Holy Grief

The grief rushes in, as a wave of numbing, crushing, cold despair crashing upon the shoreline of my spirit. Its breakers distract with their frothing, gleaming spray, while the undertow undermines the foundations at my feet. Joy and hope shift like so much sand, pulled out into the vast sea of roiling, storming, Holy Grief and Terror. Despair is tangible. Despair is crushing. It is not mine. It is not mine.

“Hold Fast,” He says, and His presence is soft, thick, good wool wrapped snug around me. We are wet, soaked in this ocean of Grief, but He keeps me warm even as wet wool can manage to do. My spirit wants to shatter under this strain, but He holds me up as the ground underneath me gives way. I think of the other part of the year, when the Holy Grief I bear witness to is not mine, is His. This, too, is not mine, but it’s closer to mine, and He holds it with me, because it is of me.

What is this, that grief is such a burden to bear? That the awareness of grief, of endings, of mortality, of the darkness, is such a factor in my path? Is it my comfort with that place? I believe we are doors, are conduits for the Mysteries to come into the world, and I believe that we as a species – certainly as a culture – too often shy away from the dark, the heavy, the somber, the macabre. We do not speak easily of death, of dying. We avoid. Am I depressed? I do not think that I am. Right now, in this very moment, my moods are in great flux, and I am thus slightly detached, watching them go until they settle down. When they settle, they settle upon steady “blue” – I’m always aware that, this time I speak to someone could be the last time I do so. I’m always aware that at any moment terrible things could happen to those I care about, or to myself. That nothing I have is permanent. I am going to lose everyone and everything I care about. This does not depress me. This allows me to appreciate what I have, and it helps me live an engaged life. I don’t want to avoid. I despise avoiding. I want to embrace.

This Grief is the touch of Odin’s Hunt upon my awareness. They beckon to me and bid me join Them. Poseidon says this pressure will not, will not ease until I’ve done so.

This Grief is not my grief, I know it is not, but it rages around me, outside the cocoon that Poseidon has created with His sheltering embrace. I have felt bereft. I have felt that He is distant. He is not distant. He is here. I am held.

edited because spelling. also words. also titles.