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15 May Earth Ritual

Posted at 17:37h in Sarah's Journal by admin 1 Comment

It is a beautiful day. The sun is shining. Windows and back doors are open. I can hear the boy next door calling to his friend’s Dad in the garden on the other side of us. I feel deeply rooted in this place, and enjoy the friendly connections between people and pets.

I have just returned from a gathering of friends, where conversation about melting glaciers and soil quality sit nestled with tales of frivolity and pleasure. I decide this is a good moment to complete the Earth ritual I have been preparing.

My deep time ancestors would have known rites for honouring the earth, been aware of Mother Nature’s generosity. They would have known how to live, in right-relationship with resources, been in awe of the elements, but I am still finding my way.

This is a practice I have learned from Francis Weller, to offer gratitude to the Earth, in response to ‘The Sorrows of the World’ (from his ‘Gates of Grief’). I have made an intuitive selection of small clay totems – a Beech leaf, a flower, an acorn, a Cowrie shell, a tooth, and a small bowl. I have inscribed “My tears are for…” on the bowl to symbolise the sadness I find hard to express.

In the face of the changes that are happening – weather disruption, bio diversity loss, and carbon emissions, it is easy to feel hopeless. I am working to remain in relationship with the natural world, and my grief, as I recognise my inter-being with the more than human world. A practice of giving thanks and offering gifts can foster this connection. It is a micro action in the face of a prevalent ‘extractive’ attitude to our planet.

Under the magnificent magnolia tree, I dig a hole. Ginger Girl – the cat from next door, (who regularly appears for on-line Grief Tending workshops) shows up. I place my clay offerings into the hole while chanting. Ginger Girl, after inspecting my work, turns to squat. A stream of yellow liquid fills the small bowl. These were not the salt tears I imagined, but present an image of a different kind of regenerative cycle. She then turns back again and scrabbles with her front paws, neatly filling the hole with earth again. She then sits looking satisfied. We both look up, as two of our regular squirrels travel across the branches of the tree above us. I offer apple, oats and incense as further blessings, feeling nature’s magic alive in me.

See here for next Grief Tending events.

Sarah Pletts is a Grief Tender and Artist who offers workshops in London and online, sharing rituals where grief on all themes is welcome. For more information about Grief Tending events see here.

Further documentary evidence of the story described in the text of this post

Ginger Girl participates in my Earth Ritual

20 Apr See No Stranger

Posted at 13:34h in Book Reviews by admin 0 Comments

‘See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love’ by Valarie Kaur invites us to see each person “as a part of me I do not yet know.”

This book takes us through the journey Valarie Kaur has made from innocent girl to social justice activist. It is an extraordinary trajectory, informed at every step by her Sikh faith. The ethics of her forbears meet the rise of both terrorism and racism in modern America.

Despite increasing professional accomplishments, Kaur retains the ability to relate simply and communicate directly. She learns through personal connections, and expands this sense of family outwards.
“As I move through my day and come across faces on the street or subway or on a screen, I say in my mind, Sister. Brother. Sibling. Aunt. Uncle.”

This is not a soft-hearted plea from a sensitive utopian. Kaur puts her philosophy of revolutionary love into practice in the streets, with breath taking courage. Do not be deceived, she is someone who understands the need to grieve and rage in safe containers in the face of injustice.

See No Stranger is a book of wise words that takes us through the steps required to ‘re-imagine’ the world through the tasks of acknowledging violence, grieving together, tending our wounds, listening, and breathing until we are able to reconnect through wonder.

Kaur takes us to some of the locations where these practices are most needed, in the aftermath of violent racist attacks. She documents the impacts of a society where the divisions of ‘us’ and ‘them’ proliferate.

In a world that can often leave me feeling powerless, and overwhelmed, she offers us a practical philosophy to bring people together. This book, she suggests is, “for anyone who feels breathless.” If that sense of fear, impotence or distress is making your breath come fast and shallow, I recommend See No Stranger as food for inspiration. And if you are ready to enquire, ask yourself, “What does this demand of me?”

Follow this link for next Grief Tending events.

