GONG GONG GONG Hello,
This is Jacob Watson,
And this is a continuation in the series of teachings and meditations on grief that address the COVID-19 virus and our other present-day crises.
Welcome.
Interwoven with these teachings on grief are coping strategies and silences for meditation,
Time for reflection and integration.
This teaching on collective grief reminds you that we share our grief with people all over the world,
People we've never seen before and will never see.
COVID-19,
Along with our current worldwide digital connections,
Reminds us of that fact,
As never before.
We speak different languages,
Live in different countries,
Yet share grief.
We are all mourning,
Lamenting different losses,
Losses we know about and losses we don't know about.
Yet,
All of us grieve.
We have that fact in common.
We will never meet,
Most of us,
Either in person,
Even online,
Yet right now we share grieving,
Grieving about COVID-19 as well as these other crises such as climate change,
Black Lives Matter,
Economic distress and systemic inequality.
All these causes are causes to grieve.
We grieve while we sleep.
We grieve while we are awake.
Grief happens 24 hours a day and night.
Collective grief.
The world is grieving because we see each other as never before.
Someone,
Somewhere is always grieving.
And it lessens our individual grief to acknowledge our collective grief.
It is not my grief,
But our grief.
COVID-19 and these other crises have brought us this awareness,
Brought this perception to us.
This is yet another example,
And a coping strategy,
That the process is more important than the product.
It matters less what we share,
The so-called product,
And more that we share,
Which is the process.
In fact,
We share everything.
We may not see this yet,
But down the road,
When time itself will become less and less important,
It will become more apparent both in our lives as we age,
And in our culture as we become more conscious.
We will realize the larger picture,
Instead of reducing things to smaller sizes to put them under a microscope,
Though there is some limited benefit to do this.
Reductionism is dead,
As Deepak Chopra reminds us.
COVID-19 demonstrates this to us.
Yes,
We need to create a vaccine,
And we will,
But the larger lesson is just that,
Larger,
Much larger.
We are all connected.
No borders or boundaries separate us,
Not really,
Not where and when it counts.
Our collective grief unites us.
We are in this together,
And that's not a bad thing,
It's a good thing.
In this first silence,
Imagine the people in your neighborhood,
Made up of streets,
Towns,
Cities,
Regions even,
Grieving together,
And join them.
Thank you.
Thank you.
During this silence,
We can grasp this picture,
Because we are living close by,
In these neighborhoods,
So it's easier to see people grieving.
We might even hear them grieving,
And they might see us and hear us grieving.
We are all connected.
We are all connected.
And hear us grieving.
Being in this COVID-19 virus and our other crises together,
Asks us to acknowledge this truth of being human,
That it is our fundamental sameness that unites us,
That asks us to have faith and trust,
That what happens to one of us,
Happens to us all,
Now more than ever.
That's not a bad thing,
It's a good thing.
No shame here,
Because we know as never before,
That grief,
Our grief,
Is a natural emotion.
Shame can be a distortion of grief,
But when we acknowledge and express this grief,
Shame melts away.
And when we grieve together,
Shame disappears.
The central fact of us grieving together,
Not being alone,
But together,
Is deeply healing.
We now are out,
Out in the open,
And there are a lot of us.
There are all of us.
No exceptions,
Astonishingly.
We are all of us.
Occasionally,
To grieve,
We may go back into our private places and moments.
That's even necessary and healthy for a while.
But we are still fundamentally one body grieving together,
Having this shared experience as never before.
In this next silence,
Imagine all the people in your hemisphere,
Made up of countries,
Grieving together.
Thank you.
We had to stretch a bit just now to imagine inhabiting our hemisphere,
Our country,
No matter the names.
But we just did in this silence.
Because we are separate physically,
Living in these different places,
Yet grieving,
We are joined together in new ways,
Ways that have no boundaries or artificial separations.
Though we grieve differently,
We,
All of us,
Use our five senses.
We touch grief.
We taste grief.
We smell grief.
We hear grief.
We see grief.
And grief surrounds us in all these ways,
Too.
Though we have different colored skin and different languages and customs,
We still grieve together.
Individually and together,
We are aware and affected by this virus and the other crises,
And we grieve together.
That,
In and of itself,
Is a useful coping strategy.
This grieving world is made up of every one of us trying to cope.
No exceptions,
All included.
No one left out,
Outside.
No,
We are all inside.
Included,
One people doing the best we can.
The human race grieving,
Lamenting right now,
As we listen to these words of collective grief.
In this next silence,
Imagine yourself grieving with the whole planet,
That despite all our differences,
All of us on this planet have silent grief in common.
.
.
.
.
As we come out of the silence,
Imagine all the people in your whole world,
Our planet home,
Our home planet,
Grieving together,
Sharing life in and responding to all the uncertainty.
This is just completed.
We imagined our collective being,
All of us,
Each in his and her own language and custom,
Wailing,
Keening,
Crying,
Thinking.
However it is that we grieve,
We are doing it,
Now in the light of this day and of our night.
Each person is,
Yes,
Unique,
Because we grieve differently,
Expressing different sounds,
Wails,
Keens,
Shouts,
Murmurs,
Cries,
Words,
Grunts,
Groans,
Tones,
Shouts,
Sobs,
And yes,
Together in our collective grief.
Some grieve alone,
Some in small groups,
Some in large,
Hopefully safe groups,
Some with their friends or families,
Others with complete strangers,
Yet no one is a stranger to or with this grief.
In fact,
We know now that grief unites us,
Collects us.
We have more in common now than ever before.
We not only sense it,
We know it,
Because we see it.
We have evidence of it everywhere around us.
No boundaries,
No borders.
We have evidence of this fact from space,
Where the view of our home planet,
As Jessica Meir,
The astronaut from Maine,
Recently reminded us when she shared her experience of looking back at planet Earth from the International Space Station.
One Earth.
We are in this together,
And that's not a bad thing.
It's a good thing.
It's among the many qualities we have in common now,
And perhaps always did have in common,
We just never knew it.
Now we know it and feel it,
Thanks to the technology that unites us in collective grief.
Yet again,
The process is more important than the product.
Can we see and experience and let in the larger view,
The bigger context,
The context of unity?
COVID-19 and our other present crises force us to see our union.
I'll post another reflection on grief these days of COVID-19 soon.
May you be well.
To conclude,
I'll ring the singing bowl three times.
The bell is invited.
The bell is invited.
