Grieving to Healing

Fire burns the darkness away.

It’s the morning after my sister’s funeral and I’m relieved I took the day off.

Exhaustion plagues my body and I’m keenly aware of a black hole in my gut. It’s a deep chasm of sadness and heartache. To be expected, I thought. This must be what grieving feels like.

Days passed. Everyday I had to crawl myself out of this chasm of darkness and find my light again and again. It was exhausting. It was getting scary.

But, I also felt aligned and beautifully connected with my sister spiritually. In some ways I felt closer to her than ever before!

I began to wonder if this internal darkness was something other than grieving?

The two-months leading up to her COVID death I was the easy one to hate by her husband and youngest son. I was vaccinated, and they and my sister were not. It created separation. I was attacked with mean words, hung up on, and completely disregarded.

Maybe the black hole was a pocket of hate that I absorbed?

I knew it was possible from my experience with Inca medicine. So, I returned to the native way of healing… FIRE!

With a Shaman’s support, I spent 3-days burning hate away, theirs and mine.

Each day I made an urban fire and surrounded it with five tea candles. Each one representing a different direction. I’d burn a stick, wrapped with the hate, and explore all the ways I had created separation. Both personally and worldly.

Fears and injustices, pain and trauma, ignorance and indifference were all covered. With each story of despair I spoke the words: “I forgive me and I forgive you, because I love me and I love you.”

It would take 6-hours for the fire and candles to burn out each day. And each day I experienced a different kind of exhaustion, coupled with emotional tears and physical pain. But the black hole is now gone!

What is left is a constant and everlasting love between sister’s.

The onus is on each one of us to live in our own light. No matter what happens around us, we decide to be happy or despairing.

There are so many ways to support personal alignment. There will be times when your daily disciplines fall short and additional support is needed. I share this story to share a way that helped me pass through a dark and lonely choice I was making.

When I made a new choice to stand in my light, to shed the darkness that I perpetuated, the hole inside of me filled with love. The love my sister and I share.

Decide to be happy, no matter what!

Urban Fire Recipe: metal bowl, epsom salts, ethyl alcohol and a match.
Shaman Contact: morgan.millogo@gmail.com / www.roseinfire.com