it by carving space for it. A carving is created both by what is and what was. They coexist to create something bigger than the sum of their isolation and separateness.
We carve space in time. In place. In mind. To cradle the space in our hearts.
Willingness to feel the throb and the hollow gives us the strength to hold it.
To mold it.
A couple of months after moving in, I set about trimming the overgrown walls of the meditation garden. I discovered a rusty sign. I smiled when I read the words, “Go Away.” When I reached out to touch the sign, it swiveled. The other side read, “Welcome.” I thought, “Of course,” for both are needed.
We meet at boundaries. We come and go. Hello; Good-bye. Good-bye; Hello.
We haven’t been meeting others as usual. Many of us have been holding our grief, COVID related or not, alone.
We are a society cloaked in layers of loss. (Even as I write this sentence, I know it is wrong. Being cloaked implies being covered. Being held. I’ll leave it as a foil to the nakedness of our grief.)
We literally have not held one another. We figuratively have not had the protective walls, ceiling, and grounding that create the hollow of the meditation garden. Without the round of the holding arms that are willing to touch (feel) and acknowledge, we have no hollow. Without the emptiness, no ground becomes hallowed.
We hold the unwelcome and unacknowledged energy of grief in many ways. Sometimes, we hold it in our bodies as sickness and disease. Other times, we hold it in the form of fear. Or anger. Maybe even rage.
Without walls to hold us, grief sits as walls withholding us … one from another. It molds grief into anger, among other imposters, creating a separation that’s not sacred. Rather, it’s a separation that that threatens to leave us scarred.
Earlier this week, 400 lights framed the reflection pool in Washington, DC. They represented the 400,000 Americans who had died (at that time, it’s now 417,399) from COVID-19. The illumined borders created space. The framing offered holding, inviting the pooling of our collective tears. We were held, virtually, in a common space. We were together.
We meet at boundaries. We come and go. Hello; Good-bye. Good-bye; Hello.
Soon, the willow will weep. As I sometimes do.
We can meet and grieve in these carved out spaces where …
“Hello, hollow,” becomes, “Hello, hallowed.”
If, of course, we have the strength to hold, and to feel.