Covid-19: Ancestral Grief

These are meditations on grief during the CoVid-19 pandemic. Amidst all this change and the natural emotion of grief, I offer a reminder of what does not change. This new format combines spiritual teachings on grief and coping strategies with silences for reflection and meditation. We join our beloved community in a shared experience to grieve not alone, but together, to find our unchanging nature of awareness, our original Self, here and now. It begins and ends with three rings of the singing bowl.

Transcript

Gravitation.

Hello,

This is Jacob Watson and we continue this series of teachings and meditations on grief that address the new realities we are living in these days.

The COVID-19 virus,

Black Lives Matter,

Climate change,

Pervasive economic inequality,

And a debilitating combination of systemic greed and addiction to transcendence.

And let me add the new reality of hope again,

As we've never seen it before.

Welcome!

Interwoven with these teachings on grief are coping strategies and silences for meditation,

Time for reflection and integration.

In this present time of deep and far-reaching grief,

We join not only each other in these times,

But also all humans from past times.

Because we all feel grief,

The usual boundaries of space and time melt away,

And we are together as never before bound together in our grief.

Simply knowing we are part of a beloved community can help us cope.

Joined like this,

We unite in having the twin tasks to become healed and to become free.

In this meditation,

We of today's generations can consciously reach back to heal yesterday's generations.

Just as grief is a common denominator among us,

So it was with our ancestors.

Many generations in our family experienced grief.

We know that grief is a fundamental and natural human response to the losses in our lives,

So we know it affected the lives of our parents,

Our grandparents,

And our great-grandparents and other ancestors.

We can both acknowledge the deep sadness and longing behind their grief,

And move into and through that grief now,

Years later,

To avoid depression and lethargy building up to burden not only them,

But also us.

From our present place here,

In the silences in our meditation,

We can access our compassion and offer it to our multi-generational family.

We can be of service where we have the most investment,

Our own family.

To begin with,

It is important not to overlook,

But indeed to honor and celebrate whatever healing our ancestors were able to accomplish in their lives.

The work,

The tears,

The laughter,

The pain and suffering,

The reconciliation,

The hope and promise.

What was left,

What they couldn't heal,

Was passed on to their offspring,

Their progeny,

Their legacy,

To us.

It lives in us,

In our bones,

Our bodies,

Our psyches,

Influencing us,

Holding us down,

Holding us back in our daily lives.

This is true especially in our relationships,

Where unfinished business,

Especially unacknowledged grief,

Takes its biggest toll.

Let us accept that grief,

Known or unknown,

Has been passed down to us by both intention and by accident.

Either way,

It came to us.

Lest we miss the gifts,

Let us shine the light of our consciousness on them,

Gifts which come with a responsibility,

To say thank you,

And to absolve,

Release,

Forgive,

And to accept our ancestors' grief.

Our present awareness knows and understands that they did the best they could.

While the therapy and self-help industry did not exist then,

Still they had their own ways and practices of healing,

And they did what they could.

For that,

We applaud and honor them.

Ancestral grief is both a blessing that encourages celebration and a curse that demands healing.

In our silences for healing this ancestral grief,

Let us go back when there is no time,

Because this quality moves across time and thus is timeless,

Both greater and less than hours,

Days,

And months.

With each of these coming silences,

You have the opportunity to bring your ancestors into the silence,

To invite them briefly into this your world,

So that you can say thank you.

I know you grieved,

And will take it from here.

In essence,

You offer them the most compassionate gift of all,

Healing and freedom.

We will begin with your parents.

You you you you you In your parents' time,

In their unique way,

They did the best they could do.

By bringing them forward now into your consciousness in the silence,

You have given them your most loving gift,

The gift of healing.

Your very existence today is a demonstration of the healing that has happened,

For you stand on their shoulders,

And the shoulders are strong,

Firm and steady.

Now your shoulders are strong,

As well as the rest of you,

Physical,

Emotional,

Intellectual,

And spiritual.

