There were twenty-odd women and one man, dressed in black, standing by the side of the highway in silence. 

In our hands or around our necks were signs detailing the numbers dead in Gaza, in Israel, in the Ukraine, Syria, Sudan. Signs about starvation. Signs about war in general. Signs about what religions say about justice, and mercy, and cherishing all beings.

Some of us meditated. Some composed songs in our heads. Some just plain endured. Me, I had my dad’s old rosary, and I recited those ancient words of comfort over and over to myself. But what we did together was an exercise in grieving. We were recognizing—bringing to conscious awareness, for ourselves and anyone who noticed—the sorrow of our ongoing destruction of life.

I guess you could laugh at the first line of this article and think that I really meant to write twenty odd women. I guess you could say that a silent vigil by the side of a tiny highway in the middle of nowhere is a useless exercise. I guess you could argue that we were just trying to make ourselves feel better. And yes, we might be a bit odd, and no, the bombs aren’t going to magically stop, and yes, I did feel better. 

I guess you could also ask what the point of grieving is, anyway. 

These days, we find ourselves sitting in a front row seat watching the starvation of children, nations capitulating to an unstable megalomaniac, the seemingly unstoppable destruction of the biosphere that sustains all life. If you think this material world and its self-savaging agenda is the only reality, then by all means, laugh at the women in black.

But if you have even a glimmer of the underlying energetic web of life, if you have an ounce of trust in the reality that we are inseparable, interconnected, woven together—then you know that an hour of collective silence is not worthless. You also know what grief makes possible: it’s the way into depth. If I tamp down grief, all my feelings go numb. If I allow grief, I also allow that blast of joy that comes from really experiencing our inseparability.

Because I had my dad’s rosary in my hands, I prayed to an indigenous woman, born in an occupied country, mother to a child of questionable legitimacy who was murdered by the state; she brought to mind all those other indigenous women and their starving children. While those around me prayed in their own way, we each held the other women in black—the women mourning all over all the world—in our hearts. Our conscious or unconscious work to keep our hearts open to the difficult realities of life helps weave an energetic network of connection. Strengthens the invisible web of light holding this world. Roots us together at a deeper level. Reminds us that we are not alone. 

The willingness to feel my own, and another’s, grief becomes a profound doorway into a fully realized, fully savored, fully connected, fully joyful life.