Grief Is Not Proof of Love

Welcome back, Brujx.

Last week, we played with fear.

This week, I want to talk to you about the possible pitfalls of grief through the lens of my work, as represented in the Griefcraft Guide.

Grief is one of those human experiences everybody has an opinion about. And those opinions can be radically different depending on whether you’re in the tumult or observing on the outside (how nice that the universe has guaranteed us opportunities to experience both perspectives).

Well-meaning folks who want to check on grieving loved ones may ask, “Are you doing better?” They want to know whether enough time has passed. They may encourage you to move forward, find closure, remember the good times, stay strong, be grateful, let go, forgive, accept, heal.

Sometimes those suggestions are loving.

Sometimes they are other people trying to make your grief easier for them to be around.

One of the central ideas in my Griefcraft work is emotional sovereignty: giving yourself permission to feel what is actually present without disappearing into it, sanitizing it, or performing your grief in a way that makes everyone else comfortable. Your grief may contain rage, tenderness, confusion, relief, numbness, longing, resentment, gratitude, even moments of pleasure or laughter.

I mean, it’s an ultimate portal experience. It’s odd that folks would try to simplify it...as if one could.

Witch Wisdom: Grief is fucking complicated.

One of the traps I especially want us to examine is the belief that ongoing suffering somehow proves the depth of our love.

I do not think that most humans hold that belief with full consciousness or that they even want to buy into it at all...even when they do. 

What happens when you enjoy dinner, have great sex, dance, get excited about something new or catch yourself having a genuinely beautiful day...after having experienced significant loss, not just capital D stuff?

Sometimes another feeling appears right behind any kind of pleasure: Guilt.

All this turmoil revolves around one very uncomfortable question, “If I move forward, does that mean they/it mattered less?”

Allow me to reassure you with all the authority the universe has bestowed upon me, the answer is no.

BTW, you have the same authority, so be careful about what stories you attach your energy to. 

Witch Wisdom: Your suffering is not proof of your love.

The distinction that Death can change your access to someone or something, without completely annihilating it matters enormously!

I’m not going to disrespect you with some woo-woo, toxic-positivity spiritual garbage. Powerful witches do not pretend someone is still physically here when they are not. It is not about refusing reality. A continuing relationship with the Dead necessitates moving forward, not clinging to the past.

The person is dead AND your love can still be very much alive.

Both things can exist at the same time. Imagine that:  Complicated truths occupying the same space at once...that’s a deeper discussion for another time. 

I think this is where grief becomes particularly interesting magical territory, because we are forced into a new relationship/life/reality/identity with circumstances largely out of our control. 

We cannot undo the death. But we can decide how we care for the love that remains and there are many ways to demonstrate that the connection also remains, because we can keep it alive by:

• Speak their names.
• Be angry with them and tell them.
• Share your pain with them.
• Laugh and share with them.
• We can live out qualities they taught us.

Joy and grief can occupy the same body. With practice, you may even learn to work consciously with seemingly opposing emotional energies. But that is advanced magical work, and it needs to stand on a strong foundation of capacity. 

My Griefcraft practice asks us to move through grief rather than around it while staying connected to our own living bodies. Give your body permission to make ugly sounds and terrible faces. Or let yourself drift into a quiet spiritual profundity. Or beat a pillow and feel the fury of being inconvenienced by the experience. Being honest about your grief is an act of self-compassion that does not leave room for judgment.

Try to remain in loving relationship with yourself while something enormous moves through you.

If guilt tends to arrive whenever your suffering softens, there is already a practice inside the Vault for you: The Sovereignty of Self-Soothing.

You do not need to complete it because this newsletter told you to. The Vault is still a practice library. Go there if the work feels useful.

You can also sit with Estrellita and ask:

“Help me explore whether I have connected suffering with loyalty to someone or something I have lost. Do not tell me how I should grieve or encourage me to move on. Help me notice what I feel in my body, what I believe my grief proves, and whether love can remain present without requiring constant pain.”

And because Griefcraft is not only about sorrow, we are also going to dance.

Our Halloween Death Witch Dance Party will take place on Thursday, October 22 at 8 PM Eastern.

The entire School is invited, and you are welcome to bring friends...Living or Dead.

We will keep this gathering simple and delicious: one hour of Halloween music, costumes if you want them, movement, laughter, witchy company and whatever else emerges when a room full of strange humans agrees to celebrate being temporarily alive together.

Zoom Link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85431253446?pwd=2z7xqFlB88yc1AfLklj8JmNso7tq4Z.1

Passcode:

008802

We will spend more time this month talking about what it means to maintain an explicit and active relationship with the Dead.

But first, I want you to notice something this week:

When grief softens, even for a quick second, do you allow yourself to soften with it?

With you in the dark,

Mel, The Body Witch