GRIEF AND PRAISE - FEBRUARY 2024

 GRIEF AND PRAISE

Painting by Martin Prechtel

Dear reader,

In the world as we know it today, full of conflicts, sufferings and so on, it is enough for most people to feel depressed, sad, and helpless. But what is needed, urgently is, for the more courageous, to be more proactive. This means to be able to praise the many suffering and dying and not to praise those who sit and feel good for being shut off and hide from the truth.

But in the collective human soul, there is a profound radiance where individuals are coming out and conquer the banal disappointments about the future and pretend that all is OK and that  there is no need to suffer grief all the time. That is not necessary. Others tend to avoid the pain of being compromised and ridiculed by the heartless and hide their grief.

It is necessary to show the courage to BE and to imagine what would be needed to create a soul that is that shines more light. It is necessary to inspire the heart and join others in the experience of grieving. Inspiration is that light to the world indicating as to what it means to be human and to taste the freedom and capacity to participate in a culture that has the courage to speak up. Each one of us is a “nation” - we are a Nation under ourselves and as a Nation, meaning a soul, we do have the power to create change.

I am inspired by the great shaman MARTIN PRCHTEL. This is how he is described by others:

 “Inspiring hope, solace, and courage in living through our losses, author Martin Prechtel, trained in the Tzutujil Maya shamanic tradition, shares profound insights on the relationship between grief and praise in our culture--how the inability that many of us must grieve and weep properly for the dead is deeply linked with the inability to give praise for living. In modern society, grief is something that we usually experience in private, alone, and without the support of a community. Yet, as Prechtel says: 

"Grief expressed out loud for someone we have lost, or a country or home we have lost, is in itself the greatest praise we could ever give them. Grief is praise, because it is the natural way love honours what it misses."

Prechtel explains that the unexpressed grief prevalent in our society today is the reason for many of the social, cultural, and individual maladies that we are currently experiencing. According to Prechtel:

 "When you have two centuries of people who have not properly grieved the things that they have lost, the grief shows up as ghosts that inhabit their grandchildren." 

These "ghosts," he says, can also manifest as disease in the form of tumours, which the Maya refer to as "solidified tears," or in the form of behavioural issues and depression. He goes on to show how this collective, unexpressed energy is the long-held grief of our ancestors manifesting itself, and the work that can be done to liberate this energy so we can heal from the trauma of loss, war, and suffering.

I am in tune with the story of how Martin learned through LOVE. He states:

“Love is always a matter of learning how to live in an unknown land. It is not just translation or about being secure in what one knows, but about learning how to give a true gift to what one loves by learning what it loves. Love is always about learning the Nature of things.”

He adds:

“Because the world is a boundless compendium of stories told in as many languages as there are things to know, the language of galaxies, of rocks, the languages of weathers, plants, and rivers, languages of animal and human cultures, I have never understood knowledge as a finite possession but more like a corral of wild language horses, with an ongoing responsibility to sustain and maintain them, upon whose unruly backs we must learn to ride; sometimes into the heart of twelve layers of holy stone, or into the heart of an old Jewish steel vendor in Armenia, or into the language of the tears of the Divine Female whose ever-birthing womb is a mouth that speaks this natural teeming earth and universe into tangibility at every present moment.”

I must say that Martin has inspired me to be able to recognise my own Soul learning in the many years as therapist and teacher at the university of Queensland, Australia. I both heard and told stories to many students and also involved in Men groups and am still enabling and supporting Australian military veterans and their wives in counselling sessions.

I highly recommend his books and particularly his book on GRIEF AND PRAISE. This is what we all need to study and practice NOW!

 “The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise” Here is a short description:

Inspiring hope, solace, and courage in living through our losses, author Martín Prechtel, trained in the Tzutujil Maya shamanic tradition, shares profound insights on the relationship between grief and praise—how the inability that many of us must grieve and weep properly for the dead is deeply linked with the inability to give praise for living. In modern society, grief is something that we usually experience in private, alone, and without the support of a community. Yet, as Prechtel says, “Grief expressed out loud for someone we have lost, or a country or home we have lost, is in itself the greatest praise we could ever give them. Grief is praise because it is the natural way love honours what it misses.”

 

 

Drawing by Martin Prechtel" -  Grief and Praise