Healing Emotional Wounds: A Back-to-School Altar
Authenticity, creativity,
patience, and compassion.
patience, and compassion.
For the past 38 years I have loved the arrival of the first day of school. Whether as a student or as a professor, I've barely been able to contain my excitement about the potential of the new academic year, the new people I would meet, the friends I'd see at lunch, and the new knowledge that's inevitable in academia.
Not this year, however. On the eve of the start of my 2019-2020 contract, I find myself a bit distracted, if anything, by other things. I want to paint my bedroom door and reorganize the shed. I want to wash my car and make Christmas presents and cuddle the cats. I want to watch cars go by in the rain and figure out which onomatopoeia words best represent the sound they make. I want to learn to play a shamanic drum. I want the freedom to withdraw from others at a moment's notice.
Is This Faculty Burn Out?
Rough Aquamarine and a Jasper and Hematite Sphere |
On top of it all, I've lost control of my verb tenses. My father didn't once love his cat and stop loving him, so I cannot say "He loved his cat." He left this world loving the cat in the progressive, continuous tense. I also cannot say "He loves his cat" with accuracy. As a grammarian, this lack of verb tense for deceased relatives is an absolute twist of the knife. What if my lack of control over verb tenses seeps into my classroom: Will the students notice? Will I be outed as a sentence diagramming charlatan? Perhaps I should use the conditional and subjunctive mood: "If my father were still here, he would love his cat."
Contemplating grammatical analysis is wonderfully distracting, but it is not for healing. My grief has taken a unique turn that requires unique healing.
The Shamanic Grief Altar
Off to School
Personal items are optional, in this case beautiful vintage marbles. |
On an altar, my own trepidation at returning to school can stand, as Cabeen says, side-by-side with my realization I need to be with others, regain a sense of community and control, and once again find joy in my life's work. As practical as the creation of a syllabus might be tomorrow, my first official day of the new school year, gathering and placing "emotionally charged objects" may help me commemorate the day in such a way as to bring healing and prepare my heart for the task at hand.
Healing from Grief
Authenticity, the product of mindfulness and a supportive community.
Creativity, because it contributes to the growth of our souls.
Patience with myself and others because we are all as fragile as soap bubbles.
Compassion above all else.
In addition to mourning the end of summer, I am grieving the loss of my father and all that entails for me and my family. Therefore, my altar is also based on the Shamanic grief altar.
Linda L. Fitch teaches, in "Creating a Grief Altar: A Shamanic Practice for Grief and Loss," that the required items for a Shamanic grief altar are very few:
- A black cloth (you can use a napkin, a scarf, a piece of fabric, etc.)
- A black or dark blue bowl with water in it
- Salt
- One or two light colored candles
When the candles are lit, she continues, the altar is "open."
A copper sphere from Michigan's Upper Peninsula |
Although my altar sits on a woven Navajo mat, as you can see in the image, I've placed a black bowl of spiced salt water on top of a black, cloth-covered journal. The spiced salt was a gift for cleansing my home from a friend, and it seems appropriate to use the journal as my black altar-cloth for the start of the new school year, representational of a blank slate. I've included two white candles and a clear quartz pendulum, plus a small collection of jasper and a shell I picked up on the shores of Lake Huron. Not on the journal, where the basic items are located, but on the mat, I have included a bowl of marbles that belonged to my father, and they are in a bowl he made in high school. I've also created a spiral of black beach stones from home as the ground for a rough aquamarine, a jasper and hematite sphere, a copper sphere from the Upper Peninsula, and a rough septarian. Although I have a large collection of gemstones and minerals, these were the most appropriate for this altar's purpose: To help me heal and prepare my heart for the new academic year.
Want to read more about grief and healing? Try
Grief and Healing: Using the Nice DishesArts and Crafts and Healing
The Intent to Change; The Purpose and Benefit of Personal Altars
Works Cited
Cabeen, C. B. “Off to School Altars.” Pagan Families, Patheos, 23 Oct. 2014, www.patheos.com/blogs/paganfamilies/2014/08/off-to-school-altars/
Fitch, Linda L. ""Creating a Grief Altar: A Shamanic Practice for Grief and Loss." http://lindalfitch.respond.ontraport.net/grief-altar
Copyright Amy Lynn Hess. Please contact the author for permission to republish.
I came here after completing your Udemy "Writing for English Composition: College Essays" course. My deepest condolences for the loss of your father.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much. I appreciate that. I hope the course was helpful for you! If there's anything else you need, don't hesitate to ask in the course shell. : )
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