Tending The Dead In Solstice
Wendy Robertson Fyfe
A dark bright sunrise on approach to Solstice, East Beach Dunbar, December, 2024, wrf
Welcome ~
The Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere and Summer Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere brings my focus to an even deeper experiencing of darker depths, and brighter light. At this time yearly now l am also brought closer to tending the dead as l approach the anniversary of the sudden death of my brother in Australia 3 years ago. Flowing alongside a number of other significant deaths it became like a confluence of the rivers of death, like estuary to ocean. I found myself beside the sea in Australia and Scotland, listening, seeing, learning, in ceremony, praise and gratitude, being re-shaped significantly by the watery alter/Altar of bereavement, grief and tending on a number of levels. I have written previously and published musings and experiences previously, and particularly this year.
I have found tending the dead ceremonially vital for birthing life to come in these turning times. If you want new life, tend the dead. Maybe that new life which follows will be as sudden and unexpected as my brother’s death or maybe linger longer, pause before the horizon at a Solstice.
Every death, every birth is unique, also by way of impact. Maybe you will remember your experiences of people, animals, trees, and all who are leaving/have left as you read these words. Maybe you will feel the way your heart too has shattered/is shattering a thousand times and expanded in release or tightened by trying to hold it all in as the heartbeats. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that deaths related to the heart continue rising as the current norm is to tighten/hold in. I remember hearing when my brother died on the other side of the world, of the physical impact; l could hardly move for weeks.
Roger’s death also brought me to an even deeper felt experiencing/knowing of the dying within and around us currently in human and other-than-human worlds, of the current Western culture; the increase of dying to come. What is clear to me, l’m not alone in this, is that new life emerging from the dead cannot be planned; is a holy mysterious thing; a continual tending the dead, tending what and who is to come by participation and change. Perhaps new life to come in these times is also like tending a kind of advent, an unseen miracle yet to arrive and trusting that it will despite all the odds and will be nothing possibly, currently, imagined.
I felt moved recently reading Nick Cave on the matter of Grief and tending in relation with the sudden death of his 15-year-old son, Arthur, in 2015. Do you know it already? I offer this one here on the Solstice. Nick Cave was asked the question by Cynthia who had written to him:
“I have experienced the death of my father, my sister, and my first love in the past few years and feel that I have some communication with them, mostly through dreams. They are helping me. Are you and Susie feeling that your son Arthur is with you and communicating in some way?”
His reply:
Dear Cynthia,
This is very beautiful question and l’m grateful that you have asked it. It seems to me that if we love, we grieve; that’s the deal, that’s the pact. Grief and love are forever intertwined. Grief is the terrible reminder of the depths of our love and, like love, grief is non-negotiable. There is a vastness to grief that overwhelms our minuscule selves. We are tiny trembling clusters of atoms subsumed with grief’s awesome presence. It occupies the core of our being and extends through our fingers to the limits of the universe, that whirling Gaia all manner of madness exist, ghosts and spirits and dream visitations and everything else that we in our anguish will into existence. These are precious gifts that are as valid, as real, as we need them to be. They are the spirit guides that lead us out of the darkness.
I feel the presence of my son all around but he may not be there. I hear him talk to me, parent me, guide me, though he may not be there.
He visits Susie in her sleep, regularly speaks to her, comforts her. But he may not be there.
Dread grief trails bright phantoms in its wake. These spirits are ideas essentially. They are our stunned imaginations reawakening after the calamity like ideas. These spirits speak of possibility. Follow your ideas because on the other side of the idea is change and growth and redemption.
Create your spirits, call to them, will them alive, speak to them. It is their impossible and ghostly hands that draw us back to the world from which we were jettisoned; better now and unimaginably changed.
With love
Nick
What else is there to say … the vastness … limits of the universe … the whirling Gaia, madness, ghosts, spirits, dream visitations and everything else. We are speaking another kind of language here, another kind of aliveness, another kind of invisibility being called forth by conversation into the tangible. The deep dark and the bright phantoms; stunned imaginations reawakening after the calamity like ideas; redemption; into the world from which we were jettisoned. I’m also imagining that world as a clarity song of animate cosmos with as yet so much unknown/unknowable, a vibrant and multidimensional entwining in a way we can only glimpse currently but a thread l also follow. A glimpse of a different inheritance for our young.
So, as we step into this Solstice l warmly invite you to enter the pause … with the dead … thus. Maybe this too is ‘the deal’, ‘the pact’:
Create your spirits, call to them, will them alive, speak to them. It is their impossible and ghostly hands that draw us back to the world from which we were jettisoned; better now and unimaginably changed.
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Blessings to you and your kin in this world and remembering those in the worlds through the veils, and ‘everything else’.
Wendy
Fishing boat going out to sea in one silent December morning mist, Dunbar. wrf
I’ve only just come to this post today and thank you so much Wendy for your words and the reminder of Nick Cave’s words too….so very very moving and alive, stirring.
I’m following threads too, setting up an altar to the dead, feeding them, thanking them, praising them, tending them. I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m just feeling my way and quietening the inner voices, following the deeper knowing. Questions arise.
How is it that you can grieve deeply for those alive as well as for those who are dead? I realise I am grieving for my son but who’s to say how any one of us should be in this world? Am I grieving for a pre-formed idea of this person I’ve lost, who has changed, who sometimes shows the old loving kind, funny version of himself or sometimes these ever-changing characters I don’t know, challenging, wise, unkind.
Finding my own long way through all my social brain washing, Trusting, trying not to resist, anchoring, letting go, allowing and holding to awareness and the present moment. At times it feels like sailing on turbulent seas on a ship tossed this way and that, not knowing whether to get off, walk away and give myself peace or hang on in there as this is life and life demands perseverance, commitment and courage to find the peace within. If I truly hold Love in the highest esteem which I do then live it!
Anyway I’m reminded of a dream, I think I see it’s significance…. an earthquake erupts violently splitting the earth beneath our feet, hurling objects unpredictably, I’m afraid, shouting warnings to no avail, my son is hit by flying debris…dies and changes form, becomes anonymous just like all the other black cars bobbing in the water. Then comes a feeling of calm realisation peace and a deep sense of loss as I let go.
It has been so restful to have uninterrupted time, watching branches bob, leaves quicken as wind gusts her breath in and around the house. And more about Nick Cave’s words another time…..
Thank you Wendy and Love ❤️