Jono Fisher: My Journey with Grief
This episode is an insight into my grief work, and how I arrived here. My dance partner in this conversation is my friend, and previous therapist, Kate-Marie Mutsaers.
Kate-Marie has over 25 years as a community facilitator, somatic therapist, body worker and movement facilitator - walking alongside people in private practice, prisons, disaster settings and dance floors across locations as varied as Central Australia, the Middle East, India, Papua New Guinea and now France where she currently resides.
But I didn’t ask Kate-Marie to join me because of her bio. I asked Kate-Marie because of her groundedness, her heart and integrity. She’s a beautiful person to talk with, and she’s been an incredible support for me in my life.
I hope this conversation gives you a glimpse into where I'm at - and why I'm so drawn to offering grief work during these challenging times. I also hope you enjoy getting to know Kate-Marie and her stunning presence.
Whatever the shape of your grief, it’s never too late to meet it with gentleness and care. This isn’t about wallowing or fixing, but remembering how to restore aliveness to your world.
Thank you for being part of this caring community.
Love, Jono
P.S. If you're enjoying these episodes, I would be so grateful if you could rate the show and leave me a review on Apple podcasts. These reviews help more people discover the show. You could mention what you like about the show - the episode that made you a regular listener - or your favorite guest or episode. Here’s some easy instructions on how to leave a review. Thank you so much!
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Jono [Intro]: Thanks for joining me today - and welcome to this first episode in The Medicine of Grief podcast season.
Today, I feel like I'm inviting you into one of my personal therapy sessions. You see, Kate Marie, who you’ll soon get to meet, was my therapist when I first moved here, to South Australia.
And a few weeks ago, I was speaking to Kate Marie just prior to starting this new podcast season and during our time together - and as any good therapist probably would - she was most interested as to where my voice and my story was in this season. I told her that I was hosting these conversations and after a little encouragement we recorded this conversation the following week.
It’s no accident that Kate Marie is the person I wanted to have this conversation with. I trust Kate Marie. She’s grounded, heartfelt and as you’ll discover straightforward. And she brings loads of experience - 25 years as a community facilitator, somatic therapist, body worker and movement facilitator - walking alongside people in private practice, in prisons, disaster settings across locations as varied as Central Australia, India, the Middle East, Papua New Guinea and now in France where she currently lives.
So here we were having this conversation. Me in South Australia and Kate Marie in France. It was a full moon, the wifi wasn't great - and our video wasn't working properly. However, I hope this conversation gives you a glimpse into where I'm at - and why I'm so drawn to offering grief work during these challenging times. I also really hope you also enjoy getting to know Kate Marie and her stunning presence.
At one point in this episode, Kate Marie asked me about what I do when I’m grieving these days, and I mentioned my dear friend that I reach out to on a frequent basis. And yet, it would be remiss for me to not also acknowledge the other key people who have walked with me through some of the hardest times in my life – my beloved wife Claire, Scotty, Sal, Reggie, Alex, Holly, Wanna and more recently, Nala. Thank you for your love.
I hope you enjoy this conversation today, and if you're interested in participating in our online grief tending rituals, be sure to come on over and visit: jonofishernow.com and thank you again for joining me today.
Kate [Interview Commences] : So I have an impulse, Jono, to begin this conversation in a way that we're both quite familiar with, but maybe not quite familiar with. And to begin by lighting a candle as a little marking of opening the space for you, for us. So you might not be able to see me do it, but you might hear the strike of the flame beginning.
Just a ritual, a gesture of keeping the flame alive, for perhaps yourself and perhaps for all of those people that come into the conversation as well. And yesterday as I was contemplating the entry into being with you today, I came across a little story about grief. And I wanted to start the journey there if that felt okay for you. And to see what lands when this story, this little fable, enters the conversation. As if we were sitting around a fire together, letting the flame warm our hearts into the conversation.
As we know the use of fire has been used in so many ways and I know that you have a love for having a fire. And stories were told around fires, our ancestors. And even in this moment, we've had times of storytelling around fires. And I imagine that both of our ancestors have sat and talked about grief in some way, in some way.
So this is a little fable, a little story about grief. And it's written by a woman called Ruth Gendler. And she's written a little storybook about all the different qualities and their personalities. And this is grief's story. This is grief's story. So as I read this story to you, I invite the body to respond, to listen, to see what feels in this moment.
Before she came to this town. Grief was a woman or a man named Alia. She was a potter and she glazed her big belly pots with earth colours until they shone like dull bronze. She had four children. The daughters, they lived inland, now in the distant foothills. And the oldest son left the family as soon as he could get away. It was the young boy with the golden curls and the laughing eyes who gave her great joy. He loved the ocean. He was barely walking when he learned to swim and not much older when he started to sail.
