Welcome all of you tattered and exquisitely beautiful souls. Thanks for receiving our offering and showing up for one another in our deepest grief and existential despair. It takes courage to show up in your vulnerability and rawness, so I commend and honor you.

 We are all experiencing the collective trauma of the environment crisis, but also rampant social problems, and the narcissistic injury that our president has inflicted on us since his election. It has been an endless and horrifying barrage of abuse and while I know the human spirit is strong, our flames are weak.

 We gather here today to honor our individual and collective grief.  And the need for our community to come together and support one another in our collective trauma.

The intention for this ritual is to also cultivate more reverence for the sacred process of grieving.  Our deep grief is not something to simply “get over.” On the contrary,  it is something to learn to appreciate and value as a necessary part of life.  We need to have just at much reverence for loss as we do for love.

Another intention is to get out of mind and into our hearts—our emotions, our bodies, and our soul.  In the west there is an overemphasis on “rationality” and “rational modes of knowing.”  We see a championing of the mind over the emotions— and are literally taught to live in our minds and devalue the wisdom of our emotions, bodies, and spirits.

It is also our intention to offer a safe, nonjudgemental, healing ground to release any deep grief you have been suppressing and any further support you might need in the future.

 We truly are all in the same boat and things are very dark and bleak right now.  We will most likely be experiencing this darkness for awhile now. However, we must find a way to unite in our love for the earth, in our love for the diversity of species on this gorgeous planet, and in our love for one another.

 With all the loss and collective trauma in the world today, we need to offer support to one another as so many are feeling silenced, marginalized, isolated, alone, and wounded.  I want to honor all of the people who are so paralyzed in their pain that they can’t leave the house. I work with a lot of these people in my job as a home health social worker. You would not believe how many vulnerable people are feeling isolated and terrified right now.

 I have felt the depths of despair myself, particularly when I first learned of the environmental crisis in 2015. I was just finishing graduate school and I just released the first edition of my book Feminine Mysticism in Art. I reached out to Andrew Harvey for an endorsement, which he obliged.   And on his website I saw some interviews that he posted. I listened to an interview he did with Guy McPherson and Carolyn Baker—they had just released a book called “Extinction Dialogues: How to live with Death in Mind.” Guy is a climate scientist and Carolyn Baker is a phenomenal psychotherapist and author of multiple books on the decline of global capitalism. I immediate purchased the book and was forever changed.

It looks me six months to read it.  I felt terribly alone and isolated. At the time, I was finishing graduate school and there were only a few people in this community that knew about the devastating reality of global warming. I reached out to these people and continued to seek guidance from personal mentors. I had many sleepless nights—panic attacks in the middle of the night, despair, low grade depression, spaciness, inability to focus, memory impairment.  

 It is common to isolate when one is experiencing deep depression and despair.  However, I don’t recommend isolating for long periods of time as it can lead to a downward spiral to suicidal ideation and even suicide.

We all know the pain and wounds are deep. WE have all been terribly wounded by capitalism—particularly those who have been horribly discriminated against due to race/class/gender/and not to mention LGBTQ concerns.The system of social inequality is continuing to get worse, and we are more divided now than we have ever been due to social inequality, fierce competition, and hyper individualism (every man for himself).

 However, there is also another larger social trend happening at the same time.  We are evolving at a rapid pace, which feels like the quickening. The veils are being lifted and there is a massive tidal wave of awakening occurring.The new paradigm has been emerging for awhile now, but it has been stifled by corruption of the power elite and the corporatocracy that our political system has sadly become

We are witnessing the merging of science and mysticism, new humanitarian social systems, and regenerative agriculture. We are also witnessing the reclaiming of indigenous wisdoms and a renewed connection to the earth. We all have a direct access to the spirit world, and literally possess a universe in our own minds.

I truly believe that the indigenous peoples hold the deep wisdoms for our individual and collective healing. The purification times are here, as they have prophecised.

And while the scientific facts are undeniably daunting and fatalistic, no one really knows what is going to happen.  We all know on a soul level, that the apocalypse is and archetype deeply embedded in the collective unconscious and it is emerging now. The meaning of apocalypse is “A Lifting of the Veils.” As Karl Jung purports, the universal occurs in the collective unconscious and we all have access to it.  

 The human mind has always been ignorant, and limited in its ability to conceptualize the brilliance of the Infinite Universe.

