
In our culture, everyone asks: Are you over it yet? Have you finished your grieving? Have you been able to resume work and your normal life?
But I want to speak to the necessity of grieving. Many African cultures know that the dead must be properly grieved for their own sake, that some kind of spiritual progress takes place only to the extent that the grieving has not been avoided.
I have had several experiences of an African woman speaking to me or appearing before me in dreamtime since June, 2013. She asks: Have you cried enough? Have you wept in front of others so they can see how it is done? That it must be done? That it cannot be put off?
While the "to-do" list spans endlessly before us, the grieving waits, and the so-called dead wait for us to acknowledge their presence, to meet them in prayer, to release them as many times as it takes so they can move on, move on, move on, and yet they will always be with us.
In a dream last week, I heard these words: Rebuild the mall! Raise the dead!
And it had to do with getting into the foundation work, the grunt work, the dirty work of doing our grief work so that the way will be cleared for communion with the so-called dead. Corey's presence with me is amidst every breath. It is the force that allows me to grieve. I am doing it as hard and as loudly as I can so that I can let it go, let her go, and do at last what I came here for. Her birthday is tomorrow. Let us release who she was, while treasuring who she was, and embrace what she has to teach us now, in spiritual form. She is a bright, shining presence among us.