One day, about two years ago, the sailors brought his boat home empty. Never, never have I heard such sounds of weeping as when grief found out her son had drowned. She screamed and howled. She stamped her feet and smashed her pots and bowls. She ate with all of her fingers. She tore at her hair and it grew wild and matted. And she wandered from place to place with no sense of where she was or how she came to be there.
One day at the edge of the forest. Grief heard another woman crying out. She spoke with her. She listened to her story. And grief, grief was very surprised. She had never met anyone else who had suffered as she had. And together the women sat in the clearing and mourned their children. Through the long afternoon, through the twilight, through the night, they wept and wept and wept. In the morning, grief was washed clean of her tears. She came to her own town and started to do the real work. She came to her own town and started to do her real work. So as that story lands in your atmosphere, I'm curious what speaks to you. What's ignited in you? What part of you is in this story?
Jono: Well, thank you for... finding and sharing that story. I sat here with my eyes closed. feeling so many parts of me in the story. The shock and the horror really of loss and how it can appear in our lives out of nowhere and beyond plans that we might have and I reflect on and feel the many times that has happened in my life.And then when she meets her friend or meets the other woman and the surprise that she experiences that she also has experienced something similar. And I recall similar experiences, whether it be in private, kind of therapeutic settings in ways that I've worked with someone like you.
And I've also remember experiences of being in a circle of people and hearing them share their own losses and just the immense relief and the beginning of a mending, just the beginning of allowing something to move in the body. And then finally, I'm just kind of tracing the story, you know, her returning to her town, and then doing her work.Kate: Hmm.
Jono: It just feels very fortuitous in a way that that part of the story is here with us today. I feel like I in many ways are beginning my own work as a result of having someone else witness what has been going on in my life. And there is a feeling of moving into a new geography, like a new land, a new town as was referenced in that story.
Kate: Hmm.
Jono: Yeah, so that's what happens to me when you share that. And I guess I'm also curious for you. What happens in reading that?
Kate: Mmm.
Jono: ..and even in the selection of it.
Kate: Mmm. Well it was very clear and I sat with myself yesterday in preparation and coming together to kind of drop down from the intellect. As we know, that's how we have kind of been in relationship, in conversation together in the past, is to bring our, to kind of take a trip down from our head and into our body and my body said telling a story about grief felt really playful, new and opens the conversation maybe from a different point of ourselves and what strikes me reading that again to you cause I also feel that storytelling makes a kind of child like space as well, whether we're an adult or a child.
Everyone, there's something that feels very heartful about storytelling to each other. And there's a loss, I think, as an adult that we forget that we can tell stories to each other. That everything, not everything needs to be logical. Because grief is not logical.
And as I read the story again with you today, I'm so marked by two things. One is the companionship that it can go from feeling really isolating to really in a communion. And that's a journey for each of us in a different way. And I think from what I know of you and what you're bringing into the world, you're really offering yourself with others this companionship of grief, that we are not alone in it.
And the other thing that landed really clearly for me is this last sentence, which I read this yesterday, but when you read it in with somebody, it has a different vibration to it because it's a shared experience. I'm not just wrapped up in my own little world. And so the end line, you know he came or she came to her own town and started to do the real work and the resonance I feel for your journey in what you've been discovering about grief for yourself. I feel like this beginning, this entry point into the work that's your real work in the world. It's like you've described it as a coming home before, to me. And I just love that there's an echo of that in the story I picked without intellectualizing it, without kind of filtering through, but that it's just there as a passage of this work called Grief, that those are coming home.
Jono: Hmm..
Kate: So that's what lands for me and it resonates with my own story of grief as well. Which has been colourful and filled with isolation and companionship. And perhaps both are necessary, perhaps both are necessary so that the companionship feels richer. The isolation needs to also exist. Like a great odyssey. Hmm.
So I have a question, Jono, that kind of comes from this storytelling and what you've shared so far about if we experience grief as a relationship with ourselves. How I'm curious how have you showed up inside the grief before and now? Every relationship takes on so many different changes through a life as we relate more and more to this part of ourselves, to this quality. And if grief is your companion. Perhaps there's something you can share around that companionship.
Jono: What kind of comes up for me is a recognition that, and probably many people can relate to this, the grief kind of made itself known probably too early in my life at a time when I didn't know how to be in relationship to grief to these intense feelings and I think at a very young age I just learned how to kind of had this ability to keep moving on, which looked like resilience. It looked like endurance, it looked like a strength..
Kate: Hmm.
Jono: ..and I think in some ways it was, and I guess as I sit here today, I turned 50 last year. I can feel how grief eventually kind of caught up to me and really made itself known in a way that I could no longer be absent or at arm's length to it.
