Death/Trauma/Change Tag

18 Jun Hello This is Death

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“Why did you become a Grief Tender?” People often ask me why I hold Grief Tending spaces. There have been a number of profound experiences of grief and loss in my life. ‘Hello This is Death’ describes one of them. It is an animated hand-drawn book that I made in 2020 while I was learning to animate with Tony Gammidge. It is a series of images using felt-tip, crayon and ink. ‘Hello This is Death’ tells a visual story of my response to the death of my father.

My father died suddenly at 63. It wasn’t my first encounter with death, but it was the first one that turned my life upside down. I was a typically chaotic, naive 23 year old. It was a very intense time for me as I navigated a huge range of feelings, which is normal in any grief process. I reacted very differently to my mother, which added to my confusion.

There were also a lot of practical steps to take care of, many of which I attempted. In ‘Hello This is Death’ you can see some of the ways I responded to the situation. I try to convey the sense of unreality that I experienced, going through my own grieving process, while normal life continued.

When my father died, I felt as though I didn’t know what to expect, and I didn’t have any skills that were useful. Many people were generally unhelpful, and gave me bad advice. Most didn’t know how to be with someone who is grieving, and even at my father’s funeral someone tried to stop me from crying, just at the moment when I found an outpouring of tears.

Part of my investigation in the decades since he died, has been to find out how to be with death in a better way. I have had the chance to practice being with someone during their final years and last days several times since then. Each time I have learned more about the process of dying, and the practice of grieving.

Watch ‘Hello This is Death’ on YouTube. You can see some of my animated videos about Grief Tending here, and book Grief Tending workshops here.

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.

20 Apr Unshame

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‘Unshame’ is the name of a book by trauma survivor and educator Carolyn Spring. Unshame might be used as a verb which describes the process of repair from chronic shame. It could be an adjective to describe being unashamed without the judgement associated with ‘shameless’. It might also be a noun for the healthy place where trauma-based shame is no longer a persistent and toxic state of being.

Carolyn Spring describes her own complex trauma history which left her mired in shame. As a result of child sexual abuse, she was left with multiple dissociative traumatised parts. ‘Unshame’ describes her slow recovery. It includes an in-depth exploration of the experience of shame in therapy. She tells much of the story from the inside out, how it felt and seemed in her mind and body.

Shame is a feeling that exists in relation to others. “Shame is a two-person emotion”, as Carolyn Spring puts it. Recovery from shame also by necessity happens through relational connection. Shame is about our self-worth, and is very different to guilt which may be an appropriate response to wrong-doing, which spurs us to make amends.

Carolyn Spring’s writing (and trainings) take the mechanisms of trauma survival apart. The survival strategies that operated to drive dissociation, and take on her abusers’ shame as her fault were “the best thing you could do at the time to survive.” Using direct language, she explains how it feels. And she describes the way brains and nervous systems operate under extreme stress.

Using her own experience, Carolyn Spring shows us how shame operates. Shame feasts on secrecy and may leave people feeling that they are to blame for the abuse they experienced.
“No one wants to hear it. No one wants to know about it. No one wants to feel it. So I have to hide it and hide it, and I have to push it away deep down within myself, so that no one can see. But it doesn’t go away and it doesn’t stop affecting me…”

Shame is sticky and a shame attack often comes with acute physiological symptoms. It is a physical as well as mental and emotional ride. It is commonly present for those with developmental trauma, and people who are or have been in abusive situations, amongst other things. In order to bring relief, Carolyn Spring documents the slow, gentle, patient presence of her therapist. As well as the light of day, unshaming requires right brain to right brain co-regulation. Carolyn Spring shows how dissociation is also tackled with mindful noticing, unconditional positive regard, and relational connection.

The pain and suffering of toxic shame and dissociation is made more lonely by isolation. Through telling her own story, Carolyn Spring makes a passionate case for finding spaces where trust, presence and respect enable revelation and ultimately healing. Often in Grief Tending we may see how others also share some of their inner experience of shame, which may be a relief to us.

Reading ‘Unshame’ may be the first step in acknowledging and naming chronic shame. I also recommend the book as a manual for those who aim to provide compassionate holding for those who are making the journey from shame to unshame.

For Grief Tending events online and in person in London and Devon see here.

03 Sep The Lonely Planet’s Guide to Death, Grief and Rebirth

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‘The Lonely Planet’s Guide to Death, Grief and Rebirth’ by Anita Isalska is a delicious buffet, to inspire the armchair traveller. It shows glimpses into a wide variety of global beliefs, customs and cultures focussing on death and mourning.

