“Darkness deserves gratitude. It is the alleluia point at which we learn to understand that all growth does not take place in the sunlight.”
― Joan D. Chittister
Special visitor came in June. Azul Valerie Thome from SouLand. She brought a basket with her. In the basket there was a lot of ancient wisdom, playfullness, a drum, some wool and small weaving tools for wombelt weaving. Wombelt is women’s circle where we seat together, share, and weave our most hartfelt wishes and desires into the belts, for ourselves or our lovedones. There was something else in the basket: a lot of pain and grief for the humanity, for the Earth and for the rivers, flowing rivers of the Earth, as rivers of lives of us, humans… And there was immense compassion in that basket for the refugees, especially women refugees.
Azul shared her magic with us: a wombelt ritual, where new friendships were weaved in the web of life, connecting the souls for ever. She showed us the power of grieving consciously. Griving for ourselves, for our loved ones, for our fellow humans and other living beings that are victims of our ignorance. In a ritual we composted grief. We haven’t let it go, we haven’t cling on it. By composting the grief, we transformed it to a fertile ground for us, to grow as humans. And we cried, and run tears, and next day was brighter, our smiles were calmer and eyes more shiny.
In September Azul will teach us how to hold a Grief Composting Circle and help others to heal through grief. Training is open and you are warmly invited to join.
See her page SouLand for more info about her work.