Yeah, I recall an experience last year, even late last year of being with some friends, some old school friends. And you know, this was meant to be a celebration of our 50th birthday. The last few years had been challenging years. And I remember even going on this, anticipating going on the trip and I could feel how much sorrow was in my heart, how much sorrow was in my body, that I said to one of my friends, I just don't think I can come. And where that was really coming from was, I don't know that you could bear to be in the presence of what I have to share and the intensity of what I have to share.
Not by way necessarily of content but just by way of feeling, the amount of feeling that was in my body.
And like the lady in the story, this friend said to me, I could think of no better holiday than you crying the whole holiday, and for us to be there with you. And I remember hearing that and nearly feeling a quality of disbelief that someone would be willing to listen like that and hold me like that outside, particularly outside of a therapeutic environment, outside of therapy or even outside of a ritual of sorts. You know, I went in faith of what he'd said and this time away was just was one of the most profound experiences of my life to just to be able to share what was really going on for me and I think the reason that I share that now in relation to that question and my relationship to grief is that once again I was kind of massaged into my relationship with grief through the companionship of other people
Kate: Hmm.
Jono: And that's been my story is that I somehow I just want to separate myself from these losses of my life. For a whole host of reasons there are some deep cultural pressures to not go there. There's fears, there's shame, but every time I am granted the permission to share in the presence of another, there is a a balm and a refreshment and a relubricating of something so foundational to me as a person
Kate: Hmm. Hmm.
Jono: that restores me again to the relationship. And so Yeah, that's kind of...that’s kind of kind of my answer to the relationship and how it's unfolded in my life. And it continues to unfold today in the sense of you know, a big reason of wanting to do this work today, this grief work today is for my desire to be in relationship to grief. And the only way I really know how to do that right now at this juncture in my life is is to practice it, is to formally practice being in community and sharing and witnessing others. Yeah.
Kate: Yeah, wow, thank you. I'm kind of left with this beautiful image of you know, you said that you that you kind of been massaged into grief through just experiences and people and moments where life has kind of said, you know It's time, it's time, it's time. And there's a kind of surrender and there's also a resistance I imagine at the same time with this experience because of all the reasons, the cultural reasons and the loss of context for grief really, you know, in a Western construct. We've, yeah.
Jono: Yeah, well I mean you know I've mentioned this is you know, this is our first my first kind of conversation in beginning this work more publicly and there have been times when I have mentioned it more privately to people, you know, maybe parents at a school or at a dinner function and the responses are varied and often, not received with a lot of enthusiasm, but more... a sense of kind of fear or what do you what do you mean? What do you mean that's what you're going to do?
And I can feel this kind of cultural pressure to you know, these things are private matters. And I can also feel the pain of that as well, how kind of contained we are. And that I've been in not just not allowing the expression of really what's going on in my life and particularly I noticed today I was actually in a ceremony this morning, a grief ritual and I could also just feel this kind of hierarchy, it was my turn my turn to share and I didn't know anyone in this group and some of the sharing that had gone on previously was there was some really acute issues that had been shared.
And I noticed within myself this kind of natural hierarchy of what I thought I could share and what I couldn't share based on the level of seriousness of a particular part of my life, like if it wasn't death or if it wasn't major sickness, maybe I couldn't share it. There's all, there's this kind of levels of shame that I still have around even positive experiences that have led to grief.
For me, I think about even having children and how taboo it is to share the losses that come from such a positive experience of having children. But I am often burdened and grieved by what I have lost as a result of having children as much as I am, buoyed and uplifted and overjoyed by having them in my life. And, I have a desire and just a sense of like importance of feeling like it's important to be able to share whatever it is that's grieving someone. Now.
Does that resonate for you, that quality of... hierarchy, what's acceptable to grieve, what isn't, particularly publicly.
Kate: Yeah I was an immigrant child in Australia, so I come from an immigrant family. And it was like you had to just leave everything you knew behind. That was kind of the general experience or that was kind of asked of us to not even consider what you've lost because you had to march forward and there were and still is very little space for those intimate conversations to be had, and they were often done in very private kind of ways which is kind of speaking to the sense of acceptability, you know we dont..there’s that saying in English we don't air our dirty laundry as if you know to be airing things that aren't comfortable brings almost like it's rude, it's rude to be sharing intimacy, to be sharing where we are broken or in need of support or and often it's only done at the most critical moment, which for many that is at the very pointy end of death and then everything kinda falls away because death becomes like the big master in the room that says, I cannot be ignored anymore. The soul coming more alive.
And so from what you've shared, that really interesting journey that we have to go on, especially in our cultural context, of finding it again in our own way. Sometimes it's through very clumsy ways and maybe through a lot of denial but like as you said life massages us into these space if we’re willing to go there. And I always have a saying that life doesn't let us get away with anything if we're really honest with ourselves. And I feel like grief is one of those experiences that is so colourful and real. And has taken me on so many odyssey, so many adventures within myself but also around the world as well in a physical way trying to find, like catch up to the loss in some ways.