20 Apr The Red of My Blood

Posted at 13:28h in Book Reviews by admin 0 Comments

‘The Red of My Blood: A Death and Life Story’ tells the story of the first year of grief. Clover Stroud writes about mourning the death of her sister. She captures the paradox of being both with deep feelings and the continuation of everyday family life; where children need feeding and attending to.

Clover Stroud writes her loss from the inside out. With metaphor and through her senses, we are invited into her inner world. She shows us glimpses of the pain of losing a sibling in middle age.

It is easy to misconstrue Kubler-Ross’s 5 Stages of Grief (plus Kessler’s = 6) as following each in neat order, but Stroud reminds us: “The path alongside death is crooked, remember. There are no consequential stages which happen one after the other, neatly, like dominoes falling.”

I love the permission that Stroud’s memoir gives to recognise the depth of love that mirrors the loss, in relationship with her sister. The death of a partner or child is seen as very significant, but grief follows in the wake of the death of anyone we love, as well as an infinite range of other life situations. “The truth is that the death and therefore loss of someone you love deeply is so awful you have to rearrange your brain dramatically to survive it.”

Writing during 2020, the pandemic adds an additional layer, as Stroud describes collective loss through lens of home schooling and changes in meeting with friends.

Describing grief as an “active verb”, Clover allows us into her own process. She sometimes faces towards the inevitability of death, and also the desire to escape from the reality that “none of us are getting out of here alive,” (to quote Nanea Hoffman via Stroud).

For me, through reading and feeling alongside the hurt of grief allows me to practice stretching my heart muscles. If you are currently inside your own experience of deep grief, Clover Stroud’s beautiful words may be able to reach out to tenderly hold your hand in recognition. She tells of her rituals and strategies, that allow her to begin to alchemise pain when it feels impossible. “The shrine of hard little objects were things to clasp, when the caverns of loss opened up and life felt as if it was sliding out of reach.”

Follow link for next Grief Tending events.

23 Mar 33 Meditations on Death

Posted at 13:23h in Book Reviews by admin 0 Comments

The second line appeared on my lateral flow test. I grabbed a few essentials from the kitchen and retired to bed. As symptoms circulated around my bronchial passages, I reached for ‘33 Meditations on Death: Notes From the Wrong End of Medicine’ by David Jarrett. Covid 19 does not appear until the final chapter, but contemplating age and vulnerability proactively are themes of the book.

David Jarrett MD is a long serving physician providing medical care to older people. If you are, or have been involved with the care of someone frail or elderly, you may already be aware of the medical ‘twilight zone’, the spectrum between life and death that older people can often fall into.

There is a great deal of sound thinking, alongside compassion and humour in the stories that come from Jarrett’s long service in geriatric and stroke care. “We are obsessed by mortality in modern health services, when we should be paying greater attention to quality of life. One is very easy to measure and the other virtually impossible,” he suggests.

Over a career that spans decades, we are given an inside perspective on the changes in medical practice, both for good or ill. We are treated both to the stories of patients, and doctors, who are dealing with mortality. It is a wise and engaging read, that brings insight to the perfect storm, “of longevity, prolonged infirmity and sheer numbers.” We are dying longer, as a consequence of living longer.

Some of the examples he brings have an element of tragicomedy about them, but in the face of uncertainty and the limits of medicine, the warnings he shares are important. Seventy is the new sixty for the lucky ones, see here for Advantages of Age who celebrate this.

However, there are wider implications to consider for us as ageing individuals. And for our collective greater good as a society, we need to debate these issues. As Jarrett says, “There is a burden of disease and there is a burden of treatment, and these two need to be balanced.” In his own words, “This is a call to arms for all of us to prepare and share more radical plans for our futures and perhaps in old age relinquish some of our considerable financial and electoral power.”

08 Mar Grief Tending is a Way to Care for Our Broken Hearts

Posted at 12:20h in Articles by admin 0 Comments

‘Grief Tending is a Way to Care for Our Broken Hearts’ was originally published as an article for FOYHT.

Why do we need Grief Tending?

Leaning into how we feel, giving time and attention to our emotions, can be a helpful way to process loss. In Grief Tending we do this by sharing with and witnessing others.

