This is a story about how I cracked open in Norway.
I would put myself back together again, but the pieces no longer fit.
This is a story about how I went to Norway,
-----though it could have been anywhere-----
and returned home changed.
This is a story that really isn't a story at all
but a recalling of moments.
It’s about how mourning is not just about losing someone who’s died, but about carrying all our losses with us as we continue to live.
I was in a plane on the way to Norway.
I was coming on an important mission, even though I wasn't completely certain what that was.
I came here for a yoga teacher training, that focused on merging the path of the witch with the path of yoga. But it was about so much more than that. Just like it's always about more than it seems on the surface.
I can't explain why I am always finding myself in circles with strangers
But I can tell you I do so despite the fear that questions my intuition.
I can also tell you I do it because the calling won't stop until I follow it.
Within an hour of landing in Norway, I receive news that my dog had died.
Losing Gemma was a blow I wasn't expecting, but shouldn't have been so surprised by.
She had been having health problems.
I hadn't factored this into my tediously laid plans.
I was struggling to make sense of it, to honor her memory, and yet make the most of where I was and stick to the itinerary I had created for an “epic tour of the country”.
I wasn't going to just cry inside a hotel room for days, or fly back home and forfeit myself the experience, I was going to take her memory with me on a journey.
I was going to cry with the mountains, winding roads, I was going to cry at the sight of sheep, I was going to cry eating waffles and sipping tea overlooking a waterfall, I was going to text my loved ones at home and tell them,
“I’m homesick, I’m overwhelmed, I’m really sad”
but I’m going to stay.
I’m going to be here.
One night during training, we were asked to go find a spot outside in nature and connect with the element of earth.
Simple.
I’m going to sit here on the earth and listen.
The rain started coming down hard so I tightened my hood and dipped my head down
The wind started to bite.
The thought “change hurts” drops into my mind
I was holding a stone in my hand. We had been instructed to find one that felt special to us in some way. This one was smooth and fit snugly into the palm of my hand curled around it.
I held onto it. Its weight in my hand, like my sadness, a reminder of what I was carrying
I took a deep breath in and exhaled with a tired sigh, one that sounded like an old tired dog, a sigh like Bella would let out…
Bella.
The one I lost, just a few months prior to Gemma.
Old age, no other explanation.
A life well lived.
Bella.
I see her face. It radiates love.
It hurts.
I’ve lost so much. reverberates in my mind
This thought slices through my center and cracks me open, like an egg, more tears spilling out, thick like yolk, now pooling around me.
This sadness carries the weight of every sad thing that's ever happened in my life.
Memories like snapshots now flicking through my mind.
Every
single
sad
thing.
The rock in my hand stays solid
The night before, we had given these rocks to the fire, representing something we wanted to release, but that was hard to let go of. Mine represented insecurity, my false belief of being stupid, and of not being good enough.
How many times do you have to let go of something before it's truly gone?
We came back the following day to look in the ashes for our stones.
A passing thought in my mind worried I might not be able to find it.
Like I might not know who I am without all that it symbolized.
But when I looked, it was right there, sitting proudly, waiting for me to pick it back up.
It had been changed by the fire. Transmuted.
It’s energy was different, somehow.
It had been through the fire.
We had that in common.
A visual comes into my mind:
it’s me,
face turned up towards the sky,
arms outstretched to either side,
spinning in circles.
Freedom from it all.
Joy despite it all.
My spirit, underneath it all.
The possibility of that.
That is what I am here looking for.
It's cold. I'm done.
We all meet back inside.
Everyone else in the group shares their experiences,
except for two of us.
She beckons for us to share.
I go last.
This is typical of me.
I look at my teacher Kate, and the group, who were all strangers only a few days prior…
I feel the pressure of my internal critic to say something profoundly insightful, but all I can do is tell the truth.
“I cried a lot…” I start.
Then, I tell them what I saw and felt. The messages I received.
I tell them my dog died at soon as I arrived here,
And my other dog died a few months prior
and how my dogs are everything to me, and then
I’m crying again
and it all pours out somewhat disjointedly.
That I know it might seem silly to some to be so upset about losing a dog,
that I have a mother wound,
that I can't have kids,
or for whatever reason it just hasn't happened for me,
and that my dogs are my kids,
and how I’m feeling the weight of so many terribly sad things that have happened over the course of my life and I am mourning and I feel that my body and brain and soul are just begging for deep, deep rest.
I could go on, but I might never stop.
Something inside me starts to pull the gates back down.
Close it up. Shut it down.
I struggle with sharing my voice in this way.
My experience felt so personal, yet I know my withholding was to the detriment to myself and of allowing myself to belong.
There's a persistent internal mistrust that tries to keep myself hidden.
I’ve always felt like I have to keep it all together
The rawness of my emotions feel messy and ugly.
In reality, it wasn't messy at all, it was quite simple.
I was mourning.
I allowed the group to hold space for me in my anguish.
And I felt somewhat ridiculous
And yet somewhat relieved.
I didn't have energy to try and be anything but me
I was here.
I was showing up.
The beauty of the moment was, not one pried into me with questions.
Not one told me “aww, don't cry”,
not one.
They said
“you are so strong”
“thank you for sharing”
“there are so many ways to be a mother”
One gave me a hug. A silent message of sisterhood that transcends words.
A day or two later we would take those rocks that had been transmuted by the fire and give them to the water.
One by one we walked out into the freezing lake, in the dark of night, to submerge ourselves in the water and let go of our rocks.
I was so overwhelmed by the cold I didn't notice until I got back on land that I was still clenching the rock tightly in my fist.
Why is it always so hard for me to let go?
I looked down at it, momentarily unsure what to do,
and then, I lifted it up over my head and threw it far out into the water.
It's been a year since my experiences in Norway, and I am still processing all that I learned there. I am still grieving. I don't think that process truly stops, just changes shape.
Every dance with loss is different.
You change shape too.
Mourning is like a rock in the center of your chest. When you cry, the tears are a release. Little by little the weight of the sorrow leaks out and you feel a relief. Then, a lightening. Just like water over time wears away at a rock, smooths out its edges, and erodes and reshapes the land, the flow of our tears breaks up stagnancy and long-held blockages.
Nature serves us hard truths and rituals help us to integrate those lessons. Our pain is a portal. Through it we find strength and transformation. When we speak on it, we open to connection and we allow others to see themselves in our mirror. When we speak on it we find release and clarity.
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