And I also think that if we have one inch of insight into ourselves, and I believe that everybody does at some point in their life, they might be 89 or they might be five years old, but that sense of taking a moment to reflect of ourselves, if we get one inch of that, it's like a little flame that burns inside of us, and it just wants to grow and it just wants to get brighter and like a fire when we offer it oxygen, when we give it breath, it can glow a bit brighter for ourselves and therefore for others.
So what I love about what you've shared is just like when we allow ourselves just to burn what's really deep inside of us and show it to another or the world like you are on many levels, both in this opening of the bigger space and welcoming people into the conversation but as well as those small little moments where you started to offer the little flame for the parent picking up their child at school and you're getting different responses. The beauty of just holding your light, holding your flame.
And so when the right time is that people can feel welcome to that flame. And I think grief is one of those experiences if we learn that little bit of ourselves that can hold the truth and the quality of grief without shaming ourselves, then we can attract those companions that are willing to share that experience. And it builds its own momentum as I've experienced just by living in Alice Springs. I used to go every month, sometimes twice a month, to a fire for community, which its whole purpose was to share stories. And grief was always part of the conversation. And sometimes there would be one person there, sometimes there would be 50 people there. But those that came wanted to be there.
So what I hear from what you've shared, it's like how do we, if we've done a little bit of our own kind of reflection, how do we hold that possibility with ease and openness and not with force or this sense of like, the world is you know it's not going right its shutting us out because were grieving. sometimes We have to be brave enough to sit in an environment that doesn't welcome something in order for it to be welcomed, which has an irony to it really.
Jono: The image that's coming to my mind is... It's just that of feeling somewhat kind of hardened inside of my... something kind of calcified, that would be the word, inside of me over time, that... Yeah, that it was only when I really began to recognize and tend to these feelings, that like a softness and a fluidity began to emerge in my life. But at those times when it feels hardened or dried up It can also feel like a long way away, you know, these feelings. But I share that by way of just relating to maybe how others may be feeling because I would imagine that that's not a unique experience.
Kate: Hmm.
Jono: And in a similar way, I've heard grief described as water and its need to move as water would through a creek or a river. And if it's not allowed to move,the river, the sediment builds up and the banking happens and the creek or the river starts to lose its vitality, it begins to become unhealthy in ways.
Kate: Hmm.
Jono: And that's how I kind of see the movement of grief in a similar way to that feeling, just playing on the water quality, you know like the storm cycle and the storm will come like the grief will come, and if we allow the tears to fall, the rain to fall, that it will stop. I think that's a lesson that I've learned, that the tears
Kate: Hmm.
Jono: will stop if allowed to, if allowed to have the space to come to a natural ending. And then that we'll know that post-storm smell, that post-storm feeling, that post-storm vitality of regrowth and everything's fresh and ready to go. You know, that's the woman entering into the village, into her town, into her land, to do her work. You know, only when we can allow when we can allow the waters to really move through us.
Kate: Hmm..hmm..
Jono: And that's, I just noticed myself at this point in my life, just, I think to, just particularly, I think of what's happened in the world in the last few years. I think it's accentuated that for me, accentuated a sense of despair or loss and also kind of isolation
Kate: Hmm.
Jono: And there's something about sitting with other people, other human beings, and just sharing and crying together without much commentary, probably the less the better, that can bring that post-storm refreshment. That at this
Kate: Hmm.
Jono: point in my life, at this, where I, how I relate to the world, find it hard to find it in many other ways. Hmm
Kate: You know, a question comes to me about, we've wonderfully shared about what grief is on one level, but I'm curious from your journey, what do you do when grief arrives at the steering wheel of your life? When it’s really a known, and you've got an experience with grief now or a relationship with grief. And maybe what you've done along the years has been different, but in this moment what do you kind of do when grief arrives next to you or with you?
Jono: I notice I have tears welling up in my eyes when you ask the question because
Kate: Mmm.
Jono: I think about a friend who, a number of years ago, asked if we could talk more regularly. He was going through kind of a rehabilitation from an addiction and wanted some support and a more regular companionship and I said yeah sure thinking it was for him that we would speak more frequently and that was you know that was four or five years ago now and that practice of speaking regularly to someone.. who.. so regularly that you kind of lose the ability to show up any other way than yourself. And who knows you in a way that you can't hide. And so today When grief arrives at my doorstep, I pretty immediately reach out to him and share with him what's happening. Whether that's via some kind of voice memo or whether it's in the frequency of calls that we have. So its friendship. Friendship is the ..
Kate: Hmm. Mmm.
