Possibilities on the Fault Line
“Every place, every landscape, is a site of memory and a site of oblivion or erasure.” —Lauret E. Savoy
Dear relatives,
I’ve been thinking about the intersection between grief and safety. More specifically, how the grieving process can change or alter a sense of feeling safe within the body, and the world.
This particular intersection is not one that I would have previously been able to put into words. But it came to me while I was preparing to facilitate a workshop on seasonal embodiment. The thought bolted through my mind and body, slow as lightning, moving from the base of my spine up toward the heart. Sometimes curiosities make their way unexpectedly, seemingly out of nowhere.
Grief is the overarching emotion associated with this time of year, in Chinese Medicine. The spirit of grief comes from a web of ancestral structures stemming to the planet Venus. The origins of the Five Elements (as they are commonly referred to), can be traced back to the Wuxing, or “Five Moving Stars.” Venus “moves through” or “breathes through” time and space to generate iterations of herself from the solar system down to Earth. In the body, we can experience the breath, or motion, of Venus in the Lungs and Large Intestine, organs that are crucial in maintaining the integrity and adaptability of the immune system. They absorb substances like gas, water, and other bits of life, helping to process and reserve essential materials.
There also exists a throughline within Venus and the Metal element, a bridge that repairs the gap between grief and safety; isolation and loss; fear and abandonment. Conjure in your mind a leaf, maybe one from your favorite Maple, Willow, Oak, or Sycamore tree. Remember how it respires from green to red; orange and yellow to brown. Slowing inching its way to a different version of itself; a more concentrated and vulnerable form.
Of course, not all gaps can or should be bridged. Sometimes cracks and fissures are places that need to be witnessed as they are. I wonder, is it possible to feel safe on the fault line? Through the rupture and collision of grief?
In the essay “Ancestral Structures on the Trailing Edge,” published earlier this year by Emergence Magazine, geologist-writer Lauret E. Savoy writes, “Questioned by life, we are held to account. As I’ve written before, I need to re-member. To assemble a jigsaw of ancestral fragments and the many forms of absence encountered. To imagine what the remains and the gaps together imply.” I didn’t anticipate how palpable Savoy’s words would feel, but their proximity to my own lived experience is felt. As a mixed-raced person of Afro-Indigenous descent, I resonated with the author's description of her life growing up as a woman of African-American, Euro-American, and Native American heritage. The urgent desire to remember, research, and sort through the fragments of history and culture, and their ecological impact, is a feeling I understand well. All of the threads connecting what can feel like disparate parts help to weave together a network of questions that long to be asked. Through inquiry, we learn that answers are not the end goal. They are simply landmarks that lead to other paths. To the restoration of memory. To deeper wisdom.
At the edge of discontinuity and displacement are patterns that have emerged throughout time and space. Grief is one of them. Safety is another. The intersection between them is liminal, as all phases are. Just like the one we are in, where Late Summer crosses over into Fall. A call and response echoed throughout nature, reiterating a shared story: we shall be returned to the Earth. What if we start behaving as if it were already happening? To meet grief with tenderness in the home of the body, through the breath, reciprocating life.
Relatives, in the comments, let me know your thoughts on the intersection between grief and safety. Is it a connection that you’ve considered before?
With gratitude,
Christian
Listening
I prepared a breathwork playlist for yesterday’s Inner Ecology Workshop, and I’ve been listening to it all week. Many thanks to everyone who joined and co-created such a lovely space!
Reading
I am re-reading September’s list of texts for next Sunday’s essay, which will be a reflection on what I gleaned from each, as individual bodies of work and how they relate to each other collectively.
Creating
It took me a few years (more like 15!), but I finally pulled my first linocut print! It was a small victory, made sweeter with my little one sitting in my lap, helping the whole way. I have a lot of practice ahead, and I look forward to learning and improving. I’ll share bits of my progress in next Sunday’s letter for paid subscribers.