What do we do with all the grief?

Back in December, I opened the Society of St. John the Evangelists’ fall newsletter to an article about grief written by Br. James Koester. In it, he spoke of the weight of our pandemic loss – 800,000 deaths attributed to the virus in the US alone; an average of 9 people closely affected by each of those deaths equals close to 3 million individuals dealing with acute grief. That number continues to rise.

Sure, you might say, that’s only 1% of the US population. Statistically insignificant. Except we know it is not the sum total of our losses. There is lost time with loved ones, lost jobs, canceled, postponed or scaled back celebrations and one-time life events, missed years of schooling, adult children needing to move home, relationships gone awry over the bizarre politicization of public health policy involving vaccinations and masking, and so much more. Further, the pandemic has exacerbated mental health issues, resulting in more deaths from suicide and overdose. Russia’s sudden invasion of Ukraine, recent mass shootings in the US, and continued news of climate and financial crises – changes happening without our consent – adds to our sense of instability.

It all adds up to a flood of communal loss; a tsunami of worldwide grief.

Energetically, grief upends us.

The proximity of Death threatens our physical sense of safety, reminding us that we too, one day, will die. Our amygdala, the center of survival, simply cannot tolerate this. Our fear center takes over, severing our attachment to the Earth and disassociating us from our bodies. The energy no longer flows easily from the root chakra to what feeds us on a physical level, air, sun and moon, food, water. More importantly, the energetic exchange from the Earth back to us is also interrupted, leading to mental confusion, trouble organizing ourselves, remembering to eat, losing track of time, and the myriad other manifestations of ungrounded-ness we recognize as a response to grief.

In theory, if the energy system was truly part of our dualistic world (black and white, good and evil, etc.) someone who has Earth energy closed off or impeded would have the other end of the spectrum, or Ether, wide open. But we are more complicated Beings, our energy system connected to multiple dimensions, and so what I have found with people experiencing acute loss is that they also have the Ether chakra constricted, or even bound tight.

Ether is the fifth element: Space. Every created thing, from cellular components to planets and stars require space to move through. Without space in the body we would have no joints, no lung capacity, no balance or equilibrium or hearing (inner ear and sinuses). Ether, located in the throat, is our center of self-expression. When we lose someone or something we love, our world can become very small. Often people won’t talk about the loss, or let us speak about it, afraid it will make us feel worse, when nothing can actually make us feel worse. No one knows exactly what it’s like to be us, and so if we cannot speak about something, or someone so important to us, then perhaps a host of other things are also unspeakable. If we cannot share ourselves freely, we tend to withdraw and isolate as a protective device, leading to further disconnection with others. This constriction impedes the energy flow up and through the third eye and crown to all that is above, and most importantly, our connection to Spirit.

Grief demands we re-evaluate our lives while disconnecting us from the Sources that reminds us who we are and why we are here. Without intervention, it lodges in our body, specifically our Heart.

What can we do?