Jono: immediate pathway for me to digest grief as it arises and it does frequently in my life and he provides such a welcoming space for that as I hope I do for him. And it's been also through the repetition of those experiences with him. He's also the one who said, hey, you know, when we go on this 50th trip, you know, I couldn't think of anything better than you crying and us
Kate: Hmm.
Jono: being there for you. And, you know, it may also sound, this is the other thing culturally, it may also sound depressing.
Kate: Hehehehe
Jono: You know all this talk of tears and all this talk of sorrow.
Kate: Mmm.
Jono: But it's like opposite ends of the stick for me. You know when I can really touch into my sorrows and what's really going on. It's like this other end of the stick. This joy and this vitality and this aliveness nearly at the same time starts to light up and yeah, that post storm feeling happens and... Yes, it's becoming a very regular thing for me and I probably go back to that what I mentioned earlier about the practice. It's just become a practice in my personal life to share frequently. and now I have the desire to invite other people to practice with me.
Kate: Mmm. Mmm.
Jono: How about you?
Kate: Oh, when grief arrives. It really depends on the environment I'm in at the time. But I also have the muscle now of reaching out. Like the story that was given at the beginning, like asking somebody to meet me in the clearing and to find each other, whether they are in the depth of grief or not. There are some people in my life that I trust no matter where they're at, we can hold each other. But it does and it does take a certain quality of relationship for that.
Because I've had experiences where I've reached out and if somebody doesn't have their own relationship to grief, it can be a very overwhelming experience for them. Because it is kind of a skill we need to learn in our own way to have this relationship with grief that's healthy. Because I found myself in companionship where somebody just enters straight into a fixing place like there's something to fix when there's nothing to fix. So the more that I became comfortable with my own grief, the easier it was to reach out to certain individuals that also had their relationship with grief. And I was able to be of service to those friends much more with a lot more ease. I also know I've had the opportunities to enter into rituals that offer that support as well in community along my journey.
So I tend to find now that I’m kind of isolated in the middle of France so I don't have a community around me but I do live with somebody who also adores ritual and so we have rituals all the time that support this conversation of grief. Grief is kind of part of our life which feels magical in a lot of ways and a relief there's a relief when we have this, when we, for me anyway, there's a relief when I can invite grief to the party and say yes come on welcome and it's almost like grief sits at the table and goes “Oh, thank gosh.” And starts laughing with belly laughs of like, oh my gosh, I'm finally invited to this party. You know, like there's joy and there's anger and there's sadness and there's gratitude. But there's no grief. Why am I never invited to this party? And so when grief is at the table, it's like everyone just goes, oh gosh, thank God.
Jono: Well, it just reminds me of a ritual you held, a grief ritual you held here in South Australia. And I remember attending it and I had, prior to that, I had kind of superficially known some of the people and not superficially and not that they were superficial. This always happens for me too, and I think about the party that you're talking about, inviting grief is the stories that are utterly broken down in a grief ritual about someone. And the incredible sense of restoring to humanity a quality of belonging that comes when you can see in another what's also going on for you. Yeah, that just comes to my mind as you talk about the party, inviting grief to the party.
You know, I time and time again have so appreciated the removal of the stories about people that come when I have the privilege to know what their sorrows are. It's as though everything dissolves all those externalities and cultural pieces of status all disappear. Yeah, that's the kind of party I love being at. You know, because it's...
Kate: Yeah!
Jono: Well, it's also it's the party that I think humans have been part of for a long time when you spoke earlier about you know ancestry and you know, I think humans have known this kind of technology for a long time that it's not anything overly complicated or mysterious, but it is it definitely has been... pushed away and kind of nearly to the point of being hidden in our culture. And yet I think in my experience and what I've seen in others when given the opportunity that remembering part of ourselves becomes very active and we kind of return back for a moment to what it's like to just be with one another
Kate: Yeah, Grief has a great way of bringing us all to our kind of nakedness a little bit. And there's a relief to being naked. I don't know why I have this image, but I remember someone sharing with me in Europe here, you know, in the North Scandinavian countries. It's very common if you're in a business meeting to be all naked in a sauna. And I just love that there's a group of people and in this story my friend was talking about men sitting in a sauna together naked talking about business and there's no suit to hide behind. And that image comes to my mind with grief too.
We kind of lose our clothes a bit that makes us kind of special or different or to hide behind it kind of reveals the inside of us in a way that says, well, here I am, I'm naked. And I also share a quality that's very human, which is raw. And it can be painful. It can also be incredibly complex and joyful, all in the one heartbeat. And that's what I feel like the gift is of having this relationship with grief is that life becomes a little bit more textured and a little bit richer. And that's the image that comes to me as grief is invited to the party and everyone's sighs as if like, “oh, okay, now we can just be ourselves. We don't have to pretend I'm happy or I don't have to hide behind my anger” or everyone kind wants to actually really wants to be friends with grief, but is a little scared because grief is very real and grief doesn't.. grief can befriend anybody, anybody.
