#collective grief

[thepeacefulgarden]

This Thanksgiving, remember...

You are allowed to take shortcuts.

You are allowed to do less.

You are allowed to ask for help from your family, friends, or partner.

You are allowed to (graciously) accept any help they give you.

You are allowed to leave the table when Uncle Bob gets up on his soapbox.

You are allowed to have seconds.

You are allowed to have fats and carbs.

You are allowed to have dessert.

You are allowed to have an imperfect holiday.

You are allowed to skip Thanksgiving with the fam and practice self care.

You are allowed to spend Thanksgiving with people other than your family of origin.

You are allowed to grieve, and to make space for that grief.

You are allowed to have dinner catered, instead of making it yourself.

You are allowed to use prepared foods instead of making everything from scratch.

You are allowed to make it a potluck instead of doing everything yourself.

You are allowed to boycott Thanksgiving on principle if you wish.

You are allowed to express gratitude in ways meaningful to you.

You are allowed to attempt to steer conversations in more appropriate directions.

You are allowed to change the subject.

You are allowed to drink, or to skip the alcohol, as you see fit.

You are allowed to not answer nosy or judgy questions.

You are allowed to set boundaries with your family and friends.

You are allowed to have big feelings, and to make space for those feelings.

You are allowed to leave early.

You are allowed to take care of your mental health.

You are allowed to honor your family in ways meaningful to you.

You are allowed to spend Thanksgiving by yourself.

You are allowed to go no-contact or low-contact with your family of origin.

You are allowed to let it be just another day.

You are allowed to feel things other than gratitude, alongside it or otherwise.

You are allowed to absolve yourself of the responsibility for educating or enlightening Uncle Bob or Aunt Karen.

You are allowed to not participate in family drama.

[returntothewilderness]

bad climate anxiety and covid grief hitting hard today

[agirlnamedbone]

pub. in Blackbird Review

[inspiwriter]

Poems of the aftermath.

Grief and life go hand in hand,

you must be alive to be able to feel

the pain of absence.

That is how we distinguish:

as long as you can feel it, you must still be alive.

But what about the others? The ones who walked quietly away?

Well, nothing can reach them;

for those who try to, it shows on the skin.

.

.

.

poem by me

[feral-ballad]

Mosab Abu Toha, from Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza

[thatonebirdwrites]

Crosspost about Collective Grief and Action

I think of the mass death we are seeing. I think of the collective grief, and how grief is love made manifest. I think of how some of us are trapped in various stages of grief, paralyzed with pain and grief and fear, where they are unable to move forward, because how can we? I think of hope and how hard it can be to choose hope in this dark time.

From Covid, the lower estimates put the dead at 25 million globally, but other studies that examine deaths often omitted from official counts for bogus reasons, puts that dead much, much higher. At 75 million.

Then there's the 65 to 105 million disabled by LongCovid, many with little to no resources, who - like myself - often fall through the cracks in the broken care systems.

Then there's the billions who have died due to the growing planetary crisis due to corporations and political actors refusal to give up oil so humanity and the diversity of life can have a chance at surviving.

Then there's the genocides happening as fascist governments turn on citizens and neighboring countries and the as-yet-unrecognized-by-Western-powers-states.

How do we grieve all this?

Some fall into denialism, where they refuse to acknowledge the deaths. Where they try to live in this alternate reality where they no longer have to face the reality.

And yet, what does that denialism do?

It only upholds the mass death. It falls into the culture of death, allowing the horrors to continue.

Denying reality cannot stop the mass death and disablement.

Only accepting that this is our reality, acknowledging the massive collective grief that saturates us, and stepping up and saying:

"Our collective grief is real and valid. Our pain is real and valid. We are facing multiple planetary and communities crises, but I choose hope. I choose to act. I choose to build up my community, to engage in safety measures to save more lives, to fight to dismantle this culture of death, and to speak the truth no matter what."

Because, even in this culture of death, our power is not gone. Capitalist colonialist cishet white supremacy may shove down our throats that we are useless, that we are only cogs in its machine, that we have no power.

And yet, that is false.

We do have power. We see this power in the unions that fought for better pay, benefits, and community needs.

We see this in the disasters that hit our communities, when we band together and help our neighbors, where we help each other rebuild our homes.

We see this every time we wear an N95 Mask or better to protect each other. Where we fight for masks in healthcare to lower the incident rate of hospital-induced diseases. Where we fight to normalize pandemic mitigations to better prepare our present and future.

We see this every time a mutual aid initiative starts up and continues forward, where food and money and clean water is shared among one another. Where we care for our community members, where we do our best to reach out to those who are isolated and often left behind, and where we make sure no one is left behind.

