I didn’t see the National news item when it was broadcast across the gigantic flat TV screen at the airport this morning. But I saw its effect in the eyes of my traveling companion. As he described its message to me, the churning sensations in my gut reminded me of other unwelcomed and unwanted flashing news announcements that have occurred at airports. I learned the outcome of the 2000 Gore vs. Bush election while traversing an airport waiting room. That was in the days when presidential candidates accepted their loss gracefully, and left office, although more citizens may have voted for them.
9/11 happened shortly after my husband had boarded an airplane and its flight plan was interrupted, leaving him stranded on an airport tarmac, and me wondering if I would ever see him again. Then of course, there’s the Covid shutdown, where the flight I was to travel on, along with all the others, was cancelled and life as we knew it was postponed indefinitely.
“We’re on vacation,” I remind myself. I’m celebrating an important milestone in a three-year creative journey, having turned the manuscript for my upcoming book over to its editor yesterday. Someday soon it will become, The Art of Grieving: How Art and Artmaking Help Us to Grieve and Live Our Best Lives.” We’re stepping away from our screens, from the big societal news that can, not only interfere with our celebrations, but overload our capacity to grieve when added to the personal and family losses many of us are already grieving. In fact, as a grief advocate, what I know about grief is that we often don’t realize the impact, the effect on our small bodies, that news from the big societal body can deliver.
Last night I had the honor of co-hosting, with representatives from 100 organizations, an online event, Gathering of Grief, on the Reimagine platform https://letsreimagine.org/ As hate and divisiveness permeate our cultural life, we gathered to “mourn all that is disconnected from Love. We used the arts of music and storytelling, and ritual flower arranging to transport us into that” space between the worlds” where the better angels of our humanity dwell.
An American Muslim woman spoke of the dramatic and traumatic effects on her life and on her religious community after the terrorist attacks on our country on 9.11. While the initial response had been for the US population to draw together in solidarity, members of the Muslim community were singled out and attacked, verbally and physically, “to go back to where they came from.” After Covid, there were references to the “Chinese Virus,” and people with an Asian heritage who looked Chinese were persecuted and treated as though they did not belong in the country of their birth or adoption. Now there is a war in the middle east between a terrorist group and the Jewish state of Israel. Palestinian students living in the US were recently fired on as they walked down the street in a New England town, speaking Arabic and English. One of them is not likely to ever walk again due to his injuries.
The news I wished I didn’t have to know– the City Council of Oakland CA in attempting to join several other cities in the country in passing a resolution calling for a permanent cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war, ignited a firestorm of hostility and conspiracy theories against Israel from demonstrators. The Jewish councilman who attempted to amend the resolution was booed by anti-Israeli demonstrators, who condemned the language as “anti-Arab.” Some demonstrators spread the conspiracy theories that, on Oct 7th the Israel Defense Forces had slaughtered Jews to justify an invasion of Gaza.
My husband and I have a small condo in Oakland, and the non-profit Body Wisdom we support is headquartered there. It’s been my happy place for over 20 years. To see the hate that springs from conflicts and divisions far from home, and originated before most of us who are living now were born, come so close to our home, and its effects reflected in the fear and anguish on the faces of my Jewish husband and our Jewish friends–my own personal sorrow is magnified 1000 times more.
In the group poem we created last night during the online Reimagine ceremony Gathering of Grief, attended by 500 people or so, the line I contributed was “the only thing stronger than hate is Love.” I hope that’s right, and I hope by grieving together, enough of us can get ourselves to that place of Love that will overcomes it.