Yeah, it's such a strong image that just has come in this conversation about you know having a dinner party and you pointed out to the rituals that that we began offering in South Australia and what I think was so remarkable for me in that experience was that those that wanted to start this relationship with grief were so drawn to it. There was no kind of like, you know, force in getting people there. It was just there. If there was one person, it would be amazing. If there were 10 people, it would be amazing. There's not this sense of like, oh, come and you'll feel amazing. We were not trying to sell anything.And what stays with me through this continuous ritual that now we're just about to start to offer it here in France is this rainbow of experiences people have from just this one invitation around grief.
And the simplicity of that particular ritual we do allows people to start where they are rather than, oh, you know, we're going to grieve or we're going to work on the people that have died, for instance. But that it allows people to step into grief from exactly where they are. And sometimes there's a delight there in this weird kind of way. And that can be really disarming in some ways, that gratitude and joy and delight are kind of right next to the step of grief. But you can't consume that delight or joy by force or by will. Like I have to get grateful so that I can just skip through grief. It’s like no, we have to step there in grief with even the option of having some lightness to our system or some other experience other than this kind of heaviness that that often is experienced with grief.
And just as I say this to you Jono, the kind of moments that you've shared with bringing this idea that somebody at the school pick up and having a like, what's that about? It's kind of the resistance to our own grief. They can be the biggest burden and heaviness we carry. And it's like that to me is a key to unlocking this heaviness. And so often from the outside, someone might see the topic of grief and go, oh my gosh, how heavy. And that's often a clue that they haven't necessarily had an opportunity to develop this relationship with grief because it's actually not very heavy at all once you step through that door. It's actually, from my experience anyway, quite the opposite, especially as we've both shared when there's companionship waiting to be part of the journey. The opportunity to not feel the heaviness of grief is actually stepping into it to begin with. Which is what I see you are embarking on a huge offering for the community is say, Yeah, let's remember and relearn this ancient relationship that held us and can hold us.
Jono: Yeah, well what comes to mind is some footage that I saw recently. It was early kind of colonial filming of an Aboriginal funeral. And I was so struck by the... the amount of laughter that was going on in this ceremony, right?
Kate: Mmm.
Jono: And not as a way that I feel like I could be that way in a grief ceremony right now, but also it was more of a witnessing of what it would be like to be in a culture where it was so normalized and so part of the water you were swimming in that these other ways of being including laughter were also included and can be included. And there's something about looking back in time like that and seeing that that's like well, there's just... there's just a lot more notes on the piano, a lot more keys on the piano that we could be playing
Kate: Mmm.
Jono: that we don't allow ourselves to, we don't have the permission to play and you know grief is one of those ways to unlock some of the keys while also You know, they're both, it's at two ends of the stick again. It's both ends of the spectrum of keys that are being unlocked as well. So yeah, I'm just kind of relating and considering what you were saying there about it. It sometimes isn't as heavy or as hard as we may think. And it also can be very mysterious in what it can awaken within us emotionally.
Kate: Mmm.
Jono: and it doesn't always have to be sitting at those base note levels. It can be, yeah, it just can bring up some real pleasant surprises.
Kate: Hmm. What has been some of those surprises for you Jono with this journey of grief?
Jono: Oh, I remember one of my first... grief rituals which was in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. We're at a place called Estes Park and this was a big, big ceremony like when I said big like hundreds of people I think three, four hundred people and the person hosting the ritual, you know, began to give some... Well, actually he didn't give the instructions first, he just kind of wanted to know what was going on, he just wanted to hear what was going on in the hearts of people. And this group, I think, were more disposed to caring for the natural world, I would probably assume, because what was coming out of people's mouths when they came to the microphone was a whole range of emotions around how they were feeling towards what was happening in the natural world and to the natural world.
And I could also feel there's a certain quality to the sharing that I kind of had a like an end to it, like a block to it. If you think of like the image that comes is just like a tunnel that has a blocked end. So there was nearly a feeling of it being spoken into a tunnel that's closed. And this went on for quite some time and then we were invited into this ritual, and his was very physical and we were invited to hop onto all fours and to have our foreheads on the ground and to begin a certain kind of breathing practice and also allowing sounds to come out of our bodies. And my experience of doing this, you know I was very new to this and I thought, and as I commenced, I thought there's nothing going to happen for me here. And as time went on and I thought, no, nothing's happening
Kate: Ha ha ha ha!
Jono: But as I was thinking this and following the instruction I began to hear sounds coming out of people that I don't think I've ever heard those kind of sounds coming out of people. And it was as though something kind of entered the room. And I remember myself in some ways feeling somewhat kind of overtaken in a way by a just a feeling, you know, an incredibly strong feeling and there were images in my mind, images of all things - bengal tigers coming to my mind. And I remember just beginning to weep and weep and weep as I saw these magnificent creatures in my mind's eye as they kind of looked and gazed upon me I, and within myself, remembering, I had this Nilya Mantra within myself saying, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. And it was just this repetitive apology for what was happening to them, and at the same time a kind of release that in many ways was I was kind of blind to what was actually inside of me.