Humans have a great capacity for love and kindness. We are a social species and cannot survive for long in extreme isolation.

We have great power together. When we collectively gather and fight for our right to exist and have a future and a habitable planet? That power within each of us is woven into a mighty whole that has the potential to tear down the culture of death, and in its place rebuild it as a culture of life, of hope, of justice, of equity and harmony.

This is what we must remember.

We must allow ourselves to grieve all the mass death and losses we have endured, but we must not get trapped there. We must act upon that grief.

Because what is grief if not love realized?

To honor the memories of all our dead, we must act. We must act together as a collective whole.

[mournfulroses]

Federico García Lorca, from "3 Tragedies; Blood Wedding, Yerma, Bernarda Alta,"

[ursickandmarried]

On codependent friendships and their inevitable demise.

V.E. Schwab, A Conjuring of Light // Sally Rooney, Normal People // Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe // Isaac Fellman, Dead Collections // Elliott Smith, Waltz #2 (XO) // Mitski, Why Didn't You Stop Me? // one of our last conversations.

[thepeacefulgarden]

[returntothewilderness]

This Shabbat, I hope you have the ability to carve out even a few minutes to acknowledge your grief and the collective grief so many people are experiencing right now. In a time where we’re not allowed the dignity to mourn, I hope you can defy this evil system and be with your pain even if for a minute. Know you’re not alone in the pain and that many of us all over this world are meditating and praying for a better tomorrow.

Today I’m thinking of a piece by Dr./Rev. Yolanda Pierce and her piece titled ‘A Litany for Those Not Ready for Healing’:

“Let us not rush to the language of healing, before understanding the fullness of the injury and the depth of the wound.

Let us not rush to offer a band­aid, when the gaping wound requires surgery and complete reconstruction.

Let us not offer false equivalencies, thereby diminishing the particular pain being felt in a particular circumstance in a particular historical moment.

Let us not speak of reconciliation without speaking of reparations and restoration, or how we can repair the breach and how we can restore the loss.

Let us not rush past the loss of this mother’s child, this father’s child…someone’s beloved son.

Let us not value property over people; let us not protect material objects while human lives hang in the balance.

Let us not value a false peace over a righteous justice.

Let us not be afraid to sit with the ugliness, the messiness, and the pain that is life

in community together.

Let us not offer clichés to the grieving, those whose hearts are being torn asunder.

Instead…

Let us mourn black and brown men and women, those killed extrajudicially every 28 hours.

Let us lament the loss of a teenager, dead at the hands of a police officer who described

him as a demon.

Let us weep at a criminal justice system, which is neither blind nor just.

Let us call for the mourning men and the wailing women, those willing to rend their garments of privilege and ease, and sit in the ashes of this nation’s original sin.

Let us be silent when we don’t know what to say.

Let us be humble and listen to the pain, rage, and grief pouring from the lips of our neighbors and friends.

Let us decrease, so that our brothers and sisters who live on the underside of history may increase.

Let us pray with our eyes open and our feet firmly planted on the ground

Let us listen to the shattering glass and let us smell the purifying fires, for it is the language of the unheard.

God, in your mercy…

Show me my own complicity in injustice.

Convict me for my indifference.

Forgive me when I have remained silent.

Equip me with a zeal for righteousness.

Never let me grow accustomed or acclimated to unrighteousness.

AMEN.”

Ameen. Shabbat Shalom. We may not be given adequate time to rest, but they can’t take away our internal prayers, hopes, and mourning.

[curseofhyperfixation]

The 5 stages of grief.

[serratedpens]

Richard Blanco, "The Splintering"

[feral-ballad]

Todd Dillard, “New grief”

[Text ID: “don’t worry. / Grief always grows back.”]

[code31-onthedancefloor]

dont get me wrong while uli learning disco dancing and other horrifically outdated ways to pick up dates with harry is absolutely fucking hilarious i feel as if he would naturally gravitate towards kim more. not just because of the nilsen parallel but because he wants to be taken Seriously. and here is this very Serious (lonely) man who is Serious (repressed) about the way he loves and he drives a car despite being legally blind (stubborn) and has beaten the odds of survival time and time again (at the expense of others; which he feels as if he does not deserve). ulixes will learn Something from kim but it certainly won't be related to how to get steban to like him.

[chickenstrangers]

ONLY FRIENDS | EPISODE 4

YOUR EMERGENCY CONTACT HAS EXPERIENCED AN EMERGENCY by CHEN CHEN (2022)