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Oceana Sawyer's avatar

Ahhh, this, and our conversation the other day, invite me to return again to the liminal space of grief which is a hallowed, no-time space between departure and arrival where untethered from what has been (little d-death) you become available for what is becoming.

Our conditioned minds always want to make a situation like that a grand allegory and we impose that grandiosity on too many situations that can’t carry the weight of that imposition. So they collapse into the neat little familiar boxes we call life.

Not you. You continue to remind us that life - big L and little l - occurs in the cracks, in the space in-between. Not to live there, but to rest there a bit longer, to allow ourselves to be moved when and how it wants to move us. Leaving the “it”ambiguous here for however “it” shows up for you.

And now I am struck in the writing of this that that way of being, that knowing, comes from being tempered by life and death and the in-between. It is a path of eldership that all those seeking a deeper understanding of their humanity (humanity meaning what it means to be a member of the human species among all the other species), must encounter. And I will leave it there, for it continues to unfold, but now the words are too limiting. So I'll leave it to unfold for whoever encounters them.

Grateful for the modeling and the gift of all the conversations. Asé

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Brian Stout's avatar

aaaahhhhh so gorgeous, Akilah. thank you for this gift, and so timely. I'm reminded of Andrew Garfield's line that grief is "unexpressed love."

I particularly appreciate the connection between grief and slowness (and savoring...) as I wade into this topic (feeling!) with more intentionality. I realize I've tended to see grief as a distraction, as a bogging down, and that my own resistance is preventing me from completing the cycle, honoring what has been lost, and moving forward. work in progress 😬

you prompted me to return to an earlier musing of my own on the topic... as always, i'm better at preaching than practicing :-( https://citizenstout.substack.com/p/finding-light-in-darkness

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