morning with the dead
Last week, I headed down south
(to San Francisco)
to attend and be a part of
Reimagine End of Life Festival
founded and created by my good friend
Brad Wolfe.
It was such a joy to see his passion
unfold and flourish—it was also so inspiring to me
to harness and pursue the ambiguous,
hard-to-capture
aspects of death, loss, creativity,
and the human spirit of love.
And more than that,
to live into who I was created to be—
and to always live from a place of hope
no matter the circumstances.
x
Jessie
“I was thinking of pitching a workshop for this festival on End of Life…would you want to do this together??” This was more or less how our conversation went in the spring. My friend Benjie had participated in the festival the prior year and was inspired to be more a part of things this year. I then realized this was the same thing my friend Brad has started years ago. Somehow, I hadn’t made the connection to go previously.
Of course I wanted to be a part of the workshop as it fit so well with my personal and vocational contexts. And so our process began as we sorted out what “doing this together” would look like.
I needed to be present to space, to cultivating the organic soil of recent loss, of healing through being gardened by Love, Loss, and Friendship in the midst of details, webinars, and responsibilities.
She agreed to take on the logistics while I held the space—being a sort of midwife for my space, our space, and the future space of the participants/workshop…leading into the day as people cut, crafted, and curated their loved one’s stories.
While at first pass—in that initial conversation—I’ll admit I had no clue what she was really talking about (bringing our loved one back through making a cloak??)—to see her idea come into fruition was beautiful and helped me to put aside any spirit that birthed unintentional judgment from confusion and an inability to see.
It was incredibly beautiful to watch heart stretch to hand and connect to scissors to create loving memories of the person lost.
And to then hear heart through the words and stories shared. After all, I shouldn’t be surprised—I’m in this area of research and study—but I was because it was so embodied.
I was witnessing a type of resurrection in community—the human community of the here and now—the physical presence of us with each other. And this happened through unabashed play, risk, and vulnerability with the stranger and each other.
I was also witnessing again the power of expression through creativity—and through sharing in-person about loss, love, and relationships. (And during that weekend—we would undergo our own loss and witnessing: the loss of our beloved ballet and movement teacher that inspired us so richly and the witnessing of a fellow friend create a cloak in her honour. We so miss you, Augusta.)
Me & Benjie
While the quote below is in the context of stress, intimate relationships, and disease—there is also the context (as highlighted by the quote) of relationships that influence our health in calming, healing ways—I can’t help but see doing expressive and creative arts in-person with others—and sharing our stories—as one way that love heals through loss. And I believe all the participants that morning would agree…
“Here again the social world can influence our health through the same hormonal and chemical pathways set into motion in other ways. The social world can activate the stress response, or it can tone it down. The effects of these personal connections can be more soothing than an hour of meditation. They can also be as stressful, and more long-lived, as running at top speed for twenty minutes on a treadmill. In fact, of all the sensory signals that impinge on us from moment to moment throughout the day, it is the ones connected in some way to another person that can trigger our emotions most intensely. ”
If you are experiencing a loss of any kind (a pregnancy, a child, a marriage, a loved one), have you thought of making a creation and then sharing that in the presence of someone who you feel supported by?