Giard, M. and Snowber, C. (April 2003). Daring to dance our life Educational Insights, 8(1). [Available: http://www.ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/publication/insights/v08n01/contextualexplorations/giardsnowber/giardsnowber.html]

Daring to dance our life

Monique Giard and Celeste Snowber
University of British Columbia & Simon Fraser University

Why is it that broken shells have such a beauty to them
random placement in the sand?
Broken hearts do not carry as much beauty,
or is it our perspective?

Grief Garden

I planted a grief garden this summer, a place to house my grief; transforming it through the sensuous touch of soil. I really do not know what I am doing when it comes to gardening–there are maps and books for both grieving and gardening, but I never seem to follow any of them. My body tells me what to do. My hands reach naturally into the moist soil as easily as they wipe the moist tears from my face. I only have two small flower beds in this garden. I have squeezed in as many flowers as I could; all randomly next to each other. It gives me pleasure to defy the organization of planting I observe in the suburbs, begonia, geranium, begonia, geranium, flowers in order, colours in order. Instead, I have gone wild with lavender, chili peppers, bachelor buttons, fireweed, basil, geraniums, Christmas rose, curry, zinnias, sweet peas, roses, daisies, gladiolas, pansies, lambsweed, and other varieties. Nothing could be so beautiful as lavender and fireweed together. Red orange hanging out with purple–I am fireweed all over. In grieving, I come to terms with my own nature–fire of passion, fire of heart. I also need the calm of lavender to soothe me. Lavender enters my cells and sings a song of calm.

When I was growing up in New England, my mother would spend hours in the garden. She brought colour to everything she put her hands to, whether it was cooking or gardening. I now understand how she lost herself in these worlds of vegetables and fruits, flowers and soil. The fire in her soul found tangible expression in the bounty of colour in the natural world. She too had a fire of grief and losses, from the remnants of the Armenian genocide to her own loved ones dying.

I keep wanting to pass through my own grief in ordered stages and be done with it. I have read that grieving the stages of divorce is not that different than in grieving a death. The “divorce experts” (how absurd) say it is not something we do and be done with, it is a constant process of divorcing. I ask, “Are we ever really divorced, from anything we really love at one time?” Even if it has changed, shifted, and shaped into a new relationship, there is still a connection. I marvel at the linearity of people speaking of stages of grief, stages of divorce, and stages of life.. Wild grief and wild gardens suit me better. I don't ever seem to go through either of them in the predictable stages. If I could tend the plants in the garden through certain stages,it would finally be done with. But tending is also determined by so many other factors: sun, rain, wind, children, dogs, even. In my garden, because of my three energetic boys, my plants also have to contend with water guns. There is no way to make sure predictions about either gardens or grief.

 By the end of yesterday, I must have gone through every imaginable stage of grief possible; from deep gut wrenching anger, to the complete ecstatic joy of living in my own power, and from deep sadness and loneliness, to surrender. It is not uncommon for tears of joy and tears of sadness to flow in the same morning. All this keeps happening in the midst of daily life: teaching, mothering, dancing, grading, cooking, administering, and car pooling.

Last week I found an old picture of my mother, only a few months before she died. It is now on the fridge in the midst of all the kids’ lively drawings. She is standing proudly before a vibrantly hued flower arrangement, one she had designed. My father had died only a few months before. She was living in the deepest grief, yet she continued to form beauty. Perhaps planting the garden for me is not so much a garden of grief, as a garden of hope.

My tears could have watered the whole garden. Perhaps the rain is God’s tears, the gardens are being watered by tears, the passion of the Creator. We so often think of tears as negative, even if we know better, even if we know that tears clear out the toxins of our systems, that they physically bring deep release. Holding back tears can be devastating; locking stress, grief, and pain which can eventually make us sick in our bodies. My tears flow in bundles of petals. They overflow like the petals from the wisteria near our house. My eyes are so tired they need to go on a holiday.

Yet it is the tears which are the holy day. They honour what is holy. They are part of my body wisdom. I know my heart through my tears. I know what I love. We often think tears are of the same variety, as if we only had one kind of flower. But there are old tears, young tears, frightening tears, relieving tears, joyous tears, angry tears, and healing tears. I cried old tears yesterday, but only after a day and a night of crying the tears of my present grief. I touched a grief buried to such fathoms it seemed ancient. There has been an ancient grief with me for a long time. Fresh tears wrap themselves over this old grief of losing my pristine self, of taking on a face of shame, remorse, and guilt. Meeting this at its root has given me deep compassion for myself.

I treasure the rain in British Columbia. Even though I am weary of gray, I enjoy nature in the rain. The water increases the pungent smells in the mossy forests and wooded places around my house. The smells are overwhelming and they have gotten in my blood as the ocean once did in my childhood. I have never got the ocean out of my blood. I need salt and water. Tears are made of both, the very elements that sustain my soul I cannot live without my tears. Nor can creation live without salt and rain, waters and rivers, oceans and lakes. I have oceans of tears within me, and oceans to come. I know in my head these tears will pass, and there may be easier days. Other sorrows will enter my life, and I will revisit grief. Life is a continuous emptying and filling, planting and weeding.I ask myself, when will I truly honour my tears, love my tears into being, accept this salt water running out of my flesh, letting it spill into the garden of my life.