In many contemporary cultures, youth is prized. Social media tempts us to show only our best selves, and people often try to think positively in the face of difficulty. It’s easy to forget that our lives are part of a natural cycle, that has limits. There are beginnings and endings, as well as challenges and triumphs in between. Celebrating the ups with friends and family is welcome, but allowing space for our lows with others is more uncommon. Our expressions of grief are often hidden away in private.

Who would benefit from Grief Tending?

A Grief Tending event can offer us the space to be seen and heard without any pressure to solve or mend how we feel.

People often think that grief is reserved for the bereaved. But life brings us many curved balls and transitions, as well as the deaths of people you love. Every loss is significant, and may make us feel tender.

While some people come to a Grief Tending workshop with a broken heart, others may be dealing with depression, or be dealing with layers of disappointment, regret, absence, overwhelm or fear. It isn’t necessary to bring a specific loss to benefit from having time, in a supportive group workshop.

Grief and trauma recovery

Grief is a whole landscape of feelings that may include anxiety, anger, guilt, relief and numbness, amongst many other responses. It is an individual journey that doesn’t necessarily follow a neat route through the Stages of Grief originally proposed by Elizabeth Kübler-Ross.

Many cultures have had ways to be with grief, but others have lost the elders and knowledge to show us ways to digest our pain. Grief Tending is one kind of grief work, that brings together wisdom from different traditions and teachers including Sobonfu Somé , Francis Weller, Joanna Macy, and Martin Prechtel.

Current research and theories about trauma recovery provide a new understanding of what happens when we don’t have mechanisms to deal with trauma and grief. Gabor Maté sums this up in his recent film ‘The Wisdom of Trauma’,

“Trauma involves a lifelong pushing down, a tremendous expenditure of energy, and to not feeling the pain. As we heal, that same energy is liberated for life and for being in the present. So, the energy of trauma can be transformed into the energy of life.”

Gabor Maté

What does Grief Tending involve?

Grief Tending events happen both online and in person. A short 4 Hour event will allow someone to dip into the experience, whereas in a longer event there is more time to unfold complex stories. A ‘trauma-sensitive’ group will allow participants to work with the exercises in their own way. Groups include guided practices to connect and soothe, as well as a central part where feelings might come forward.

A workshop can be a powerful shared experience, that can help us to bear our suffering. In a group we may learn how to be with others’ losses too. Participants witness one another, and may find more kindness for themselves and others. This approach to working with grief works well along-side other therapeutic approaches.

Finding the balance between grief and support

When we are settled enough, with some support in place, it is possible to begin to explore grief. Finding support is necessary in order to work with our difficult edges. But we need to have balance in life, to spend time doing the things that we love, remember the people who inspire us, and the places that nourish us too.

In Grief Tending, we encourage connecting with support before and after gently approaching grief. In this way, some of our ‘energy of life’, may resurface. When we dare to face our feelings, it can reconnect us with ourselves, and those around us.

More about Grief Tending and upcoming workshops.

Sarah Pletts is a Grief Tender and Artist who offers workshops in London and online, sharing rituals where grief on all themes is welcome. For more information about Grief Tending see www.griefsupport.org.uk .

21 Feb One Big Bag

Posted at 12:57h in Culture Reviews by admin 0 Comments

Every Ocean Hughes is an artist and death doula. An end of life death doula or ‘soul midwife’, is someone who supports the dying and their loved ones, at the end of life. Hughes exhibition ‘One Big Bag’at Studio Voltaire includes a film of a performance piece, and an installation of her ‘corpse kit’. This comprises an array of small practical items including gloves, bells, make-up, cotton buds, scented oils and a nappy, which hang on strings in the darkened room. These are some of the tools of the doula’s trade. This is Hughes’ bag of items that may be needed at the end of life to support those at the bedside, and to minister to the dying, both before and after their last breath.

The film, which extends the theme of doula-ship is provocative. While the words raise important themes around the ability to ‘self-determine’ around death, and queer bodies in particular, it hammered out its message without the subtlety required for this much needed public conversation. Hughes intends to address the audience’s fear of death and dying, but for me, the percussive choreography was unhelpful.

