Silence

Life has a way of sweeping me along, as though I am riding the crest wave of a flash flood. Sometimes, it goes on for a prolonged period of time and I don’t find myself writing. I only find myself missing it.

I had the audacious privilege recently to co-facilitate a grief workshop with horses. The therapist, Sheri Gaynor, calls the day “Honoring Grief Through the Wisdom of the Herd”.

We were together, off and on with the herd, for 6 hours. A small group of nine humans and nine horses. There is an intimate symbiosis between horses and humans in grief. But still, it takes big courage to walk up to a 2,000 pound animal in a wide open space with no where to hide. An animal who is unrestrained and free. And an animal who understands what it is to grieve.

There are far too many details from that day to do a story justice. I came away filled with admiration for the vulnerability and strength and resolve shown by the participants and the antics and behaviors of the horses. It was an amazing experience. One I would revisit if it was in the Winter, Fall or Spring. It was too hot for this old broad to be in the sun for that many hours.

I had hoped the experience would be easier to write about. But it isn’t. A lot of what happens, happens inside. The feelings. The connections. The parallel process of setting something down that we might be ready to at least take a break from carrying. Before that can happen, we have to trust that wherever we set it, it will still be ours to pick back up if need be. We need to know we are safe but we also need to know, our grief is safe.

The idea of ‘setting something down’, something personal, deeply intimate and hugely heavy isn’t as easy as it sounds. When it comes to grief, we get rather attached. We might think it’s something we don’t want riding on our coat tails or wrapped around our ankles, but setting it down feels far to akin to ‘letting it go’ and there is something in us that tells us, that is not possible. Once we experience the thing that causes us grief, our best strategy is to figure out a way to make friends with it. Because it is now part of who we are.

AND, with the right guidance and understanding of the ways of grief, setting a piece of it down for a period of time can be a life saver. As I just said, as long as we know where it is and where we can come back for it if we need to.

I don’t know if any of our participants left any burdens in that pasture. I want to believe they at least left the ranch that day understanding that the option is there and the herd is a safe place for it.

I will be off the grid for a period of time. I’m needed elsewhere and can’t say for sure if I will have access to the technology to post on Substack but I’ll do my best. So please don’t let my silence mean anything more than a momentary ‘setting down’ of this valuable piece of who I am. And, as always, I hope you know your presence as a reader/listener is like an iron infusion for an anemic heart and soul.

I THANK YOU