She came knowing this moment in her life is marked by grief. She didn’t know that only a day before stepping into this space together – I’d just facilitated a death ritual for the first time. “I think grief is a small price to pay for love.” She said as she spoke of her loved one – I’d only just begun to process the death of someone I didn’t know I loved. And this being the prelude of this sacred time space the last thing I was expecting was the laughter in the interlude. I learned how she embraces heartache as openly as she emits joy. A serial giver of love – she understands the risks and refuses to numb herself to the inevitable pain of being human. She knows the cost of a life lived in perpetual avoidance of loss is a life void of love. To her, it’s LOVE that is the inevitable consequence of accepting this life for all it has to offer. And so here I stood, bearing witness to a woman who chooses this moment to commemorate the sorrow. She showed me how she makes paint out of her own tears. Ceremony out of conversation and ritual with the remnants of the most discarded parts. She doesn’t need to guard her heart when her heart IS the armor. Sheilding herself from a life without depth (----empty of feeling.?) And so now as I remain somewhere in the paralell: I can see how love can be the precursor for pain but pain, like death, can be the precursor for rebirth. I heard it said once that “death is the prelude to heaven” She didn’t know how much grief lies in the foundation of this space and I didn’t know this session would be a living, breathing ceremony in remembrance of the LOVE. Because to her no loss is greater than the love that preceded it. The irony that this comes on the weekend shrouded in the cycle of death and resurrection. Maybe we cannot outrun death but I learned from Cynthia that death cannot outlive LOVE. When death and life are long forgotten all that remains is love.
Cynthia
In Remembrance of Love Page 12 April 10, 2023
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Photos, written piece and music composed and performed by: Teresa Joseph
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