Between Two Coasts - Tending to Memory

Small yellowish mushrooms grow on a log covered with moss. Brown and yellow leaves and twigs surround the log and mushrooms.

between two coasts

The other night in that dreamy, liminal, asleep-but-not-deeply state, I found myself lying between the Coast of Forgetting, and the Coast of Remembrance. There were no images associated with these unfamiliar words, but I understood exactly what the phrases meant. To my left, the coast of forgetting; to my right, the coast of remembrance; my sleeping body between.  

When we travel through or make a home at the coast of forgetting, we turn from the most terrifying and heartbreaking aspects of grief and pain. Forgetting can be a useful strategy, and a way to cope - it’s sometimes the only way we can move through the day. Our hearts, spirits, and bodies can only hold so much. Sometimes our elders have taught us (through word or action) that forgetting is necessary, even life-saving. Maybe they had to forget, as best they could, to keep on staying alive a little longer, to keep their families alive.

But over on the other coast, we allow ourselves to remember. Time at the Coast of Remembrance can offer rich connection, and nurture vital relationships. We encounter loved ones who have died, or left our lives in other ways. We may rediscover our own younger selves - our dreams, hopes, fears, disasters, and desires. We may uncover or imagine into what came before us - the hopes and terrors and lifeways of our ancestors. 

Perhaps we find there traditions taught to us by our elders, mouth to ear and hand to hand. Or we might discover the seeds they planted, tucking them into the dark earth, cradled by their hopes for those to come. Seeds planted with faith that someday we, their descendants, would find and tend what wants to grow. 

Remembering can offer us life-sustaining gifts - but it can also be arduous and painful and scary. Approaching our loss and grief (never mind holding and attending to it) can be overwhelming. Sometimes when we turn toward our most present/loudest grief and say, “yes, come in, I’ll listen. I’ll sit here with you” - everybody else wants in. Our old pains want tending, too. Even ancestral grief can come knocking, demanding attention (maybe the attention our ancestors simply could not give).

I don’t know how we can really grieve in the way our bodies and hearts and world need us to, without the support of loving community. We can try to forget instead, but grief rarely lets us - not forever anyway. And when we live our lives forgetting, we can also lose real connection, and joy, and meaning. Doses of forgetting here and there (watching a comforting show, reading a book that doesn’t over-activate the nervous system) can offer some respite and rest. But too long on that coast, too long in the land of forgetting, and grief will often push its way in.

For me - for a lot of us - we need the strongest, sturdiest stuff around to hold us and our grief (and maybe the grief of generations before). That’s where the earth, and the trees, and the plants come in (you knew they had to show up, right?).

Room with orange walls & a window with a gauzy white curtain & sunlight shining in. A plant hangs in front of the window. An oval mirror is on 1 wall & plates on another. Under is a couch with pillows and a decorative covering.

And so, I’m now offering Grief Care at the Portland Grief House (see my cozy room above). I’ve spent a lot of time on both of those coasts, and accompanied others in their wanderings. When you decide to be with your grief (or when there’s no choice but to), having someone to walk alongside can make it a little more bearable, a little more possible. And the support of our kin (the plants, trees, and land themself), helps us remember that there’s nothing that’s not of the earth - even our pain.

Our deep earth can hold us, and hold our grief, and offer shelter for our hurting souls and hearts - whichever coast we find ourselves walking.

Grief Care is available as a 5 session series, or a one-time appointment. I’m also offering free, 15 minute consultations, to determine if Grief Care is the right fit. Visit this page to learn more, or reach out to me at hello@rosecedarforesttherapy.com.