I crane my neck to see the bride come through the doorway. She is petite in stature with a big toothy grin and fierce eyes. As she passes our small enclave of family we all take a collective breath and hold it. There are tears. We are happy for my niece Allison but the tears are because she looks so much like her Mother all of the sudden. We all see it and feel the ache in our lungs that is grief. My Sister Audrey died of stomach cancer back in May of 2014. I didn’t go to the funeral. My biological Mother passed away later that same year also from that bastard cancer. I didn’t attend that funeral either. Anger, denial, and overwhelm eclipsed my judgment. I bottled my grief and it stayed in my chest for years like a paper weight holding down…I’m not sure what. A lengthy depression, an existential crisis of sorts ensued. I lost faith and secretly disliked everyone and everything. If you have studied with me at Mission Yoga, chances are you were around for some of this though I hope I didn’t let on too much. No one wants the person they trust to inspire them secretly feeling deep despair (although you probably should but more on that another day).
Many deep breaths, tears, and a good bit of therapy later, I’m sitting at this wedding finally facing my family, Audrey’s family, and grieving. It’s perfect timing really. The season of Fall is a time to investigate what we are taking in and what we can let go of as we prepare for the coming winter. In Chinese Medicine we are in the house of the Lung/Large Intestine Meridians. Both Spring and Fall are preparation seasons. Summer is our most Yang natural expression and Winter is our most Yin natural expression. Fall is a time to get clear on what is important and to shed baggage, projects, and even people in our lives as we prepare for the dark and cold to come. This season has a bustle to it. The element of fall is metal and there is a charge to the air as briskness sets in. We have a lot to do. The busy quality, though, must be directed towards smart use of time. Minimize your commitments and say yes to less. Follow the intelligence of nature. Drop the leaves and circulate your energy closer to the core. Root down and establish steady rhythms of home and hearth
Now is the time to look at old grief too. You knew I was circling back to that right? Grief is the emotion associated with the Lungs. All human emotions are valid but if we stifle them or let them run wild without context and acknowledgement they create problems in the body, heart, and mind. Grief that is held but not processed manifests in depression, colds, allergies, and asthma. See your acupuncturist, go to yoga and breath deeply, and make some time to engage in the rituals of grieving. They serve a powerful function for us. The energy of grief must be lived through without fear of wallowing or being judged. Loss is part of life and it must be faced. If you, like me, have been too scared to face that pain, know that you are not alone and that this beautiful fall day is as good a time as any to take those deep belly breaths, cry, and feel what you feel.
This is what we’re here to do. We must learn to let go but not before we feel the full ache of each goodbye which clears the way for something new.
Love,
KJ
Beginning
BY JAMES WRIGHT
The moon drops one or two feathers into the field.
The dark wheat listens.
Be still.
Now.
There they are, the moon’s young, trying
Their wings.
Between trees, a slender woman lifts up the lovely shadow
Of her face, and now she steps into the air, now she is gone
Wholly, into the air.
I stand alone by an elder tree, I do not dare breathe
Or move.
I listen.
The wheat leans back toward its own darkness,
And I lean toward mine.