	I spiral into your familiarity s t r e t c h into this unknown place of bright emptiness. Leaving scalded territory to a geography of joy Wild mind Mild wind. wild mind mild wind…. wild mind mild wind…. wild mind mild wind….
Quietly listening to the wind a long awaited dance  is born lighting the fire passion and vitality the flame within grows bigger and bigger till it enraptures me and you. East Wind Woman Comes Dancing

Grief Medicine Wheel

In my garden I created a Medicine Wheel this summer. I had been introduced to the Red Road by Phil L'Hirondelle, Michaskosis of the Cree Nation. When I feel discouraged or overwhelmed, I go outside to the circle of rough-hewn stones. I sit quietly in one of the four directions marked with stones found on the Kitsilano beach and listen to the teachings of the Elders. This is a place where people have gathered throughout the ages to reflect upon their lives. Each stone holds within its core the memories and teachings that I need to know in that very moment. When I am united with the teachings of the Medicine Wheel, I feel different.

When I travel in that sacred place within me where I hold dreams, hopes, anguish, and tears. I balance between all things and I embody the teachings of my elders. From the East comes the Wind and with it the memories of my ancestors and their French culture. With the Eagle representing the spirit of the East, I fly to mountains’ heights listening to musical landscapes. A spacious melody opens my heart and I swirl prayers of gratitude and forgiveness. I am transported to where my sister Suzanne lives. I have rediscovered friendship with her after many moons of misunderstandings and separation.

Suzanne and I sit in the East of the Medicine Wheel grieving again the loss of our sister Louise who died by suicide a few years ago. Suzanne’s willingness to endure my suffering is instrumental in our coming together as sisters and friends. I feel our souls closer than ever in this shared emotional grief; our tears fall on the healing stones. For a long time ,I had a deep concern about the lack of kindness between us. Talking about incest in the family and the factors underlying our sister’s unhappiness and despair had brought our conversations to an end. But this time, sitting with the teachings of the Medicine Wheel, we both honour the suffering necessary to discover our own souls. As we sit quietly listening to the wind, tears come down on the Medicine Wheel, down to Mother Earth and a loving wind blows our sorrow away.
 
Sitting quietly in the South of the Medicine Wheel, I listen to the wind blowing a memory from a few years ago, a memory in need of healing. A beautiful Christmas celebration ended in accusations and aggression toward me as I sought to express my subtle awareness of an abusive moment between my brother and me. Is it a ghost from the early childhood abuse? Is it a regression in need of healing? Is it masked grief? I long for harmony and love between us and only anger and rage are expressed. As I stand and reach up to understanding spirits, a flow of heat moves through my veins and I stamp the ground faster, awakening demons and snakes. I stamp and stamp again and again in a frenetic rhythm. Drums and voices join in a dance of losses.

Jumping Mouse, who lives in the South, sees all the details. She tells me to be gentle with my words. Words can be cruel, vicious, deceiving. I listen to the teachings of the South. Jumping Mouse tells me of the Masculine energy in the South. This Masculine energy –which spiritual traditions throughout the ages have characterized as ‘The Wind’–has invaded and dominated my femininity. The overtone and harshness about me has affected my relationships with women, partners and sons. I became as tough as my brothers and merciless to myself. My critical inner voice is as nasty as could be. Sometimes this voice comes out in rage and rebelliousness. I wish I could tame this animus attacking my own womanly feelings.

Thank you, spirit of the South for showing me the way to kindness in moments of separation. I grieve the loss of friendship and love between my brother and myself. As I listen quietly to words of compassion and wisdom from the South, my brother is brought to me in a vision. He says he loves me and wants peace between us. More than anything he wants me to accept him the way he is with his imperfections and flaws. Can I really do that? Am I capable of opening my heart in this way? Jumping Mouse of the South reminds me that we are not all big, strong, and identical in our knowing the world, and that all perspectives are important and necessary. Can I accept this knowledge from Jumping Mouse? Sitting quietly in the South, I open my heart to this truth.

In the West of the Medicine Wheel, I let go of my past and in the darkness find a new self. Being in the darkness means feeling deep sorrow and pain without understanding, means feeling lost, not knowing if there is any light at the end of the tunnel. I have been hiding with the bear of the West long enough. He taught me to wait for a new season, in the time it will take for spring to come. “You cannot ask spring to come sooner,” he says. “You only know that it will follow the cold and dark season.” Bear teaches me to be patient and trust nature, to allow grief to follow its own rhythm. In the dark, I learned to honour the loss of love between my father and myself. The physical and sexual love I experienced with him was not acceptable: it was not father-daughter appropriate love. It took me years to be able to voice this family experience. Filled with shame and fear, I escaped my relationships with men, in search of a safety that only existed within myself. Sitting quietly in the West of the medicine Wheel, I open myself to these teachings. Tears come down on my cheeks, on Mother Earth, on the stones of the Medicine Wheel. Crawling out of the bear’s refuge, I am ready to travel to the North.

In the North of the Medicine Wheel, I meet White Buffalo and learn to trust my wisdom.

Cracking open
            shells of insecurity
                       slowly
                                 carefully pushing through
                                          invisible walls
                                                       I stand up again
                                                                large and proud.
                                                                           How I longed for this moment.

In the Medicine Wheel I am reminded that I have always been there! The four directions are inside of me all the time in a swirling dance of growth.

August 6th, 2001  I received my spirit name given by Michaskosis in a Naming Ceremony  East Wind Woman Comes Dancing.  This name came to him while he was visiting friends in La Belle province de Québec. Upon returning to Vancouver, he forgot all about it and it is only when sitting quietly by the Pacific Ocean that the wind shaped a cloud formed like a dancer coming from the East and whispered the name.

I dance my new name with honour and respect
celebrating the magic and surprises of life.
I dance passionately,
drumming with my feet strength, power and truth.
I bring forth all that is within me
All that is afraid of being destroyed
East Wind Women Comes Dancing
All that is afraid of being blocked
I dance all that is within me to come forth.