Unlike the usual format of a Lonely Planet Guide, this is thematic and informative, without the specific information needed for a trip. It is a delightful feast of colourful images and intriguing facts, like this one.
“A single human cremation produces as much carbon dioxide as an 800km car journey.”

‘The Lonely Planet’s Guide to Death, Grief and Rebirth’ tempts with travel destinations; where fascinating events take place at the end of a life. However, this book is also a provocation to consider how we will face our own end. A visit to Varanasi in India for example may be “a visceral reminder of the ultimate destination of life in a world that prefers to keep mortality from view.” And the book includes wise cautions that death tourism requires respect, sensitivity and serendipity.

For those who have grown up without traditions that feel supportive, there are plenty of other ways of being with loss named here. Different and sometimes more universal possibilities for grieving, and honouring our loved ones are gathered in by Anita Isalska, with an invitation to the possibility of exploring more openness around endings.
“Whether it’s an annual event, a support group or a place of remembrance (a monument or cemetery), being present with others who are experiencing loss can be a powerful way to reduce the loneliness of grieving.

This guide surveys some of the broader faith-based traditions. It also covers some of the practices that are being reimagined for a generation seeking more conscious ways to mourn; such as keening in Ireland and the re-emergence of death doulas.

In the contemporary grief theory of ‘Continuing Bonds’ (Klass, Silverman and Nickman) in which it is normal to have an ongoing relationship with deceased loved ones, modern psychology is playing catch up with “Mexico’s flourishing death culture”. And in Madagasca where “the natural instinct to communicate with, and care for, the dead can find expression and relief.” A relationship with ancestors “where loving bonds remain strong even after death,” is integral to many of the cultures in the book.

So many of the funerary practices described link both the past to present and the dead to the living in ways that help us to recognise we are all inescapably part of the cycle of life…and death. This book will be both food for thought as well as food for our ‘wise and well ancestors’.

Grief Tending in community, (which doesn’t get a mention in the book) is informed by the old ways of the Dagara Tribe in Burkina Faso. Find Grief Tending events happening in the UK, and online. They can also be found in many places around the world.

03 Sep The Last Ecstasy of Life

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Anam-Áire means one who cares for the soul. ‘The Last Ecstasy of Life – Celtic Mysteries of Death and Dying’, written by Phyllida Anam-Áire describes her approach to doing just this. She offers gentle guidance for those at the end of life, from her experience of sitting with the dying. She is now a therapist and author.

I have participated with Phyllida online, heard the music in her speech, and seen her gentle encouragement of people. She grew up in Ireland, became a nun, and then took a more mystic path away from the Catholic Church. She moved to Northern Ireland, worked with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and developed her practice. She now lives in Scotland. Reading the words on the page, I hear her brogue, remember her assured presence.

Here she offers a metaphysical perspective steeped in the old Celtic ways, known as the ‘Cauldron of Brigid’. She teaches both living fully and dying consciously. Her very particular flavour weaves her understanding of life and death, in spiritual language with wise guidance and visualisations. She focuses on the energetic non-visible processes as death comes near.

Phyllida Anam-Áire encourages the reader to attend to their inner work, to process grief in order to live well ahead of our dying days. Key to this is the Celtic vision of the ‘Universal Heart’. Once we have found self-compassion, we can access a wider compassionate experience of love. She says “This opening into grief is the most important part of recognising the presence of the Universal Heart for, like joy, which cohabits with grief, it is always there, awaiting the unveiling and expressing of grief to reveal its presence.”

I like the emphasis she places on reclaiming our shadow parts and finding self-compassion; looking at our own grief and fears in order to become a non-judgmental compassionate witness to others. ‘The Last Ecstasy’ of the title is also a reclamation of the potential of shame-free pleasure in the body, and as a transformational framing of both birth and death.

Find Grief Tending events with Sarah and Tony Pletts and the Embracing Grief team coming up here.

16 Feb Identity Shifts

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Almost every morning for the last twenty years I have taken the dog for a walk. Now both dogs have died and I am coming to terms with a small shift in identity. I am no longer one of the dog people who say hello or chat because they have a dog with them. I love the permission that having a dog (or a child) gives to speak to others. I have got to know many people of all backgrounds through having a four-legged friend by my ankles. Now it may seem odd that I choose to walk in the rain, without the cover of a dog.

