Transmuting Grief

I'd place roses on your eyes

She said I was here to transmute the sadness—the grief. Alchemize the energy back into the earth. To let the intensity wash through me without judgment or resistance.

Light it up. Burn it. And move it through.

There, watching the Incan shaman move, dance, vibrate her body, I saw myself. At countless 3 a.m.s, shaking - mine uncontrollably, hers choreographed with intention. Panic coursing through me. My nervous system not prepared for this.

I’ve spent most of my life trying to understand what the fuck is “wrong” with me. Why my brain and body do this. Why I can’t just be “normal.” My psychiatrist calls it panic disorder. My mom, a sensitive heart. My energy healer, magic. It’s all the same.

But recently I’ve started to see I’m not alone in this. There are others who are feeling... everything.

With a world burning in a culture of extraction and humans so disconnected and numb, we continue to perpetuate cycles of violence and trauma—how is panic not inevitable? Rage not overcoming us all? The low hum of anxiety and unease should be expected when grief is the common language we all speak.

If we are constantly asked to turn away from our truth, from our wild. If we need to smush our beings into systems that oppose our values and actively cause us and those we love harm, how, I ask, could our bodies not respond?

But what if we started listening to that knowing? That discomfort? What wisdom is the whisper in the pit of our bellies or the uncontrollable shaking that happens in the middle of the night trying to say?

“Remember we are of this earth—of each other.”

I am beginning to believe it is in the very thing that makes us feel separate or different—like we don’t belong—that is our greatest strength. Outliers are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

I’m reminded that in a different time and place, the queers, the mentally ill, the neurodivergent were the mystics and healers.

We’re the ones to make the magic. Transmute the energy. Move it through. Evolve our species.

How many throughout history have been persecuted for this already. Witches were just women listening to their intuition. Leading with their bodies. How do they stone and burn us now? With capitalist agendas, a culture of fear and hate and bureaucratic minutiae so we’re so exhausted the magic can only come in fits and spurts on sleepless nights. In unexplained headaches and tears at the sight of a rose bloom on a city block.

The system is designed to make us feel crazy. Alone. Alien.

But there are so many of us, remembering. Listening to our bodies and the earth. Expanding our nervous systems’ capacities to be able to hold this level of intensity in the hope of alchemizing to a new world. A new way of existence.

We were made for this time.

So I’ve been dancing. And shaking. I’ve been grieving with my hands in the dirt and my face to the sky. Burning it up and moving it through.

And I’ve been watching the others. And listening. And learning. From the wisdom of elders who know and the youth who bring fresh eyes and un-jaded hearts.

What I’m trying to say is, I would pick roses from my neighbors garden and place them on your eyes to remind you that you’re beautiful. And unbroken. And just what we’ve been waiting for.

And I’m so fucking glad you’re here.

xo.a

Intuition