Re-imagining Grief: Healing the Lungs of the Earth

Grief is a powerful emotion. It feels like sadness and longing tied up in one. It can bring you to the floor, crying. It can turn you hard from the inside out. It can fester as a wound that you willfully protect with bitterness. It is important to deal with our grief in a healthy way, by acknowledging our pain patterns and working to build new pathways of pleasure.

As a deeply sensing person, I personally struggle to deal with my grief in our times—there is so much to grieve! I’ve discovered that my grief is not only tied to my personal life experiences, but also to the destruction of nature. I grieve the loss of healthy coral reef ecosystems. I grieve the loss of freedom of dolphins and whales. And perhaps most of all, I grieve the loss of ancient and pristine forest biospheres.

Yet, It can be hard to fully digest how we feel, let alone integrate these feelings into meaningful action. In the western, modern culture I grew up in, often the pace of life moves at a steady stream of “work” and “progress.” This makes it increasingly difficult to pause, relax, and let my feelings arise and inform how I interact with the world. In addition, I’ve been crippled by overwhelm of grief when I do give myself time and space to reflect, especially when it comes to systemic environmental and human rights issues.

Yet, pausing to honor our feelings is the only way of moving forward with integrity.

In fact, honoring our feelings and moving in connection with them is a powerful healing practice.

When we integrate how we feel into how we act, we create ripples. These ripples go inward, through our own inner landscape, transforming us from the inside out. They not only move within our own psyches and lives, but also out into the greater world.

This outward movement into the world, arising from the inner work, is critical to healthy, restorative action for our planet and world.

When we pause and honor our pain, we are also honoring the collective pain patterns playing out on the planet today.

My Story of Transforming Grief

One of the first moments I viscerally experienced my individual existence as an integral and connected part of the larger world experience was during my first visit to the Amazon jungle in Peru in 2012. I was with my ‘Biodiversity of Peru’ class on a field-trip, gliding down the Madre de Dios River towards the Manu National Forest.

I gazed upon the bank, which slid backwards like a film reel as we glided forward in the river. I realized, I was not only looking at the trees branching towards the sky and the roots reaching down towards the water and soil: I was starting at a cross section of the lungs of the planet!

I could see how the branches matched the way my own bronchioles spread out in my lungs. I could see how the river was the blood coursing through the lungs. I realized that I was in the blood, and I wondered what kind of blood cell I was. Would I be a helper-T cell, fighting for immunity and health? Or would I be a free-radical that oxidized and corroded healthy systems?

Here lies a powerful choice.

I think it’s vital that when engaging in a healing process for ourselves, we remember the power of our free-will. We get to choose who we are and how we interact with the world. Different situations require different responses, as well. I could choose to be destructive towards myself and the planet. Or, I could choose to engage in positive and life-building ways (and, I could even choose when destruction was necessary and beneficial!).

To realize the power we have in our choices is to understand our true power.

Often, I feel powerless and overwhelmed by grief. It hits me, slams me to the floor, and holds me down, crying. It comes up so unexpectedly that I feel confused and shocked by the depth of my sadness.

However, when I remember that I always have a choice—and I can always choose to do something about my pain—then I find a pathway back to my feet. I can face my grief, I can say to it, “I see you. I know you are here. I am grateful that you are presenting yourself to me so I can integrate your message into my actions.”

Grief is actually our friend. It has important messages for us. It is letting us know when something is dying. Sometimes, what is dying is personal, like the death of a relationship. And sometimes, what is dying is planetary, such as the Amazon, or lungs of the earth.

In both cases, self-care through self-awareness is vital to healing. We need to tend to the wounds inside of ourselves before we can face the world in our true power, and love the pain being expressed. There are so many wounds in the world needing this kind of grief tending. This is the work we are here to do now, so we can collectively heal from our past, stop the continuation of pain patterns, and gracefully walk into a peaceful future.

--Lily Rothrock
Chico, CA
March 2018

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