There is a saying we all know: the only way out is through. Meaning, of course, that there’s no way to bypass life’s intensities. Can’t go around it, can’t go under it, can’t go over it, gotta go through it.
But I’ve been wondering if maybe that saying falls a little flat.
What if instead of trying to get out by going through, we accepted that really: The Only Way Is Through.
What happens then? What does grief become?
I don’t have any perfect answers for how we might make our way through the intensities of these times. The climate chaos, the economic havoc, the clamoring of voices trying to get their moment in the spotlight, the ridiculousness of people attempting to profit off of homophobia and a rejection of science, the horrors of state violence…I don’t know how we might make our way through any of this.
But I know we’re here. I know we’re in the midst of enormous changes, and I know we’re all in a collective state of shock and grief - or at least, everyone I know is, and I’ve taken to just assuming that everyone I meet is as well. It helps me navigate the surreal nature of life these days if I remember that we’re all grieving.
So here we are, in a collective unknown, in a culture woefully unprepared to navigate grief, in a world in massive change. And as always, the focus is on getting through it. But what happens if I stop trying to get through it, and I am just here?
In some ways, it is terrifying. It requires an opening to this grief as a constant state, rather than something temporary. There is a comfort in rushing around trying to fix and do and make things better. There is a surrender to accepting that we are in the midst of immense grief, and that might not stop.
I do know this: the ground can hold me. Gravity can be a comfort.
Right now, where you are, the ground is underneath you. The Earth’s body, massive as it is, is there, whether you are on asphalt or on moss, whether you are on the actual rocky soil or on the 40th floor of a skyscraper. There’s ground underneath you, even if it might be more difficult to notice in some places than in others.
Gravity is pulling you down towards the earth. It’s the most basic of physics: the earth’s body, massive as it is, will pull our relatively tiny bodies down. But it doesn’t only pull us down. If it did, we’d be flat like pancakes, and here we are, in full dimension.
And this is because the earth doesn’t just pull us down. It also pushes back up through us. What if, rather than trying to get through these troubled times and out beyond into some brighter future, we allowed ourselves to open to the support of the earth moving through us? Here. Now.
We’re here where we are, shaped and formed as we are, because we are pulled and pushed by the force of the Earth, simultaneously.
There are details to this that we could explore, but perhaps, for now, that is best left to physicists and evolutionary biologists. Perhaps for right now it is enough to know: we are always supported.
Maybe this means it is enough to simply be here, without the need to get through. Here we are, and the ground is here to hold us.
Try this with me: notice where you are touching the ground. Whether it is a chair, your bed, the floor, or the actual earth.
Whatever you are resting on, you can trust it will hold you. You can release your weight into that support. And as you do, notice what changes. The body softens. The breath deepens. As we release into the support of the earth underneath us, we come into a softer presence. This changes us. It has certainly changed me. I’m not perfect at it. I lose my patience, I get overwhelmed, I try to run away from the difficult places within me. Or alternatively, I get pulled into the grief in such a profound and encompassing way that I forget to notice the way the light is changing, I don’t notice the soft touch of the breeze against my skin.
But I can return home to this relationship between my body and the earth. I can soften into the support that gravity and the ground offers me.
It doesn’t get me through anything. It brings me home, here, to this moment. Where life is happening.
_Please join me for a course on these practices of returning home to our bodies, the natural world, and each other. We begin September 4th. _