Loss is often coupled with questions of identity. People may not know what to reply when asked “How many children do you have?” after the death of a child. People report uncertainty in choosing how to respond to these painful innocent questions.

Likewise, when a partner has died there are no universal signals in dress, of being a remaining partner; although dressing as a widow is still practiced in some cultures. When a partner dies we may tick a new box in official forms, and it can be another reminder on top of many other losses.

When coming to the end of a working life (not always by choice), people may struggle with the absence of a work identity, particularly if it was associated with a dedicated career path. Each crossroads in life may come with these differences.

We may hold fixed stories in our heads about who we are. With change can come uncertainty. The narrative is disrupted, and we are required to make a new story that we tell about ourselves, and tell to others.

If we have chosen a life-changing identity shift, even when we are pursuing our dreams, there can be aspects of ourselves that we are leaving behind. As we celebrate the new, these parts of us may still need to be acknowledged and grieved as we say goodbye to them. There is a tendency to want to avoid endings of all kinds, to let them slip away un-noticed. When we let the completions in our life be marked, to be seen, it can help as we take the next step.

For Grief Tending workshops and events coming up, see here.

21 Feb One Big Bag

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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.

15 Oct Ossuary

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An ossuary is a place to store bones, from the latin ‘os’ meaning bone. There are many places around the world where bones are stored, often in boxes, in places of faith – Zoroastrian, Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Jewish for example. There are many crypts and catacombs which hold human remains.

The Church of All Saints at Sedlec in the Czech Republic and The Skull Chapel in Kudowa, Poland are decorated in baroque style. Mojmir Horyna speculates about the meanings of such places in ‘Momento Mori’, a book of photographs of the Ossuary at Sedlec.

“The very building of the ossuary, as a place where the remains of the unknown dead were laid out in patterns, expressing hope in the resurrection, is also a fundamental expression of something else: it is an operation of human solidarity in the history of salvation, a solidarity which stretches across generations and centuries, which demolishes the empire of death and breaks through the temporal boundaries of the individual human life.”

We came upon the ossuary in the crypt of St Leonard’s Church, Hythe, in Kent by chance. It is small in comparison with some of the larger European ones, but a significant collection of around 1,200 skulls and includes the remains of around 2,000 people. The collection was first recorded in 1678 as ‘an orderly pile of dead men’s bones’, although its exact origin is undocumented and many of the bones date much further back. It is housed in a small annexe of the church. There are four arched bays. Skulls rest on shelves to the ceiling, making an audience of ancestors peering at the visitors who have come to look back at them.

A large carefully balanced mound of femurs interspersed with skulls takes up the volume of about 2 cars. Some of the irresistible rounded foreheads and ball joints have been polished smooth by hands passing over the centuries. In the 21st century scientific inspection seems to take precedence over veneration. The focus of this gathering of the dead has become a library for study. Students investigate causes of death, ways of life, nutrition and dental decay.

It is easy to separate myself from these long dead creatures. I see their individual characteristics as part of a decorative pattern. I notice my curiosity at their differences – youth, age, bony protrusions, blunt-force traumas. The evidence of a nest lined with dried grass in one (bird or mouse?) delights me.

But there is an important lesson here amongst the dust, spiders and creeping green mould; a reminder that I too will one day stare hollow-eyed, a momento of a life once lived in solidarity with future beings.

31 Dec Submerged Willow

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“In order to find our way, we must become lost”
Yoruba saying via Bayo Akomolafe

A variant of the Corona virus rampages through the UK now. Whatever your perspective on the virus, restrictions as a consequence, and the UK’s changing boundaries with Europe, we are living with uncertainty. The spectre of climate change continues to slink past our political gatekeepers. Are we lost enough?

As the year turns, a pink camellia in our garden, which was blossoming un-seasonally early, has now been chewed by a hard frost. The Old River Lea rose alarmingly, the marshes sodden at the edges. The river is full of willow tears. Branches and twigs are scattered on the ground in the wake of Storm Bella. Much else is also out of right relationship in our world.

2020 has been a bumper year for grief. What might have been hidden away in other years as a minority interest for the bereaved, has through necessity come to the fore. Unexpected crisis, loss, isolation, disappointment, anxiety and depression have devastated many. I feel incredibly lucky to no longer be caring for parents and children. Huge respect is owed to those who are juggling care roles – personal and public.

