Whatever we think we know about the immediate future of humanity and our increasingly beleaguered planet, one thing is for sure: in the face of ecosystem breakdown, new viral threats, and the myriad of other crises that continue to mount, our expectations about life will be continuously tested from this point on. And there’s one experience that inevitably follows all the others we are set to face – the trail of panic, anger, shock and awe at each mounting catastrophe, from unprecedented bushfires to devious new infections like the Coronavirus – and that is grief.
We were shocked at the
extent and ferocity of Australia’s fires this southern summer and we are now
showing signs of outright panic in the face of Coronavirus and its resistance
to containment. Given the lack of political will for climate action, we can
expect more communities to be torn apart, both by supercharged climate chaos
and by less dramatic but just as shocking events such as empty supermarket
shelves (wait until the crop failures start to kick in!).
Now is the time to begin to face this new reality. We are at the end of one era and the start of another. As climate scientists proclaimed, the halcyon days of the Holocene are over; welcome to the Anthropocene, wherein humanity has become so technologically powerful and prolific that we threaten the very viability of our planet’s atmosphere. This is a time to demand leadership that cares about our future; but it also a time that cries out for tears, as we relearn how to process our grief at what is happening to us, to our loved ones and our world.
Members of the community were invited to come together and participate in a grief ritual to assist healing after the bushfires. Held at Rosedale, a badly burnt suburb of Batemans Bay on the far south coast of NSW the event was facilitated by Geoff Berry, an ecotherapist and organiser of the local branch of Extinction Rebellion. “People need the chance to really feel and express their grief after crisis, loss or trauma of any kind. Modern society doesn’t do this very well and we need to fill that gap.” said Geoff. People were invited to bring something that they held sacred, or that connected them with whatever mixture of feelings the fires had brought. The ceremony offered a safe space to share feelings and featured some of the classic elements of grief rituals the world over – giving thanks, connecting with the spirit of place, singing together and a water element for cleansing. Pictured: Ecotherapist Geoff Berry leads the group at Rosedale beach. All photos generously taken by Gillianne Tedder.
In the south east of Australia, the fires are finally out. There are even full dams on some farms, bringing welcome relief to farmers and animals on the land. But even as bushfire is replaced by Coronavirus in the 24/7 news cycle, the more mundane, long work begins: of clean up, rebuild, the counting of losses, and the healing, which will be ongoing now for months, years, even generations in some cases. The loss of small businesses in regional areas affected by the fires is already a steady trickle and with it, increased unemployment and heightened risk of mental health issues. This won’t make headlines, unless it adds up to a big enough number to create some fear and trembling about lost GDP.
Pictured: the devastation at Rosedale.
But as we Australians drag ourselves out of astonishment at the fact that we just joined our Pacific Island neighbours at the coalface of the climate crisis, some of us have decided to do something about it. In Batemans Bay, a small town known as the starting point of endless south coast holidays over the years, a small but dedicated local group of the Extinction Rebellion recently held a grief ritual against a stark backdrop of blackened trees and ocean vistas. As with the international group, they protest the lack of political will to act on the climate crisis that is exacerbating it daily. But enacting a grief ritual is also a time-honoured, even ancestral tradition, which is designed to help people affected by loss and trauma.
Pictured: group participation in the grief ritual.
Grief is a natural human
response to tragedy, so it’s strange that it’s not a more prominent part of
current discussions about how we learn to live with our dangerous new world.
Modern westerners are better at getting on with business, reacting and moving
on, than we are at dealing with deep feelings of loss. But no matter where we
stand on anthropogenic climate change, we will be undone, at some stage, by
grief – and this is not all a bad thing.
Grieving allows us to feel what is happening to us in a way that opens up the possibility of something new, as we displace the power of our loss. Since time immemorial, grief has been ritualised, given time and space so that it can be processed as fully as possible. This doesn’t need to be complicated; all that is necessary for grief to be more fully experienced is that it is given breathing space and a supportive environment. When we do this collectively, we confirm each other as well. But we don’t only need to do this for ourselves and for each other: if we want to become adequate ecological citizens, we also need to explore grief for Country, as the Australian Aboriginal peoples call the lands, the animals, the trees, the rivers and even the soils we live on and with. This is something we modern westerners definitely haven’t been very good at acknowledging. Now is the time to admit that blind spot.
Pictured: This can also be done without close interpersonal contact; the grief ritual was performed before the Covid-19 reality and could easily be adapted this new scenario.
Enacting a grief ritual on
Country after the monumental losses suffered this summer is touching material.
The rites follow an ancient pattern, of joining in a circle, speaking
truthfully about our deepest feelings and fears, singing a song of grief, and
allowing tears of deep sadness and rage to spill freely upon the sand. Participants
are invited to bring along an item that connects them to Country and a bowl of
water is used to add a timeless ceremonial element.
We commemorate our losses in
a way that is timeless yet timely, ancestral yet relevant, personal and
collective. Maybe even in a way that will help us to reconcile our relationship
with the first peoples of this Country – and with the earth itself.
We will not be afraid to talk about the climate crisis that fuelled this fire season, as the atmosphere of the earth is warmed by over a degree already, resulting in the extensive and damaging changes we are seeing today. We will face the truth as courageously as possible.
Pictured Geoff Berry, Trish and Jesse on Rosedale Beach
Because the truth may be bitter medicine, unwelcome in an era when corporate-owned media wants to divert our attention from the most dire threat to our planet we have ever faced. But, as the old saying goes, the truth will set us free. Free to act on climate, to build community, to be as resilient and self-sufficient as possible, because our governments have failed us, beholden as they are to vested corporate interests.
