“The Divine is close to the broken-hearted.
קָר֣וֹב יְ֭הֹוָה לְנִשְׁבְּרֵי־לֵ֑ב
Karov Havayah L’Neeshb’rey Lev
”
For thirty years, I have been moving, drawing and writing my way through grief. Placing my attention upon my sensing body, capturing imagery with colors, and embodying these images in movement has been a healing balm and a source of comfort even as I am experiencing pain that feels unbearable.
When my heart feels broken, I know I must go to the mat, to the dance floor, to the woods, to the ocean - often with a drawing pad in hand - and create time and space for the creative process to carry me through.
When we enter the world of imagery and sensation, we can gently and compassionately embrace our grief in the present moment. Enter into it. Be with it. Breathe with it. Let it fill us, and show us what it needs.
Thirty years ago, I became certified in the Halprin Life/Art Process. During the training and ever since, I have used this method to process grief related to sudden deaths of close family members, friends, and pets. And for many of us, our griefs are layered grief upon grief - ancestral grief; climate grief; grief for the sorrows of the world; grief for loss of home; grief for aging, illness and life changes; grief for places that have not known love; and more (as Francis Weller so beautifully lays out in his book, The Wild Edge of Sorrow).
During the practice, we choose an element or color or shape from our drawings, and we move them through space. One at a time, the colors and the textures of the drawing inform our expression, and in the experience of dancing our grief, new images, new shapes, new expressions emerge. By integrating all levels of awareness, we can release the story and enter into the realm of a creative expression that is holy, whole and true.
We may imagine grief as a stone weight, an ocean, a dark pit, or a windstorm. And we may experience grief in the body as being knocked flat, losing our breath, falling, or a punch in the gut. Each of us has our own imagery, our own dance, our own experience of grief as it inserts itself, sometimes suddenly, into our awareness.
The imagery and dances change each time our grief comes for a visit. Sometimes we set aside a space for it. Sometimes it demands us to drop everything and pay attention, even when that was not our plan for the day. But each color, each shape, each image is a golden gem, holding the promise of comfort, insight and transformation.
I am so grateful for the chance to share one, of many, pathways to wholeness with you, our EJL community, as together we strengthen our capacity to be, breathe and move with our grief.