And I remember the experience finished and people were once again invited to come up to the microphone and speak and I remember hearing some of the same voices that had previously stood up and the quality of their voices and their presence was utterly different. It was as though they had sunk right into something like parts of their body that they hadn't inhabited before. And there was a kind of a love present in the room. No less fierceness about wanting to protect and preserve, but it was coming from a very, very different place and that tunnel that previously had an end to it had like it had been completely blown off and there was energy, real life energy, life affirming energy in the room.
And so, you know, that was my first encounter, I guess, with being surprised. Being surprised at this nearly this entity, it would seem that grief is in and it kind of taught me from that point. It taught me having a kind of a reverence, I guess, for this force, this power that has the ability to really work on us in ways that, are just very, very powerful.
Kate: And also maintaining that relationship for yourself while serving others. I don't know, maybe you've never thought about it at this point, but it just comes to me as this conversation has been about your journey of grief and what it's been like to inhabit that relationship further and how to keep holding that as you enter into this space.
Jono: I think for a long time, you know, as you know, and as probably many of the listeners may know, I've been involved in... probably different industries, you know mindfulness industries or industries of spirituality or a kind of self-improvement and I think for a while now I have really questioned what I have to bring in a world that's kind of flooded with information nearly to a point of drowning in all this information.
And for a long time, Kate Marie, I thought, and I think you've been privy to these conversations too, in our sessions of like, do I really want to add more noise? Do I really want to add more volume to a world that already has ample information? And I think for a while there I was reaching for like existing models, I guess, of how I should do things, while at the same time encountering so much grief within myself. And I got to a point late last year where I felt like where the only honest work I could do right now and I underscore the word honest is this work of grief and not not in a way to add more to the world, but as a way for me to begin and deepen my apprenticeship to grief in the words of a man named Francis Weller who refers to this invitation to an apprenticeship with grief.
So my work today primarily is about me staying true to that apprenticeship and simultaneously inviting others to come and practice with me, come and join in that apprenticeship. And so, You know, my great hope is that this isn't a performative exercise where I am doing anything for anyone, but more staying true to my practice and welcoming others to join me in that practice I don't I just continue to feel like there's nowhere else to go other than to stay true to this practice and invite others to join if they want to.
Kate: Hmm. Hmm.
Jono: Yeah, so I think for the first, I would probably say for the first time in my life, Kate Marie, the effort is kind of all out of this equation for me.
Kate: Hmm.
Jono: I don't feel like I'm preparing, I don't feel like I'm getting ready, even like before this conversation there wasn't a quality of wanting to prepare or take notes or because if I can't just show up as myself, if I can't just stay on the note that I want to stay on, then it probably isn't the work for me and it's work that I will get wobbly with very quickly because I won't be able to be with other people in it because it’s not mine to do.And I feel very fortunate at the moment to feel that level of comfort and assurance that Yeah, just stay true to your experience of your life and like many other people, grief has been around a lot and just want to stay honest with that.
Kate: It strikes me when I was contemplating this journey together with you today, which was more part of a resting with than a kind of preparing in any particular logical way. I imagined that one of the questions that normally gets asked at the beginning of a conversation, I feel is now needed as we, I don’t know how long we have left of this conversation but to ask the question of what made you say yes to being put in the circle of others that you have been talking with around grief because I know that it was something that I planted a seed with you a week or so ago and saying ah are you part of this circle of conversation as you being the guest at your own party, so to speak. And what was the yes inside of you even to have this conversation today? Or what was the no? It could have been a no as well.
Jono: And I think too, you know, I trust you. This is the thing. I really trust you. And that's why I wanted to also have this conversation with you, not necessarily anyone else, because I've sat with you enough to know that you know you've kind of modeled to me of being yourself that I don't see a lot around. And also a non-performative quality that I kind of longed for more of that, you know?And so when you said how about you do it, that also there's a context for that for me and considering the source of where it comes from for me. Yeah.
And I really want to thank you Kate Marie because I've always felt from you a honouring of my own flame and never an imposition or wanting to fill me up with something that wasn't me. But only a desire to coax out what is in me and who I am and so it would feel unusual for me to not include our relationship in this conversation because, you've taught me so much. You've taught me so much about being yourself in a really spectacularly ordinary way, you know?
