Letting Go

as shared with Durham Friends Meeting on November 12:

Dear friends,

I want to share a set of thoughts that’s been circling me for a while now. This is a time of year when leaves fall — colors turning, turning — releasing their attachments to the tree, reflecting new beauties in doing so. I’ve been doing a lot of letting go in my own life. 

I want to invite folks in Meeting to let go — specifically — of something you’ve been holding onto about Durham Friends Meeting, in the time of COVID. Maybe it’s hurt, anger, frustration. Maybe it’s sadness. Maybe it’s joy that you are finding in trying something new but you are confused because, well, are we “allowed” to be joyful right now, even in the witness to suffering, pain, death? “Whatever you are holding that is tight or uncomfortable,” whatever you are holding that is holding you back, it is okay to breathe it out and let it go. More than once, if necessary. Experience it, yes. Hold it close and love it first. Then release it to Spirit, whose arms are larger and more loving than your own.

This is the season when the veil is thin between this world and the next. The Celtic pagan holiday of Samhain (pronounced “Sow-ain”) aligns roughly with our Hallowe’en. It fell this year on Nov 6/7, in that range. It’s a cross-quarter holiday, between Solstice and Equinox, and corresponds to the final harvest, the bringing in of what we have sown and now reaped over the last year. One ritual associated with Samhain, which I had the opportunity to participate in for the first time with a small group of friends outside last weekend, is a bonfire. You throw whatever you are releasing into the fire. This was an amazingly healing experience, both individually and collectively. We made a ritual that included welcoming our ancestors — as they are ever present, but more easily accessible now.

For two of the four of us gathered together, there was a major cross-generational healing that took place. The other experiences were no less powerful, only less forceful in the moment, more gentle in their energy of releasing past patterns held within family lines.

I want to invite and encourage Friends to find their own ways of releasing past patterns now. This can be done individually, collectively, or in smaller groups. Outdoors helps. Using the elements — fire, water, earth (such as stones), air (breath) — helps. (A little more is mentioned on this below….) There are as many different ways of healing as there are stars in the sky. Sometimes simply telling another person out loud, what you want to let go of, is enough. Sometimes journaling helps. 

Preceding ‘putting Meeting back together’ we might first enjoy and recognize that we are releasing what we no longer need, all that we no longer want to be carrying. Which burdens do we choose to put down? How can we lighten the load for travel? Each person is different and may have a different answer to this question. Some of us have felt ‘othered’ or rejected or untended or ‘outsidered’ by Meeting. Some of us have had our feelings hurt, or been disappointed in our love affair with DFM.

Having heard many Friends express publicly elements of grief, shame — I know there are also things to be moved through, underworld journeys of various kinds. Most of us, at one time or another, feel more or less connected to ‘the mothership’ of Meeting. We may take on identities associated with roles we are filling there. We may find family relationships, that may be missing or damaged in our own lives; we may find Meeting is a place to grow and support our own families and households. We may find outlets for gifts and talents to flourish in exercising them in collective space. For some, Meeting can be a refuge from other communities of hurt in their lives. We have high expectations of holding each other tenderly. For some, Meeting is more like an individual ‘filling station’ where we get replenished before going back out into service in the world.

There is historically a tension between Friends’ individual and collective witness to social change, social justice. How we show up in the world: Do we act together? Individually? Friends’ meetings (of a liberal progressive sort, as ours is) tend to attract ‘do-gooders’ in the world, those who put the needs of others above their own, those who dedicate the days of their lives to serving humankind. Teachers, healers, social workers, caring helpers of all kinds. It can be hard for caregivers to remember to care for themselves. It can be hard to recall that healing begins within, and not to rely on projecting what we want or need emotionally onto the Meeting as a whole.

I am humbled to step into something different with some Friends tomorrow at the Eno. I love being outdoors, as you probably have gathered by now. I look forward to embracing somatic practice as a way of being together with Friends of various ages and backgrounds. My expectations are small. Such work is incremental, gentle, and can be done over a long period of time. But it will be good to begin, together, tomorrow. Whether or not you are coming tomorrow for friendship, reconnection, or a little gentle movement, I want to circle back to my original invitation. Release something you no longer need or want to carry about the Meeting. If you do not enjoy fire, perhaps you will speak what you want to release into a stone, bring it with you, and throw that stone into the river tomorrow with your blessing and intention of letting go of the past. Make your own ritual. The Earth will support you in doing this. Mother Nature is a helper, too!

amen

with love,
Kirsten