In this three-part series together with my guest, Zach Seagle, we explore the world of grief & sorrow. Zach is a grief counsellor, former school principal and educator, and a plant-medicine practitioner in the lineage of the Asháninka, a Peruvian Amazonian tribe.
We met in Pisac, Peru, after being introduced by a mutual friend, Stephanie Kittell. Before meeting in person, we had already exchanged long voice notes, and I quickly knew I wanted Zach on the podcast.
What fed further into my desire to have him for everyone to listen, is attending one of the grief rituals hosted by Zach. I felt a lot of resistance, but took the plunge. It took a whole day: of crying, purging, sharing – to shift the grief within me. And the insights I gained during that ritual are still here.
I can’t say that I was “healed”.
Because, you see… grief isn’t something you heal – or even need to heal from. It’s about learning how to be with it, to learn its many faces and to be able to look at them all.
I loved learning about Five Gates of Grief from Zach and gradually began accepting that everything I love I will lose (3rd gate of grief). And contrary to what we might assume, looking at grief is not “depressing”. It was impossible for me to get to the other side of grief & sorrow – the unbridled, child like joy – without letting myself fully feel into grief, into loss, into the pain of losing.
Why I loved talking to Zach
Every time we would bump into each other around Pisac (and it happened often, as Pisac is a small village in the Peruvian mountains), we would find ourselves deep in conversation moving from mythology to psychology, from grief to determinism, from Gabor Maté to Carl Jung. So, while Zach has become a dear friend, I am delighted to invite you into our conversation. I think everyone, everyone will benefit from it. It lasted much longer than my usual interviews, so it became a series.
In the series, Zach opens the gates of grief & sorrow and through his eloquent unhurried manner talks about concepts like dissolution of the ego, the darkness of the soul amongst few others. He shares what he learnt when studying with the same family over more than eight years in the Amazonian jungle. We talked about what Western civilisation can learn from the indigenous traditions and rituals.
Part 1: Sorrows of the World
Zach draws on years of experience to explore the idea of a ‘kinship system’: a profound sense of relationship with the natural world, including other humans, animals, rocks and rivers. From there, our conversation begins to spiral outward into questions of culture, belonging and our relationship with nature.
Part 2: Ego Maturation
In the second part, we dive deeper into the concept of ego dissolution and through that process, ego maturation and becoming an adult. He shares an idea developed by Bill Plotkin, “a culture of the hungry caterpillars”.
A forest (read: our society) needs both caterpillars who eat the forest and butterflies who pollinate it. To maintain the delicate balance of the ecosystem, caterpillars eventually need to cocoon in order to emerge as a butterfly and pollinate – to enable the blossoming and lifecycle of the forest. But living in the coddling culture of “the hungry caterpillars” with only a few “pollinators” causes the vibrant greenery of our societal forest disappear.
Zach further builds on this concept, sharing his experience of visionary states where his mythopoetic identity was revealed. A mythopoetic identity only has a chance to be seen by going into the darkness of the soul. Different from “life’s purpose”, but akin to a unique sound you’re meant to play in this orchestra of life.
But in those grounds where it can be found – it isn’t safe. For it is not in safety you can hunt for your own wildness…
In this third and final part of my conversation with Zach, we explore the importance of a grief ritual. He explains the history of grief rituals, brought to the West by Malidome Somé from the Daagaba tradition of West Africa. Zach further explains the Five Gates of Grief – a framework for understanding grief outlined by Francis Weller.
Personally, I found the latter a very helpful tool to understand my own grief, during the ritual Zach hosted in Pisac, Peru. Later in the episode I share my personal experience of a grief ritual, drawing on examples from the gates of grief I have experienced myself.
I didn’t want to butcher it…
Towards the end of our two-and-a-half hours conversation – if you’re watching it on YouTube, especially – you’ll see a change in lighting because by the time we finished, the sun had almost set.
I wouldn’t have imagined it would take us THAT long. Time had flown by as it often does when Zach and I talk. And, after recording I thought I’d be able to distil it to something under 90 minutes… But as I was editing the episode, I realised that I simply couldn’t. There was simply too much wisdom in what was shared.
I really, truly hope you enjoy this series. A very special conversation that took on twists and turns and diversions into the dark woods of the soul.
English
Leave a Reply