Letting go can bring up our deepest-buried grief.

I shared these borrowed words with one of you over a year ago.

And last week you shared them back with me. (BLESSINGS from Ssanyu!)

So now I pass them on to you in case you needed to hear them too.

from Earth's Wild Music: Celebrating and Defending the Songs of the Natural World
by Kathleen Dean Moore

"I agree, it's hard to know what to make of this cosmic grief. But I do know that we have to make something of it. Otherwise, grief will make something of us, and it may be fear or cruelty, resignation or madness. 

So ... can you imagine that your grief is clay? Can you gather it into a ball and throw it against a table, throw it again and again to collapse every pocket of air that might weaken what you will make of it? This is required, this violence, to make of grief a worthy thing. 

Then put the ball of clay to spinning. As it spins, reach out to touch it tentatively with a damp hand. The grief will change against the slight pressure. It will grow taller. I believe you should let this happen. I believe you can find the courage to let the grief grow under your touch. 

Exert a steady pressure on the outside of the growing shape and an answering pressure on the inside. As the opening hollows the center of the ball, insert your entire hand and pull gently up. Your temptation may be to move too quickly. Patience is needed, or the grief will be shapeless and of no use. Try to stay there with it, as you transform it into a vessel. A container of any shape will do; this is not the time for perfection. 

Fire, now. Take it to 1,800 degrees, until woodsmoke chokes you and the smell of glowing cinders burns your throat. There is no holding back. The grief is hardening, becoming a permanent thing — sorrow fired to the strength of stone. 

Take time to let it cool. 

While you wait, you can be gathering cordage for a handle. I know your courage: You will not be afraid to ask your friends for something strong enough to help hold the weight of the world's grief. Each will give you something — a child's song, a sprouting garlic bulb, a river carving a new course, wisdom from an old woman, a blue jay's raucous courage. Rub the cords together with the palm of your hand against your thigh to bind them into a single cord, adding more strands until you have sufficient length and strength. With careful knots, weave a net of cordage to hold the pot and form a carrying strap. Make the strap strong. You will carry this weight with you wherever you go. 

By the time the full moon returns, or the one after that, you may be ready to go back out to your dark backyard. We can do this part together. We will collect every gift of healing that the night offers. We might start with air. Or the moisture of the night. We will carefully lift shadows into the jar; you will need them to wash their deep blue over the bright urgency of your apprehensions. We will have to work hard to get gravity into the jar, but it is worth the effort; no one will ever have a stronger or more trustworthy lover to embrace her. Look for the eye-shine of a spider in the maples and add her hungry hope. Warmth is next; we will scoop it in the palms of our hands as if we were beckoning it into the jar. We'll try to catch a bit of time, the most healing of all Earth's gifts, and put it in the jar under the faithful tides. If you find yourself at some point smiling, hold this too. As you surmise, even together, it will take us many nights to collect Earth's gifts — there are so many, freely given — and when the sun rises, as it will, we will put that into the jar too. Tie the jar to your belt with its cord and keep it with you always. 

This is important, that you carry the weight of this jar. Otherwise, Earth's healing gifts may dissipate and escape you, and you — not seeing them — might imagine yourself bereft. I am allowing myself to believe that with grief always nearby, gratitude for the world's remaining gifts may be close at hand, and maybe that will be enough to sustain you in your work — for the fireflies, for the widowed owl, for the night-singing birds, for the uncertain human future."