The confrontational delivery of the words, whose message deserves to be heard, is at odds with the sensitive art of “walking alongside, and being responsive to the dying”, as doula Hermione Elliot of Living Well Dying Well puts it in an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour.

Also in this interview, Dr Helen Frisby describes the changes that have occurred in recent times as end of life care has become increasingly medicalised, and death the domain of the undertaking business. Every Ocean Hughes describes the laying out of the body as “the most loving thing you can do”. This task, once carried out by local women can be reclaimed when we are informed and empowered to take on the task. I have been lucky enough to lay out bodies during the extraordinary time of transition that occurs after death.

“Death has to be understood with the senses, the mind doesn’t get it,” Hughes tells us, and my hands remember. The intimacy of the doula’s role in the liminal days around a death are described beautifully, “The rest of the world is out there happening, but we’re in time apart.”

Despite its heavy-handed approach, I hope the exhibition will inspire necessary conversations. Hughes urges, “Make some decisions, have a vision…so that your life can end with the same spirit it was lived.” For some help to do this, Beyond Life has some useful tips, and Ash Hayhurst’s PDF ‘Making Informed Choices When Planning a Funeral – A Guide for Queer People’ is an excellent resource.

10 Feb Grief Letter

Posted at 12:13h in Sarah's Journal by admin 0 Comments

These crimson suede shoes are potent grief objects for me. They hold the imprint of my Step-Grandmother Pat. The soles are worn from years of shuffling along the corridor of a care home. They held her unusually long, narrow feet in pop socks. Her striking home-made dresses in vibrant upholstery fabrics stopped just below the knee, revealing the red suede toes beneath. The dresses, these shoes, and her memory were worn out, misshaped by time.

As part of Natalia Millman’s ‘Grief Letter’ project, I have written Pat a letter. It is a love letter of sorts, a chance to express my sorrow and regrets. Our responses to grief are as many and varied as the causes, and the people we mourn. In writing a grief letter, Natalia gives us permission to speak from the heart. “Grief Letter is an ongoing community-based project where people can share their personal experience of loss and grief in the form of a letter,” writes Natalia about the project. The letters she receives are incorporated into a touring installation.

Millman has been exploring mortality and loss in response to her own grieving process. Her art works use a variety of media to experiment with these themes. Found and natural materials layer with photographs and sculptural forms. Many of her pieces are made with juxtaposing textures, and fragmenting imagery. In the wake of a parent’s disappearing memory, she creates visual remains that have the quality of decomposition.

Writing can be a powerful tool to use in the practice of tending our grief. Many people find journaling or free writing useful ways to download feelings. A letter to someone who has gone away or died can be a significant way to say what may not have been possible or welcome at the time. It can offer a chance to remember someone, to acknowledge them, as well as taking a step towards processing the feelings that remain in their absence.

Taking part in the Grief Letter project by writing your own letter will leave a document of your experience of grief that may resonate with others.

Embracing Grief also offers Grief Tending weekends that include writing as one of the central practices. Look for Embracing Grief: Weekend Community Journey.

17 Jan Crying Selfie

Posted at 14:45h in Sarah's Journal by admin 0 Comments

This week I watched a friend’s funeral. I had not known them well although over a period of twenty years. It was an extraordinary event, for its authentic portrayal of a maverick, complicated, inspirational person, whose life-force burned bright and came to a sudden end.

I am not just mourning the loss of Tobias the person, but of the role he played in community. He organised events which created the conditions to foster connections. This collective is unravelling like a hand-knitted jumper which now has a large frayed hole in it. I am seeing the shape of the absence he leaves behind, like George Bailey in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’.

The funeral stirred me to cry, laugh, and then dance. I am left with regret for the conversations we never had. I learned things about Tobias that I wish I had known before; and remembered many of the qualities described in heart-felt eulogies. He was, (amongst many other things), an advocate of inclusive sex-positive community, and driven to normalise taboos around desire.

