Death blurred life.
And brought it into sharp relief.
A void opened.
So I spent five and a half hours on the phone. The call was comfort. Don’t remember a long call like that before. And all that talk with someone I really didn’t know was disorienting.
The void was momentarily not the center of my mind … but still the center of my cells, so I remained on the phone.
We talked about our friend who’d passed. But mostly we discussed our experiences with poetry, class oppression, f to m transitions, good places to live in the U.S., mutual friends, publishing, overlooked nuances of various topics, and the first time we met. Now, I know a lot about this fellow from their words and the energy that wrapped the words.
He remembered me from the ‘70s. I don’t recall that meeting. He reported the bizarre haircut I had then. So, yes, we spoke back then.
I remember him from the ‘80s but not talking then either.
Then pain gave us a marathon phone call.
I was able to get a good sleep afterwards.
I fell asleep listening to TJ Klune’s We Burned So Bright. It is about an elderly gay couple during the apocalypse. I am grateful to Klune. A brilliant, loving story from which I received comfort instead of staring into the void that my friend’s passing left behind.
In the morning, I wasn’t sure if a conversation on conversion therapy had been in the book or the phone call.
Death deconstructed my mind, my life, the world.
Death made my life surrealism. I am used to altered states. But life altered. The world that had my old friend was deconstructed with his death. The new world is sharp and blurred and empty,
Nothingness invades when I’m not working, serving others, cooking a meal, beading, planning the ritual to help my deceased beloved on his new journey. I bead and bead.
Klune’s book about the end of the world and—to a much greater degree—the phone call were respites from staring at the end of my world and the emptiness that isn’t replaced by a new cosmos yet.
A new universe will evolve. But, for now, I bead.
Later: I started to feel excitement about a new world. Was looking forward to it. The good feelings were short-lived, but they were lived. I keep on. And hope for a new friendship from the phone call.
A Shamanic Ritual
Our personal experiences give us life lessons. Sharing our stories can share those lessons. In Shamanic culture, everyone’s story is important, not just those in movies and books.
Sometimes, I tell my stories to teach Shamanism.
Here’s a Shamanic exercise (aka ritual) that might help you glean lessons from my experience with death.
Pretend my story about death is an allegory. Does it imply anything about death or life that might help you today? Is there an implication that might help you reach an important goal?
A person’s story might include feelings and thoughts. They are part of the “allegory.” So they might have lessons, too.
Perhaps you will find more than one answer to either of my questions, if you need that.
If you do this exercise again a long time from now, your answer(s) might be different from the one(s) you find now, if your needs change.
Francesca De Grandis authored the best-selling classic, Be a Goddess!. Now she publishes less, to focus on oral tradition: Long-distance Shamanic classes and other services. Shamanism is the opposite of colonizer culture. Joy is political resistance. Choose joy. Express yourself. Serve community. Nickname: Outlaw Bunny.
Dear Francesca,
Thank you so much for this post. I lost my grandfather this year and the experience has been devastating. Although my parents are still alive, he is the person that I would call a parent. Someone who truly listened. Someone with whom a “we” existed. WE talk to each other. This stays between US. He has been the embodiment of family. When he passed, I realized I have noone else who takes this place, noone else I have this we with. Not my husband. So my marriage passed, too.
I have lost loved family members before. My great-grandmother. My grandmothers. But there was always someone remaining who was a parent to me. This time is different. Now I have children. Now I am the remaining parent.
Maybe it is also the feeling that I’m next in line. No line of people between me and death. I’ve been close to death before, but it’s a different feeling to not have embodied love, shelter, protection from an elder on the mundane plane.
It feels very empty. I miss my grandfather so much.
I’m working on reconfiguring my response to the loss of loved ones. It feels like losing an organ or limb, and that’s neither sustainable nor does it allow me to be fully present. With friends dying and all of us incarnate beings on a 1-way journey, I want to rebuild my relationship to being bereaved.
It doesn’t fit with my Shamanic ethics or holy connection to the gods to be so mortally lost in the face of mortality. I’ll ask for help this Samhain.
Your story, exquisitely told as usual, gives me a trail of bread crumbs to follow. That void is real; it’s inescapable. It’s as much a part of existence as the Sun, and possibly more so, because one day even the Sun will die. Human connections, resurrected from our past or always at hand or, more normally, in between, are the only bridges that can bear our weight across the Great Chasm.
It’s all about love. That I do know. Your story and your invitation amd every nourishing moment of my life and all the visits and visitations I’ve had from my dear departed make that point over and over and over. How to embody love in those moments of facing the Void… I don’t know. I’m weeping at the thought of trying to find out how.
Blessed Samhain, blessed Francesca.
Isy,
I am holding you in my heart.
Thank you for your beautiful thoughts and your kind supportive words.
Perhaps my beliefs about—and experiences with—love and emptiness will be useful to you:
I feel a great void underlying existence. I experience that as a loving emptiness from which all things come.
When I dive into that void, instead of avoiding it, love surrounds me, heals me, empowers to embody love. But I often find myself avoiding that dive.
We have spoken in the past so you might’ve already heard me say everything I just wrote. If so, perhaps this reminder might help. Honestly, it’s good for me to remind myself of all this right now.
Blessings on you. Thank you again.
Holy sht. That must be the connection. Goddess help me, I’m going to take that dive.
Thank you for sharing this. Reflecting on your story helped me realise that I’ve been living in the surreal life that Death made – in my personal life, and in the torment I feel cast by shadows of the so-called Anthropocene. The ritual you suggested helps make sense of my reality the past decade or so. I too feel the nothingness invade when not working, serving others etc. In Goddess Initiation you wrote “Death makes us present,” and of how “service heals like nothing else can.” I have annotated and reread these sections many times. The Shamanic exercise helps me realise I have come to embrace and genuinely find joy in the nothingness. Not in a morose, petulant nouveau-Wednesday Addams way. I’ve found great happiness in the emptiness that is the drum. I love the beauty of the muted colours of the artwork. Much love.
Adam, thank you for your supportive words. Ditto for your detailed response. I imagine that took time and effort. I bet your experiences with the exercise will help someone.
You are the first person to give feedback about the exercise. And your experience lets me know that all the time and effort I put into that story and exercise were worth it.
Love and power to you, dear.