 It is our greatest hope, that in going thru the dark night of the soul, there will be the possibility of new life, redemption, and the new golden age on earth. Some visionaries profess that what lies ahead, after the famine, is 1,00o years of peace and harmony. It is the bridging of heaven and earth—the return to the garden of eden. Wouldn’t that be nice?

 It is possible to experience rapid changes during the quickening. We are seeing this change happen now all over the world. It is my hope and prayer that this continues to escalate, as our time is short.

 I would also like to say that the environmental grief that we are experiencing is totally different than personal grief as it involves the potential death of human species and most species on planet earth.

We have experienced problems in the past, but not at the epidemic levels we are experiencing now. We are all suffering from some kind of modern day neurosis—anxiety, depression, ADD, fragmentation of the psyche.  This neurosis is NOT something to pathologize…it is normal to be experiencing an unraveling of the psyche in a time of chaos and social unrest.

 This global dark night of the soul will inevitably stretch all of us beyond our comfort zone and will continue to do so in the near future.  It will trigger a full range of negative emotions, such as utter rage, deep despair, shame, confusion, and apathy.  

 We are being called to surrender to the dark void of transition—to be the mystery at the crossroads. 

It will be incredibly difficult for us to befriend our individual and collective pain as it feels totally overwhelming, doesn’t it? When you love with all of your heart, you loose with all of your heart. And this loss, as many of you know, is a painful death of the ego and even hope. Having the courage to grieve is sitting with the most horrific shadow and allowing it to utterly transform you.

 We all must be committed to our own personal grief work and the many layers of grief that will unfold in the future. We most likely will be grieving for many years, particularly if we are indeed in a hospicing phase of humanity.  Hospice therapist and author, Elizabeth Kuebler Roth, worked with hundreds of people who experienced profound grief and loss at the end of their lives. Her research on grief revealed stages that all people go through in the grieving process (Stages of grief—denial, anger, grief, acceptance).  

 Most are still in the denial and anger phase, which is normal. One can’t force something through the process, nor can one force someone to grieve. We don’t have to do it all at once. It will occur in layers and stages.  And I personally think that we can regress to previous stages.  For example,  after three years of coming to terms with the reality of the ecological crisis, I have moved to a place of more acceptance.  However, I find that I can cycle back through to the anger and grief phases at times.

 Another thing I want to say about grief is that we all grieve in our own unique way. One is not better than the other. There is no pressure to cry if that is not want comes for you. Some may feel the need to make sounds or moans, which is welcomed. You might also choose silence.

For those of you who have been through your own dark night of the soul, you know there are gifts that come in the void of uncertainty. What do you think some of these gifts might be?

 1)   It challenges us to be in the present moment—to get in touch with our intuition and direct access to spirit.

2)   It challenges us to surrender to the Great Mystery. To learn how to sit with the void of the unknown and be OK with not having a plan of action.

3)   There is wisdom that comes in the complete shattering of the ego—radical humility and equality with everything.

4)   Challenges us to re-evaluate our values, beliefs and priorities. (family, friends, earth)

5)   Challenges us to practice non-attachment and letting go

6)   Asks us to practice radical forgiveness of self and others, reaching out to the community for support.

Doing this deep work is a practice of reverence for the death process.  Nature is such a profound teacher of the cycles of life and death, love and loss.   Humans have a lot of attachments, don’t we? Grief is also an honoring of our deep love for the good in humanity, as it is ultimately LOVE that will heal our jaded, broken hearts.  Love is the light that seeps into the cracks of the dark underworld.

 We know the power of this love and we must NOT forget the promise of INFINITE LOVE and GRACE on the earth plan and in the spirit world.  Our connection to the spirit world will literally be our life line and meditation will be a way for us to stay grounded and sane during the great turning. So will cultivating community and finding your own medicine offering for healing.

 There is no doubt it is difficult for humans to stay in a place of hopelessness.  We need to move into inspired action and find the motivation to do what we can in our own personal lives, but also in service to positive social change. It is incredibly healing to get out of your own suffering and assist people who are incredibly vulnerable, whose suffering is much greater than yours.

 There is a tremendous amount of redemption that comes when we start serving others.  There is much work to be done, my friends. And honoring our grief is a necessary part of the humbling and healing process. So pat yourselves on the back because you are stepping up to do some of the most important work of our time.