Your whole being combines to create this healing,

This transformative healing,

To relieve your parents of their burden of grief.

This compassionate act of service enriches and lightens both you and your parents.

The task for this second silent time is the same,

To lighten your ancestors' load of grief,

This time your grandparents.

Whatever you can remember of it,

Perhaps from a photograph or family story,

Or maybe from the obvious empty place at the kitchen table,

Or the sad look in a family gathering,

Now you can acknowledge it,

Accept it,

Honor it,

And heal it.

Now is the time for lightening the load for the next generation back,

Your grandparents,

Both from your mother and your father's sides of the family.

You you you Again,

In a unique way in their own lives,

As you now understand,

They did the best they could with the tools they had at the time,

In their day.

Just now,

In this silence,

You have used the tools of your day,

Certainly your understanding and love,

To reach back and help them out,

To help them let go of their grief.

Now you have given them your most loving gift,

The gift of healing.

Finally,

Here is the opportunity to bring forth the ancient ones,

Great-grandparents and beyond,

As far as you can reach back and imagine.

You do not need to know,

You probably do not know,

The details such as what they were grieving,

The specifics,

Only that they were feeling grief,

And that now you can acknowledge that and say to them,

Yes,

I know you grieved and I'm sorry that you grieved,

And I want you to know it's okay,

And that I'm fine now,

And I love you.

Here,

In this third silence,

You can bring forth and heal the grief of your great-grandparents and beyond.

You you you Coming back from the silence,

We understand that's all it takes,

Your compassion,

Here and now,

That you extend back to your ancestors for the sake of,

Well,

Not forgetting,

But the opposite really,

Remembering and accepting.

Your ancestors come simply and somehow cleanly only for healing.

It is the healing that only you can offer them,

For they are your ancestors,

Your bloodline,

And in these silences you have offered them your acknowledgement of their natural grief,

Whatever the cause,

And you have accepted it and honored it,

Thus removing their pain and any leftover pain that might have polluted your life.

Coming out of the three silences into which you brought your ancestors so they could be healed,

We are now newly alone,

Yet at the same exact time,

Newly free,

You feel the truth and strength of the old words,

Rest in peace,

For that is what you have created with your invitation to your ancestors,

Peace itself,

The serenity that arises from having now no unfinished business,

Nothing left undone,

A new completion and a new acceptance.

With these three silent times of healing,

You have offered your ancestors that most precious gift of healing and forgiveness,

Thus releasing them from the burden of unfinished grief.

A gift to them is now also yours.

No old gray clouds,

Only new blue sky and freedom.

Sometimes it can happen that ancestral grief,

Though largely healed by your actions in the present,

Can unexpectedly leak into your present.

You may feel a weight,

Perhaps a sticky cobweb,

But now you know what to do.

You can bring the ancestral grief into the present,

Welcome it,

Because when you honor it as natural grief from long ago,

It loses its energy and melts away,

Leaving you free in the present.

I'll post another teaching on grief,

COVID-19,

And these challenging times soon.

May you be safe and well,

And may you find both hope and light.

To conclude,

I'll ring the singing bowl three times.

You

Reviews

Beautiful, helpful, deep and gives an opportunity to get in touch with the unconscious.

Lovely!🙏💖

Wonderful. Lovely practice in this day, the two year anniversary of my grandmother's passing, the last of my grandparents. I was blessed to be with her, along with my mother and one of her brothers, and to be able to hold space for the siblings as I noted the time that Grandma was brought home by my grandfather who had passed in 1997. It is a day of remembrance, of celebration of a life well lived, and as you said, those strong shoulders upon which I now stand, and my carrying that forward for my own child.

Thank you for sharing this with us. And thank you for letting each bell sound to completion before ringing the next. A most profound call to come home to oneself and the practice. I see you and the light within you. Be well. 🤲🏻❤🤲🏻

Thank you.

Wow. What a gift you have given the world Jacob. Thank you.

💖oh, my gosh, this was so rich, I wish I had the words to express how this touched me, thank you💖