My mom is dying.

Her dementia is progressing since I was with her a couple of months ago.

Her husband is no longer able to care for her.

I will be leaving my beloved lands of New Mexico and the community that was being built here so I can care for her.

There are so many layers of grief and heartbreak here for me.

Then there is the grief my mom is going through. She’s losing everything. It’s bring up her deepest traumas. 

She’s lost a lot in her life. Tragic unexpected death of her husband in her early twenties, two babies within days of them being born. Her parents. Now her mind, her ability to care for herself, and her partner of 35 years.

She can’t sleep and wakes up crying and wanders the house in the middle of the night.

I know the place she is in, facing the deepest traumas and grief. I’ve been there, confronting the primal wound of losing my first mother on the day I was born.

My whole life, trauma healing, and grief journeys have been preparing me for this. I have the capacity to show up for my mom here, in so many ways. 

Being with grief, loss, and death is my soul work and offering to the world. I am Mikyö Marie Black-Wangmo, immutable, immovable, powerful Dark Mother. 

Yet, I also feel so unprepared. 

Being with grief is a journey into the Unknown. It’s a wandering into the wilds of our psyche and souls. There is no path. Dangerous creatures roam about. There’s no telling what will arise, when it will arise, how it will arise.

In that space of the primal Essence of life moving through us that is grief, the way through is presence. 

Alert stillness. 

Attunement. 

Embodiment.

To be with my mother in these places I can feel how I must step into deeper self care and feeding of my capacity for presence. How I must let go of the ways in which I tend to distract myself, get caught up in doing, and disperse my energy. How I must reclaim my vessel for my Essence.

Being with grief, my own and others, requires everything from me. It’s the most challenging and deeply satisfying, soul nourishing experience of my life.

It’s an honor that goes much deeper than words to be allowed into the sacred space of another’s grief. To have the opportunity to meet my mom there is a miracle and answered prayer. It’s also the biggest initiation of my life.

It feels quite appropriate that this is happening a week before I’m launching the 6 week Being with Grief course. So many layers here. I’m sinking down and into it all. Into the Earth. Into Great Mother. Holding and being held.

Life opens up in the most curious and unexpected ways. I’m grateful for this broken heart and pray that I may be with grief more fully than ever.