Earth to Ephemera

As I write this, I realize I am not alone in this act of unburdening, but that my co-creator is Grief. We have begrudgingly known each other for as long as I can remember. Well, more accurately, I have begrudgingly known Grief and Grief has just been…

I used to do everything in my power to evade Grief’s grasp, to prolong Grief’s settling in, but especially to prevent her coming at all, of course, to no avail. The one thing I refused to try was to meet her and the lessons she came bearing, not with fear or fierce resistance, but with open arms and mind alike.

Now, as I prepare to enter my 28th solar cycle, I welcome Grief as an old friend and my greatest teacher. The space she inhabits in my life is no longer completely debilitating, though, don’t get me wrong, I still get my fair share of the dark and twisties (I just started watching Grey’s Anatomy and phrases from the show live rent-free in my brain).

It helps to remind myself that healing isn’t linear, and shadows cannot manifest without light. So, with this in mind, I realize the weight of Grief was so very crippling due to the extremity of my attachment to people, places, and things that were never mine to keep. And so, I ponder this iconic Shakespearean verse with a heart well-rounded, and aimed at accepting what has come to pass, what is, and what shall be.

These violent delights have violent ends

And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,

Which as they kiss consume: the sweetest honey

Is loathsome in his own deliciousness

And in the taste confounds the appetite:

Therefore, love moderately; long love doth so;

Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.

I am tired of violent ends, so I embrace temperance. I am tired of the unsustainability of my own eager nature, which seeks to consume and be consumed by everything that piques my interest, even fleetingly. And though this insatiably curious beast lives within me for all eternity, I am learning to integrate her into my being, rather than to abandon her for my own preservation. To leave her behind would be to reject myself, and Divinity knows I have done enough of that for a lifetime.

For this very tough lesson, I am grateful. I am grateful for the sustainability that lives within my own solitary existence and for Grief’s lesson in grounding and grace. As I reflect on this entry, yes, some endings were sickeningly violent. But finally, I have learned to find wholeness in the culmination of these cosmic lessons, for they have led me back home to myself.

Love always,

Dominique