“He used to share crying selfies with those he loved,” I learned. I took one to honour the moment, as I was in full flood at the time. I have long attempted to document a range of moods, and expressions in our family photos, and have taken crying selfies before. Showing our crying faces in public is another taboo. Tears are sometimes expected in measured ways, but messy outpourings of grief are often less permissible.

Sudden, unexplained, ‘out of time’ deaths can leave huge impacts. We are left wondering why, how, often with shock, regret, guilt or shame rippling out. Those left behind are often left with strong feelings; denied a timely way to express our goodbyes.

The pandemic brings in its wake a mental health crisis, along with many deaths that are complicated, have been without good endings, and with minimal funerals. Let us offer our gratitude to those we love, and let them know we love them while they are still here. Perhaps even send a ‘crying selfie’?

For Grief Tending events coming up, follow this link.

05 Jan Belonging

Posted at 11:52h in Sarah's Journal by admin 0 Comments

When I have experience deep personal grief, it feels as though there is a sheet of glass between me and the rest of the world. When life is presenting us with challenges, it’s easy to feel shut out of everyday life. Especially when everyone else seems to be having fun, this can feel alienating. Communal times of celebration like seasonal festivals amplify absence, and can add stress from other people’s expectations of jollity, social or family pressures.

In her explorations into Healthy Human Culture, Sophy Banks describes the “conditions for health as being: empowered, resourced, valued, safe and connected.” For me, the yearning for belonging is a hunger for these needs to be met.

Feeling like an outsider can be especially painful, especially if your authentic expression is not welcome in a particular group. If you are involuntarily alone, or without enough support, or part of a marginalised group, this can add an additional layer of grief at these times.

For a variety of reasons which include social restrictions, scarcity/cost of venues, reduced income/higher costs of living, lack of volunteers, many of the community groups where I used to feel a sense of belonging have not been able to meet in person. Ongoing groups of people who share values or activities are a much-needed part of the social net which holds us. The waning of community groups may return after the current wave of pandemic infections, but we will still have to bridge the divides which have sprung up to between people polarised by different preferences and viewpoints.

Making ourselves vulnerable builds intimacy, holding the capacity to sit with different opinions, where all of us is welcome, and speaking from our own experience including uncomfortable subjects, are ways to bring people together. Grief Tending meets this need, to meet with others, to find belonging.

A Grief Tending group is one place where I can rely on feeling included. So, as we cross the threshold into another year, we wish you well, and may you find places where you feel a sense of belonging, whatever you are dealing with.

For Grief Tending events coming up both online and in person, follow this link.

04 Dec Welcome

Posted at 14:23h in Sarah's Journal by admin 0 Comments

This is one of many postcard sized images which comprises ‘Wish You Were Here’, an exhibition and raffle in aid of Art Refuge. I collaged together prints of my feet and hands with the message ‘WELCOME’. My humble artwork will be raffled alongside pieces by artists like Grayson Perry.

Recent surges of people running the dangerous gauntlet to cross the channel in small boats, regularly hits the news. I listen to reports on the radio in my comfortable kitchen while I eat a nutritious organic lunch. Many do not survive the journey.

Art Refuge work on both sides of the channel with people who are displaced, to provide art and art therapy, and offer crisis support. They also offer training to frontline workers. Their skilful and imaginative projects often begin with a welcome at one of their ‘community tables.’ These are covered with printed maps, which may represent former homes and travel routes, and aid conversations.

The team use a profoundly simple but effective way of embodied creative making to invite people into connection. “The Community Table model – originally developed by Art Refuge in Calais to welcome those who find themselves displaced – alongside volunteers, local staff, interpreters and visitors – to sit around a table and share spaces through art making.”

For me, welcoming someone has become an essential practice. In Grief Tending, we aim to welcome both people, and feelings which may not feel invited elsewhere. In some grief rituals, after expressing emotions, there is a moment of return, where the person is welcomed back into the holding support of the group. This can be a strong experience, especially for those who have rarely experienced an authentic welcome.

My inspiration for this image was to offer an open-armed welcome to those who step onto British shores. Many of the displaced have lost everything, and bring a history of trauma and struggle. Creativity is one way to begin a journey of repair – to connect, to find respite, to tell your story, and eventually to make meaning.