Social injustice has also rightfully been made visible this year. I see the consequences of unequal power dynamics playing out. We have seen grassroots movements take to the streets and social media, but we still have a long way to go. The impact of collective trauma is only just beginning to be recognized. I am learning about the relationship between what pains me, and what we carry systemically. I have been navigating my way through a tsunami of wise words and courageous expressions. Sophy Banks, Bayo Akomolafe, and Thomas Hübl are among those who are illuminating the landscape of this ‘lostness’ for me.

This year I feel as though I have more to be grateful for than ever. I am extremely lucky to have hugs, organic broccoli, wi-fi, urban wild to walk in, time for creativity and squirrel friends. In appreciating the things I have, I try to also imagine life in other shoes, less comfortable than mine. I try to see political differences, polarizing arguments, and different viewpoints as a result of the different stories we hear, or tell ourselves. I welcome curiosity, more tolerance and celebrate kindness. I hope also to be kind to myself when I fail in these and other things.

I am trying to sit with not knowing, with the uncertainty of ‘lostness’. Alongside the relationships that have grown and deepened this year, I find myself leaning more into the transrational; the things that are beyond the rational, that can’t be easily explained in logical ways. I am finding my way through art, intuition, ritual, and faith in the unseen and unknown. May we recognise that we are lost, and find our way, both individually and together.

20 Nov Water Lillies

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Last night I dreamed of dressing up in preparation for a night out. I wanted to look glamorous. I dressed black, rootled around for a necklace in a box of broken pieces, and tried to apply melted lipstick. I woke instead to another morning without the prospect of cultural or social events. I put on warm stretchy layers to walk the dog in the rain.

“There is the mud, and there is the lotus that grows out of the mud. We need mud in order to make the lotus.” Thich Nhat Hanh.

Reflecting on this time, I feel as though we are collectively in the mud of complexity and uncertainty. I am lucky enough to have the liberty and resources to sit in the mud, while being aware that others are drowning in it.

In the wake of difficulty change might be described as ‘post-traumatic growth’. This term was coined by Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun. This quote from Tedeschi comes from a recent article aimed at business people:
“We’ve learned that negative experiences can spur positive change, including a recognition of personal strength, the exploration of new possibilities, improved relationships, a greater appreciation for life, and spiritual growth.”

I long for this time to generate widespread positive changes, the ‘lotus flowers’. Similarly, my dream reminded me of being in chrysalis form, incubating my next evolution. At some point, if the conditions are favourable, perhaps we will shrug off our chrysalises, in an act of transformation, to unfurl resplendent new wings.

23 Aug Car Full of Boxes

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The car is packed full of boxes as we help someone to move house. Moving house is a huge upheaval. It invites the question, what are we moving towards, but also what are the things that we are leaving behind? My memory jolts back to my first move as a child. It was two weeks before my ninth birthday. I remember a leaving ceremony. I felt awkward and shy in my best blue dress and white nylon socks, that wouldn’t pull as far as my knees up my growing legs.

I understood that we were going somewhere new. But this was an abstract concept for me, because I had only lived in this suburban house. I loved the free reign of parish spaces – church steps, church hall, and adjoining cul-de-sacs to roller skate around. With the other kids from these streets, we played outside, free from adult supervision. The ice-cream van reeled in my attention every day. I longed for, and occasionally got a FAB or Strawberry Mivvi, by sneaking coins from my Mum’s purse.

I watched my father unlock the church doors, the coming and goings of cubs and scouts. I waited for the coal delivery truck, and celebrated the nasal chant of the rag and bone man. On the main road, buses clustered. Old ladies wearing headscarves or plastic rain bonnets put out their hands or thumbed them on. It was a place where ordinary Londoners went to work on the train, bought square white bread from the bakery, competed with their neighbours’ front garden.

A car, packed full of the bits and pieces that wouldn’t fit in the removal van, with me squeezed in the back seat was ready to leave. I remember waving goodbye. My life was changing, but I was oblivious. I knew we were going, but I hadn’t understood that we were never coming back. I had no idea of where I was going to.

I would only discover that I was defined by paving slabs, street lamps, a landscape of tarmac and brick, by its absence. Landing in alien territory of country lanes, Forestry Commission pine forest, one village shop full of plum-in-the-mouth accents, came as a profound shock. My old identity had been presented to me, ‘the vicar’s daughter’. Now I would have to begin again, overcome the trauma of dislocation, and re-shape myself.