Surviving Year Two: Week 40

Healing Grief-Flowering Ritual

This is Week 40 of my Surviving Year Two Grief Project. Details about all my Grief Projects, as well as Grief Resources can be found here.

Yesterday I held my Healing Grief - Flowering Ritual. Seven people came and circled around me and held the space as I went through the three stages of my ritual: honoring the love I shared with my husband, honoring the grief I have survived since he died, and welcoming in the new flowering possibilities of my future. It was profound and deep and powerful and healing. There are truly no words to express how I feel today. My body is reverberating with love and healing and joy and peace.

One of my many "ritual props/accessories" was a crown of Brown Alba Clamshell mushrooms. I chose to wear mushrooms in my hair because it is the perfect symbol for being a widow. We have lived deep in the earth of grief and our bloom is the bloom of decay and death. Mushrooms are amazing in all they can do,  and it felt powerful and important that they had a presence in my ritual.

Today would have been our 12-year Wedding Anniversary. 12 years ago, my husband and I had a ritual of love and commitment to each other. Yesterday, I had a ritual of love and commitment to myself. Thank you to all of you who held me in their hearts yesterday. I felt it and it was powerful.

I am held. I am loved. I am so grateful.

Thanks for witnessing me. See you next week.