Tag Archives: grief

Lifedeath

August 19, 2025Uncategorizedchristianity, death, faith, grief, life, lifedeath, religion, stillbirthAerin

You know how aum — that most fundamental and potent seed (or bija) mantra — is made up of three sounds? As I understand it, the “Aaaaaaa…” is the sound of creation; “Uuuuuuu” represents the sustenance of that creation; and “Mmmmmm” the sound of destruction or the ending of creation. In other words, it’s the sound of death. I’ve noticed that often when I chant this mantra in groups, people seem to put a lot of emphasis on the first two sounds. Often the “mmmm” is truncated and, frankly, kinda weak sauce. For me, this is a perfect allegory for how many of us — steeped in the deathphobia of Western modernity — treat our own mortality, and endings in general. For this reason, I always make sure I leave plenty of breath in my lungs to close out my aum’s with a clear and humble: “Mmmmmmmmmm.”

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50

March 31, 2024Uncategorized50, acceptance, birthdays, crises, death, despair, dread, entitlement, feelings, grief, illness, letting go, modernity, presence, releaseAerin

I am now 50 years old.

Things have not unfolded the way I planned or would have liked for this “big” birthday. The gifts I am receiving include hard lessons in surrendering control, expectation and entitlement. I see how the values of our smooth, shiny, superficial western modernity have left me wildly ill-equipped to navigate the grief and pain of this world (a world steeped in the very same value-systems, cosmovisions and ontologies). Over the past week, I’ve been offered repeated opportunities to abide with profound sadness and a sense of existential dread that just will not go away. Let’s face it: the fantasies of being separate, individualized cogs in the productivity machine of late-stage capitalism are crumbling; the illusions we’ve been led to believe about what constitutes success and what leads to happiness are rapidly disintegrating. To be passing into menopause and experiencing the emotional and hormonal storms of this life-stage at the same time that the world is facing such violent upheaval, destruction, rage and oppression is almost too much for my system to handle. I’m on the brink of a huge rupture. Or maybe I’m already in it.

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Tears Are Our Medicine

November 28, 2022Uncategorizedcrying, Day of the Dead, emotion, expression, grief, porosity, shame, tearsAerin

“I see you’re frustrated when I cry
I’m finding out how sacred as time goes by
Process, purify
I am lighter, much lighter

Look at my eyes and cry with me…
Let it all out, it’s meant to be
Tears are our medicine…

I see you’re frustrated
Yeah, you don’t cry
You’re finding out how sacred as time goes by
Process… purify
You’ll feel lighter, much lighter

Look at my eyes and cry with me…
Let it all out, it’s meant to be
Tears are our medicine”

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Homecoming

February 16, 2022Uncategorizedexile, expression, grief, harm, partnership, protection, vulnability, writingAerin

I cry easily these days. My heart fills and overflows when I least expect it. I find tears streaming down my cheeks when songs I listened to the day after Rafa’s death come up on the collective playlist; when I read some random paragraph in a book that touches me in a certain way; when I am simply witnessing a near stranger lingering with love and intention over the candle on their birthday cake. Something about this yellow leaf floating slowly down toward the pond right now stirs a mixture of melancholy, acceptance, peacefulness and finality in me. It seems only fitting for these times we are living in. There’s a whiff of the “end of days” in the air. Can you smell it?

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Lightening Talk: VISIBLES

December 9, 2020Uncategorizeddemands, grief, miscarriage, pressure, stillbirth, taboo, workAerin

Leer este post en español.

I have many reflections to share in this “new” year but I need to polish my words a bit more. In the meantime, I’ll share some words I recently posted on Facebook and the video of a talk I gave as part of an online gathering called VISIBLES in October of 2020.

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The Tupperware® Tub

September 17, 2020Uncategorizedapocalypse, bathtubs, grief, hope, hopelessness, ritual, sexuality, sorrow, stillbirth, womenAerin

Bathtubs are a rarity in Oaxaca. I can count on one hand the number of tubs I’ve seen here in the past decade. Yet some years ago I decided I wanted to be able to immerse myself in water (at least partially) and partake in this healing and relaxing ritual from time to time. I went to the fancy, evil grocery store and bought one of those large, opaque Tupperware tubs. I remember pulling it into the aisle and sitting down inside of it to make sure that I would fit.

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Would I Give Anything?

July 23, 2020The Storyanniversary, attachment, bargaining, birth, change, cuarentena, death, desire, ego, entanglement, entitlement, friends, future, grief, love, TruthAerin

I remember the very moment I read Dr. Kay’s message. It was one of those rare nights when my husband went to bed before me. Though I would say that there was nothing “normal” about that time after Rafa’s birth. After the ceremony and the departure of my family. After that cleansing time at the ocean. Everything was rare. I was walking up the stairs, headed toward bed and reading messages on my phone. I was almost to the second floor when I came to Dr. Kay’s message. Carlos Alvarez (a.k.a. Dr. Kay) is our dear friend who was living across the ocean in South Africa when all of this took place. Over five weeks had passed since Rafa’s death and the texts, voice messages and emails were no longer as overwhelming as they had been at first. Roughly translated, the message read:

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End of the World as We Know It

April 18, 2020Uncategorizedchinese medicine, death, endings, expression, feelings, grief, life, lungs, miscarriage, sadnessAerin

I used to love that old R.E.M. tune “It’s the End of the World as We Know It.” You know the one:

It’s the end of the world as we know it
It’s the end of the world as we know it
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine

Some weeks ago, I started singing those lines in my head. Apart from the chorus, the rest of the song is a rapid rattling off of what seems – at times – to be nonsense and at other moments, profound political commentary. That’s what life has felt like these past three months: crazy, intense things happening too quickly to even fathom ‘keeping up’ with them. Flying around the world from one continent to the next with fleeting days at home between trips.

There have been many things to write about and I have composed the first lines of more than one post in my mind. But, the beginning of the year seems to be the time that “In the Name of Rafa” hibernates. And that’s okay (at least that’s what I keep trying to make myself believe).

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Absence as Presence

November 29, 2019Uncategorizedabsence, absencing, altar, ceremony, Day of the Dead, DÍa de los Muertos, dead babies, Francis Weller, grief, griefwork, life, loss, lost, mourning, ritualAerin

When I was young(er) and I lost something, the instant I realized said thing was no longer in my possession I immediately spiraled into an obsessive panic. I felt the urge to FIND the thing and to find it NOW. If, after wildly riffling through all my belongings and scouring my immediate surroundings I did not find the thing, I widened the range of my search. I probed every possible nook and cranny and even occasionally interrogated innocent bystanders to see if they had seen or taken the thing. If still I had no luck and saw that I would be forced to accept the fact that my precious thing was indefinitely gone, I would move into Phase II of the Lost Things Mania: REPLACE THE THING. I would look for the quickest and cheapest way – quick being more important than cheap – to get a new pen or pair of sunglasses or piece of jewelry. You see, what I really wished was to erase from memory the very idea that that thing had ever gotten lost in the first place.

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Holy Unleashing of Love

September 28, 2019Uncategorizeddoubt, doula, family, friends, gifts, gratitude, grief, griefwork, love, pain, Rafa, reciprocity, shame, Vasija Vacía, workshopAerin

Leer este post en español.

I’m just back from South America, where I co-hosted my first grief workshop for parents whose children have died. Because I promoted the workshop amongst all of my networks in the region, especially to mothers who I knew had had miscarriages or stillbirths, many people asked me how it went. Honestly, it was magical. Not so much the workshop itself, but the process of planning this experience and particularly the days leading up to it that I spent with my doula, Julieta.

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