On going viral

A strange thing has happened in my little Grief Space world recently as I have (in my own little way) gone viral.

I am smiling writing these words at a little in-joke I share with my partner Charlie. He will often declare proudly to me that his sweet Instagram picture of morning dew on the first snowdrops of the year has ‘gone viral’. His photos never attract more than double figures, but the pure joy of a handful of friends sharing in his awe and reverence is real. And we love to revel in it.

So anyway, you can picture our little Cornish delight as I share with Charlie that a recent post of mine has actually, truly, really – gone viral.

I’m not sure I’ve ever written the word ‘viral’ three times in three paragraphs, and I have to admit it’s making me feel a bit uncomfortable. Maybe it’s the residue from 2020 that still impacts our hearts and minds more than we realise. Perhaps it’s the strangeness I feel at technology always seeming to borrow words from nature – apple, cloud, stream, tweet. Perhaps it’s just because the word viral feels sinister, as if the sharing of an image, my image, could carry some kind of poison or threat.

This might explain why I haven’t been able to post on Instagram in the weeks since. I’ve felt a kind of unspoken presence, a power, a dominance, a threat. It’s incredibly ironic really, I mean why am I posting on Instagram if not to reach more people. Then, when for the first time ever I reach significantly more people, I freeze.

I’m reminded of Marianne Williamson’s words ‘Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us’.

And this certainly tells half the story of what is going on here. The parts of me that want to be seen, but not that much. The longing for my voice to be heard, but not by that many. The fear that I might actually have something to say at all. This part, we all know well.

And yet the other half of what this viral (there we go again) Instagram post has revealed to me, has nothing really to do with me at all and everything to do with you, with us, together. The other half is about feeling like we are on the cusp of a deep turning. Feeling that there is a shift emerging and that I’m far from being alone in it.

It is about the paradox of shock/ joy/ relief/ sadness/ hope that over three thousand people liked, shared and saved the words – ‘Everything is beautiful and I am so sad. This is how the heart makes a duet of wonder and grief’.

Five years ago, when I first started talking about grief tending it was a bit like Charlie’s daily dose of delight. A handful of supportive friends and family cheered me on as I spoke about the need to feel the depths of grief so that we don’t close ourselves away from connection and love.

Now, I have so many messages and inquiries I can’t always keep up with the replies. It feels that people are desperate to lean into these conversations, hungry for poetry and ritual and song to piece together an understanding of life’s rhythms of life, death, love and loss.

The same month that this Instagram post has spread like wildfire, I am teetering on the edge of sharing my most significant offering with the world. It’s been brewing for years and intentionally crafted these last few months. In moments I’ve never been so scared, frozen and overwhelmed.

But as I’ve sat and reflected on everything this post has brought up for me, I wonder if I’m scared not because it might fail, but because it might just happen.

It might just ignite and capture the hearts of thousands.

It might just reach the corners of unknown places that need it the most.

It might just resonate and reverberate with more like-minded souls than I dare to imagine.

All these years, and grief work might just catch fire.