We must continue to demand better from politics and business, but we must also take time to grieve for what we have lost, to clear the way for active hope and regeneration, to be refreshed by the beauty of our love for the earth and the life it supports.
Dr Geoffrey Berry is the Australian Representative to the International Ecopsychology Society, an Extinction Rebellion leader, and CEO of the South Coast NSW Aboriginal Elders Association. His day job is in building a trauma-informed caring community. **Please feel free to Share and Subscribe!**
The first bird turned out to be alive, still. Only just though. It was so weak i could approach, nudge, and note its feeble movement in protest as my dog backed away from the scene.
The next one was certainly dead, turned up so that you could see its guts had been eaten out. Then the next, and the next. These were Shearwaters, which had failed their migration and fallen upon the beach, only to have whatever small amount of nutrition that was left in their stomach eaten out by whatever sea creature or other bird could get at it.
I’ve only lived on this coast for 4 years, so saying i haven’t seen this before doesn’t amount to much. But something stopped me in my tracks; more than just the individual deaths, more than the mounting evidence of the current and ongoing extinction event that is seeing the end of so many species we can’t even keep count. My favourite animal of all, the Monarch Butterfly, have lost over 80% of their population over recent years (see here).
I later found this report, about the Shearwaters not arriving at their usual destination in Victoria. It was updated only days ago, here. What’s happening is part of a larger pattern. Climate science makes this clear and calling it a Mass Extinction Event seems accurate (although our political leader’s self-serving inaction makes the term ‘extermination‘ more accurate, as suggested by Jeff Sparrow recently). Professor John Arnould cautions us not to panic abut the failed migration this year. But it’s just another sign. They’re adding up.
We’re going to need to get better at dealing with death and destruction as the climate emergency rains its blows down upon us over the coming months, years and decades. In many places, for many creatures, the chaos has already taken its toll. Some people think the planet would be better off without us, but right now, we’re holding the keys to the nuclear reactors and so many other places that could make everything much worse for much longer if we can’t maintain the little control we have left over the damage we are doing every day.
But it will be the grief that undoes us. The countless moments of loss and trauma as we watch our loved ones fall upon the earth, their stomachs empty as the crops fail; or the shock as our communities burn to ashes on the wind in the next horrific fire; or the anguish as we are swept away on hitherto unimaginably fierce storms … the actual details of our undoing will be sickening, so that we cannot celebrate the end of the anthropocene with a clear conscience. We’re going to have to get better at grieving loss, because just as it came for these few birds on my local shore, it is coming for all of us, whether we act now to make our fates less harrowing or not.
Right now, for those of us who are informed about the state of our beautiful planet, is a time for mixed emotions: anger, sadness, grief and rage all seem logical responses to the environmental devastation being wreaked upon our beloved home in the name of obscene profits.
I feel all of this, on high rotation, on an almost daily basis. But, while i let myself be tossed upon waves of hopelessness and loss in the name of authenticity, i also always remember that we have to keep coming back to love: love of self, love for others and especially love for the earth. And there is one other thing that is so deeply coded into our biological and cultural DNA that reconnecting with it makes us much stronger for the struggles we have to face. This is the transformation of our consciousness. This is something we have done consistently, throughout our evolution, until the modern age saw us distanced from a culture of ceremonial rites, of initiation into the great mysteries, of psychological and spiritual growth as a core focus of our lives.
But we can get all this back; in fact, we must, unless we want to be passengers on our planet’s destruction, passive consumers allowing the destruction of our ecosystem to go on beneath our very eyes. Right now, we are like the butterfly, emerging: already transformed beyond what we were before, we have cracked the seal of our cocoon and are breaking free of old limits … but we haven’t yet built up the strength required to fly as free as people can be.
My metaphor for a process of immersive, experiential evolution is, as you have guessed, the butterfly. Let me take you on a brief journey through the metamorphosis promised by this spirit animal par excellence.
Caterpillar half way through creating its own cocoon for transformation into Monarch Butterfly
First, consider this simple fact: the caterpillar chooses to enclose itself within the cocoon. It is driven by its genetic code, but by contrast, we can choose to make this decision, to enter our own ecomythic underworld of darkness and mystery, to allow ourselves to be unravelled and dissolved, until we are ready to reappear afresh. Let’s underscore that point, because it reflects our modern relationship with ritual: we need to be unafraid of the darkness, of unknowing and letting go, of being torn asunder by grief and anger, of dissolving into our own goop in an act of faith that we will be reborn, reawakened for a new day.
Now to actually change from a caterpillar to a butterfly takes another thing altogether, and that is complete dissolution of our former being. This is what we require of society right now, in terms of dealing with the ecological crisis. And in order to be a functional part of this planetary transformation, we as individuals need to be true to our full emotional range without giving into the depths of despair or the peaks of rage we might feel when faced with the realities of ecosystemic destruction.
We need to feel everything, allow it to wash over us, and then be reawakened: to our power, to our love, and to our consciousness as it evolves into something entirely new … something planetary yet personal, ancient yet timely, informed yet passionate. Meditate on Butterfly Spirit and let it guide you, receive its spiritual sustenance as you come home to self, and return to society empowered and more capable of helping it to radically transform as we know it must.
“Choose Transformation, Create Cocoon, Allow Yourself to Dissolve into Deep Feelings, Wait, Crystallise, Reform, Grow Strength, Break Out of Former Limits, Fly Free. Repeat Daily.”
Geoff Berry, outlining the rites of the Butterfly: Adapt and Practice, Practice and Adapt.
