Griefwalking
and meeting new kin.
“I have the most magical hikes when I’m in the deepest grief.” I texted a friend the other day. One of my tried and true grief practices is griefwalking, which is actually just hiking. When I feel the tidal wave of grief coming, or once I am in the throes of the wave, I hike. My sweet spot is 5-7 miles: it’s long enough to unplug from whatever I’ve been using as a crutch of distraction to regulate the dysregualtion, and short enough that it can happen as often as it needs to, like, say, 5 times a week.
Right now, it’s a sweet windy trail in a state forest where I can count the number of times I’ve seen another human in the last 3 months on my hands. (A large bonus for a griefwalking trail. Though in Sedona, many a concerned tourist witnessed this practice.) I walk and hike a lot in general, not just when I’m dripping in grief. Often on those walks, I can slip into “I’m just moving my body” mode and forget that I’m in relationship with all of the beings around me. I coregulate with the forest and all of the other-than-humans a lot. I find attunement is possible— a texture, or quality, of attention presented by someone(s) I love and trust. Like from the pines, streams, ferns, and Northern Flickers. I offer my tears and deep sighs to them. I’ll shake my balled up fists at no one in particular, and both aloud or silently to myself, tempt everyone around me with the rhetorical question of “Why?!” These dear ones are excellent witnesses and listeners, and often have great advice— served up on the full spectrum from mundane to whimsical.
The other day on a griefwalk, I heard a familiar clicking sound and looked up to spot an owl floating from branch to branch above me. I stopped, heartened by the sight of a beloved, familiar kin. Me, with tear-stung eyes, looking up at them, barley visible though the late spring foliage, them, looking down at me, with a different perspective. Owls have become a grief talisman for me. They demand your full presence, one must be quiet and slow, or better yet still, to spend more than a few momemts with them. I’ve found that once they lock their gaze onto me, I can see more clearly. A healing from eye to eye, an insight. The owl followed me for a few minutes until I realized that I had taken a wrong turn and was on a different trail. Had I stayed on my intended trail, I’d likely had missed this opportunity for communion completely…
Already feeling seen, acknowledged, and more resourced, I course-corrected and went on my way, marveling at what gifts presence brings when there she was, on the last quarter-mile of the walk, in all of her glory: a single pink lady slipper flower. I’d heard about her. Read about her. Since arriving back on the East Coast, I had wished and prayed to make her acquaintance, and I gasped with delight upon first seeing her. Truly something spectacular. A member of the orchid family, no less otherworldly than her kin: her leaves appear like green tongues licking the forest floor, the perfect posture of her stalk erupts into a billowy pink flower. The flower has intricate folds that bear a striking resemblance to our genitals. At once a yoni and a scrotum. Her particular beauty is, well, all about sex. Most flowers that are insect-pollinated offer nectar in exchange. Orchids simply offer their beauty. Their colorful folds seduce bees inside, but instead of nectar, it’s just pollen. During the process of this discovery, the bees brush against the sex organs of the flower and collect it’s one (!) pollen package and carry it away. In order for another flower to actually be fertilized, the same bee (!) must try yet again to find nectar in another flower. Miraculously, this works. Pink lady slippers are generally rare because while this method of reproducing is successful, it’s far from being efficient: many flowers do not get pollinated and produce seeds. If successfully pollinated, one flower can produce thousands of seeds. So it is common to see both a singular pink lady slipper or an entire patch of them. All of this also means, these ladies cannot be tamed. These conditions are virtually impossible to replicate so one must traipse around the forest in spring to be so lucky as to gaze upon one (or many.)
I was on my hands and knees in prostration, in awe of the glory a single flower, a single being, can bring. Tears came again, but this time for the beauty. Here she was, hiding in plain sight. Along a service road, not even tucked deeper in the forest. As is my practice, I greeted her out loud and then made space for listening for an echo back. Whispers came tumbling though about the allyship available for holding the balance of masculine and feminine within, and support for finding that. About the integration of aligned action with life force. About deeper levels of intimacy and delight in one’s sexuality. About unblocking nervous exhaustion. Here she was whispering support for the very pieces of myself I was grieving.
I thanked her. As there was only one, I didn’t touch her. I promised only to make a flower essence to engage in her support if I found an abundance of her one day in the future. Though even just meeting her was already a gift enough to last me though the summer. Two days later, on the same hike, I spotted two flowers. On the third day, an entire patch of flowers. I came back with all of my essence supplies, truly thrilled to have the opportunity to work with her in this season.
Grief is life affirming: it proclaims our intimacy with the world, with the seen and unseen. Grief holds a sacred paradox between unbearable devastation and exquisite beauty— namely that of being alive. In times of grief, we are broken apart and put back together again. Fortified by new relations, new kin, that come to us in our moments of rawness. Some of us have the privilege of having a human support team to watch out for us in these times. If you don’t (and even if you do…) the other than humans can look after you as well. They are there to help us, and they do not ask for our toughness or sanity in return. There is no need to act “normal,” what’s normal to a rosy maple moth anyway?