Kate: I feel really touched about what you've said and I also want to say that it is a complete echo or a complete mirror because it's through these, it's through this relationship as well that I have deepened my ordinaryness to myself and you've also allowed me to show up just as myself. And even just in this opportunity to do this with you today, it's like I could feel my system every now and then just trying to like if I was wearing a hundred jackets as a preparation into this conversation little by little they’ve just dropped off in the sense of it’s a process of just showing up as we are.
Even though we've known each other for a while and we've been having these kind of conversations from the very beginning really but that it's still a process as I notice myself going okay I don't have to pretend to be anything more than myself it's a little process, an internal process. And I like that you've said during this conversation about the journey of what you're offering to the community, it's not a performance. And it's an edge that is played with in anything that we're of service to in the world. And it's something to keep reminding ourselves how to be honest and show up, but also be of service. And that we can be ourselves and we have to somehow find our ground when we are in true service to others rather than it being a place of having to serve us. Yeah, I have this card sitting in front of me. It's another little ritual of mine to pick a few little markings as support and I have this saying in front of me that says “we take route to fly and we soar as we surrender” and for me that feels like a really beautiful invitation to the way that you are of service in the way that I try to be of service in that I try to stay rooted so that I can fly with others and with myself and that in order to soar I need to surrender. I need to surrender with myself.
I need to surrender with those that I'm accompanying and this in somehow in that surrender is the dropping away of the performance or the have to or the yeah and the topic and the quality of grief is such a beautiful gateway into that possibility as well because it is so raw and so real for all of us in different ways. And my wish for anyone who listens to this conversation is that there's a joy of resting in the spaciousness of the content rather than consuming the conversation. That the art of resting in conversation is how we can meet each other or feel met..
Jono: Well I had my wife and my children were kind enough to go to their auntie's house for dinner tonight so that I could have this conversation in quiet. And I think they're going to be due back soon.
Kate: Bye.
Jono: So I'm getting a sense that we should be wrapping.
Kate: Yeah.
Jono: And I just wanted to know if there's anything else wanting to be said or wanting to be asked before we close.
Kate: Mmm. For the times that I've been listening to you Jono, I know that people listening to this conversation won't necessarily see anything but it looks like there's been a candle glowing next to your face as if we are sitting around a fire. And so I just want to acknowledge the flame that's burnt, that's held us in this conversation and that I hope my wish is that this flame will continue to be burnt for yourself and for all those that come to the fireplace with you. That they can truly allow themselves to show up next to the fire as just the only step needed to take. Including yourself. Including yourself. Hmm.
Yeah, it's been wonderful to be in your company today and as always getting to hear and feel your life journey a little bit more and the rich texture that you bring into this life and the willingness to share it, so that others can also find their story. Mmm.
Jono: Yeah, I feel like I want to in closing just acknowledge the land that I'm on. Before I came to the call there’s 13 very, very old gum trees that surround our house. And I just went around to each one of them before. Just to say thank you and ask that I might carry something of their spirit with me on this path. And I just feel like I want to thank them. And I also just want to acknowledge being here in South Australia, feeling, and it's kind of related to you too Kate Marie like I feel a little closer to the centre here and I guess I want to just acknowledge the interior of this land, the vastness, the beauty, the strength and power of the center of this country. And I also want to just offer a very, very warm invitation and welcoming to anyone who wants to participate. That I hope you get a sense and know that just that all of you is welcome, that there isn't any loss or sorrow that isn't welcome in this work that we're about to embark on together and that you would be so welcomed and so necessary in actually fulfilling this work because we will create this together, we'll create circles together. And we will... offer our hearts together. And Yeah, so Yeah, you're so welcome. And the invitation really, I just want it to be known that you're so welcome. However you are. And thank you again, Kate Marie.
Kate: Hmm.
Jono: Thank you for taking the time, offering your presence and just continually reminding me of Just reminding me of..just reminding me...reminding me. Yeah.
Kate: Yeah, yeah,
Jono: Yeah.
Kate: Thank you, such an honour.
Jono: Yeah
Kate: As a mark of closing, I'm going to... Normally we would let the fire just kind of burn, but I'm going to blow it out just as a marking of like a full stop or a comma for the next one, the next conversation, the next fire to be lit.Jono: Beautiful.
Jono [Episode Wrap up] : Thanks so much for listening. It means the world to have your support. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing on Apple or Spotify. That way, you will be notified when a new episode is ready. It would also mean a lot if you would take the time to write a review about this podcast. This way, more people can discover and participate in this work. And if you feel like this episode could benefit someone else - please share it with them, whether that’s a friend or family member or even on your social channels. Finally, if you're interested in participating in grief rituals or any other of my programs, feel free to head on over to Jonofishernow.com where you can sign up to my newsletter and you’ll recieve seasonal invitations and episodes as they are released. And please always remember - that although the hour is late - we can always make beauty. We can always make beauty. Sending love to you and your loved ones.
About the Guest
Kate-Marie Mutsaers
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