Grief

This image illustrates the “Grief” card in The Power of the Yin oracle deck, published in 2022. The deck contains over fifty original images that I painted in collaboration with Daven Lee, the author of the deck. Her brainchild has many influences, including her background as a teacher of QiGong, a couples therapist, a craniosacral healer, and a practitioner of Tantric principles of sexual energy. Daven was drawn to the many influences in my work as well. We hit it off right away.

Daven wrote the text for each card, and allowed me free rein in translating her words into images. The “Grief” card in particular spoke to me, as I was grieving myself at the time, having just lost my beloved dog. It was a devastating loss of my constant companion, who was like a child to me, and for whom I had cared through months of decline. My sweet old girl let go of her capacities one by one with the simple grace that only an animal or a child can manifest.

I could not let go so easily. Other losses I’ve grieved in my life welled up in my mind. Daven’s words resonated and blurred through my tears:

Pour out your whole heart
Let the endless tears flow
Stripping you to your core.

Honor who and what
you have loved and lost
with your keening grief.

An image came to me of a figure plunging into dark, watery depths. Dark sea green, tinged with teal, cool and comforting. A feeling of surrender, the black figure breaking up into flowing strands, rippling like seaweed, her arms crossed as if she is dead herself . . . almost. Certainly a piece of us dies along with our loved ones. Her body is without pleasure or appetite. She is sinking, fluid, overcome with the unstoppable reality of death.

But therein also lies redemption, for in the crack that grief opens is its opposite: clear blue sky, and the promise of peaceful clarity. Anyone who has survived the grieving process knows the difference between tears of shock, tears of sadness, tears of loss, and tears of peaceful acceptance. The clouds within this figure show that progression: dark and stormy around her heart, then breaking up and changing, lightening, turning from charcoal to lavender and finally fluffy white in a clear blue sky. Such peace can follow an inner storm. There can even be a feeling of relief, a sense of expansion and connection to something larger than ourselves, something timeless that lives on in our knowing of a soul that has passed on or passed away. In that sense, the dearly departed has given us a gift. To accept it takes courage, and sometimes comes with the physical shudder that follows a good cry. Animals shake to dispel the gripping energy of trauma and stress; humans sigh and shudder.

The card goes on:

There is a bottom to the
bottomless pain.

When you touch it, you will know.

And then you will rise back to the surface
ready to love again.

Sigh. So true. Four years almost to the day since my beloved dog’s death, my new dog, is curled up in her dog bed in front of the fire. She doesn’t quite fill the hole left by my old dog – but when I think about how badly she needed a good home, that no longer matters.

Very few cards in the deck have this color scheme. Unless I’m painting a landscape, I don’t often use dark green, much less pair it with black. It felt right in this case – in fact, the image itself seemed to insist on it. Funny how these things come to me – to all artists. Who is in charge, the artist or the inspiration? What is this fathomless connection we feel to other souls, that feeds the wellsprings of both elation and grief?

So much to think about while painting.

You can find The Power of the Yin Oracle Deck here.

A good week to all!

D. Yael Bernhard

https://dyaelbernhard.com

Have you seen my other Substack, The Art of Health? In addition to being a visual artist, I’m also a certified integrative health & nutrition coach with a lifelong passion for natural food cooking and herbal medicine. Now in its second year, this illustrated newsletter explores cutting-edge concepts of nutrition. I strive to make relevant information clear and accessible, and to anchor essential health concepts in unique images. Check it out, and if you like it, please subscribe and help spread the word. Your support keeps my work going!