One Year of Grief

March 1st will mark the one year anniversary of Mindful Erotic Grief.

I am overcome with emotion as I think about all we have grieved together over the last year. Thank you to each person who showed up to be tend their own grief and to be a witness to the grief of others. I am so honored to have shared space with you.

What began as a tugging at the corner of my heart has now blossomed into an ever growing community of folks who know that they are not alone in their grief and that there is no wrong way to grieve.

Together we have mourned deaths of friends and family; human and non-human alike. We grieved the climate, the safety that we deserve as queer folks in the world, countless shootings, natural disasters, governments that show over and over that they care more about money than about people. And of course the heartbreaks, the job losses, changes in our bodies, the pandemic, dreams deferred.

No grief is insignificant. All grief is welcome.

Each and every time we gather, we welcome the possibility of pleasure. Whether or not it wants to be present in our particular body on the particular day, pleasure always has an invitation.Sometimes it is the comfort of a favorite food while we dissociate. Or the joy of moving our bodies in rhythm with the music. Other times, it is the wave of orgasm cascading through our bodies while transforming the heaviness of our grief in that moment.

Pleasure and grief are kin and they always have a seat at the table.

For this anniversary, I want to invite everyone to consider the way our bodies metabolize grief and think about one way (or many) that you can build spaces to tend to grief in your corner of the world.

There are three distinct ingredients that can be organized in innumerable ways:

1.) Movement

2.) Sound

3.) Sharing the Story

Movement can be as big as you can imagine or a small as blinking your eyes or taking a breath.

Sounds can be wails, screams, laughter, song, and again, our breath.

Sharing the story can look like art, conversation, journaling, or whispering your losses to the trees.

The combinations are endless… and we individually, and we in our families and communities, will have unique ways of combining these three ingredients to create the grief rituals we need. As the immensity of loss and harm in the world continues to intensify, we will require more ways to be present with our grief for as long as we are here on this planet.

As long as I am here, I will keep finding ways to mix the movements and sounds of pleasure into ways that we can grieve together.

Thank you for showing up with me and for me in this necessary practice. I love you with all my heart.