Digging Graves for 2024

"But wisdom in the dark is preparing the vessel for the next illumination"

Photo by Rob Martin on Unsplash

“In each moment the sacred process of death and rebirth is playing out within us. With each breath, something in us is dying—some aspect of who we think we are or what we are doing here, a relationship we were sure would last forever, the work or spiritual path that once brought us meaning, consistent health in our physical bodies, an idea about how it was all going to turn out.”

“In the face of disillusion, the question isn’t so much how we can most quickly facilitate rebirth but to what degree we will participate in the death when it appears.

This is what I am thinking about with the turning of the year. These words are from Chapter 4, “A Sacred Deflation,” in A Healing Space, by Matt Licata, PhD. We want to move quickly to the resolutions, the fruit of growth, the new me. And we want to do it without the dying or acknowledging what is dead. Licata shares,

“The art of allowing things to fall apart and honoring the death aspect of the death-rebirth journey is one known by alchemists, mystics, and poets but is not popular in a culture obsessed with persona and happiness at all costs and with the fantasy with invulnerability, untouchability, and consistent feelings of joy and peace.”

It’s a “failing consciously,” as he calls it. We like to look away from these deaths, don’t we? Whatever suffering, pain, or loss we may be going through, it is easier to go black and white with it. One way is to minimize its impact. I didn’t need that person in my life anyway. I’m just going to look to the future. I guess it just wasn’t meant to be, something better will come up. It wasn’t that bad. We tell ourselves that we are not affected at the level that we really are. I’m not mad. I’m not afraid. Not disappointed. We don’t name the harm and sit with it. The wound will not be tended to.

Another way is to catastrophize, letting it consume us. In this way, it can never actually die, it’s always before us. We will not mourn it. Of course, there is plenty of ongoing suffering that remains before us. I’m not talking about that, but about not tending to the deaths within it. We keep holding onto the version of the story that was supposed to be. We can do this by focusing on our victimization and the injustice of it all. Again, this is needed. Naming harm. Seeking justice. But we can also get caught in the loop when the justice doesn’t come, the offender doesn’t take responsibility, reconciliation cannot happen, reparations are not coming, nobody cares. What then?

We need a container for these deaths. I like to visualize it more as a graveyard in our soul. That way I can memorialize these deaths, mark their graves.

Photo by Jacob Amson on Unsplash

Here lies the death of a friendship that I just can’t invest in anymore because it isn’t healthy.

Here lies my expectations of what church is supposed to be.

Here lies the young, naïve Aimee who just pushed through the back pain.

Here lies the ideal that I wanted others to see me as.

Here lies the Aimee who didn’t cause trouble.

Here lies.

Here lies.

Here.

Here lies 2024’s graveyard. I want to journal more in detail about this. Much of it is too personal to share on a Substack. But I’m sharing some prompts, because maybe that will be helpful for you as well. Maybe I’ve provoked and encouraged you to take a survey of some plots that need buried. We can look at this graveyard and bless what was good. Smile, even, with those memories. Grieve the loss. Revisit the stones when needed. Trace our fingers over the healing wounds. And work to not have them leak out and sabotage ourselves or our loved ones in 2025. In this, we can wait for resurrection and expectation—now that we have containers for the dead.

“A certain death occurs as part of the healing process; in the deepening of self-awareness, something does not survive illumination. There is a fantasy that we can come out the other side intact, without having to sacrifice some aspect of ourselves in the fires of transformation.”