In preparing to hold the embodied ritual of a Grief Dance this Saturday I have been asking myself how I experience and move grief in my body, and what the relationship is between grief and community.  When I dance alone and am able to connect to something bigger—call it source, divinity, God, or expanded consciousness—I often start crying.  There’s both a softening in me, and an engagement that puts my body in motion.  This isn’t necessarily just about grief, but it’s certainly a component.  This state carries in me a longing to be met in my dance, one that at times feels like the very source of my grief.  When I am dancing with others the prevailing energy tends to be more celebratory, and perhaps this is exactly because we are sharing in the joy of meeting each other.  And yet, I also carry a longing to move grief with others in movement; to be met in that very energy.  I have participated in and created such containers, and I have experienced in them the particular type of joy that comes from being in my grief with others.  It’s quite a vulnerable state.

Enjoying grief seems a bit odd on the surface, so I’d like to speak to a deeper layer.  Deepening is the fundamental frequency of grief.  Grief moves in me when I allow myself to be permeable, literally softening the tone of my body so that forces can travel deeper through my tissues.  This is also how pleasure moves in me–it similarly requires softening.  As my teacher Christian Pankhurst states it, watching how we close reveals how we open:  The importance of softening is clear when I see myself and others harden our edges, physically and emotionally, in order to function in the face of something very difficult.  When the need to function is no longer there; when softening again becomes available, the grief rushes in.  A few years ago my wife Kendy Radasky and I separated and believed we were headed into divorce.  That time was one of the most difficult experiences of my life, and I moved deeply into grief.  Through the many intense bouts of expression, including crying, moving, dancing, and screaming, I started to recognize the joy I carried simultaneously for my ability to feel.  Energy was moving through me that had been stuck for years.  Our ability to come back together in love was due in large part to this—the movement of energy in both of us that had been stuck.  Pleasure became more available, and thankfully we both opened to it.

The most important tool I’ve found for moving grief in my body is breathing into the sensations I’m experiencing without trying to do anything in particular to or about them.  Sometimes it takes me a very long time to drop into myself this way.  When I’m with others in spaces that specifically name and hold the possibility of moving grief together our collective intent can help me go deeper.  Sometimes others express grief that I am not able to express personally but which brings me joy and relief to witness.  There is also something hugely important and powerful about being seen and validated in my grief, and our grief, by others.  African spiritual teacher Malidoma Somé writes about how in his culture men who are not able to hold their grief in daily life are not trusted, but if those same men are unable to access their grief and cry in ceremonies they also are not trusted.  I resonate with wanting access to both the capacity to hold my grief, and the ability to let it move, in community.  I do not see many places in our culture where it is normal, or even desirable to be with the healing power and joy of grief publicly, especially for men.  I’d like to name the fears in myself and perhaps in our collective that grief won’t move, that we might lose all control of ourselves, or that you or I won’t meet someone’s grief correctly.  These are natural fears in a culture that isn’t used to grieving together.

If you’re in Boise I’d like to invite you into BraveSpace around grief—into taking the risk of being vulnerable together in our bodies and community.  The Grief Dance this Saturday will be from 12-3pm at SomaWorks. The link for more information and to sign up is here.