A World on Fire: The Consequences of a Culture That Beats Death and Denies Grief (4 of 5)
What Happens When We Refuse to Mourn What We’ve Lost?
This is an ongoing series: Post 1 (From Fear to the Pregnant Void), Post 2 (How Patriarchy Stole Death’s Story), Post 3 (The Sound of Being Alive)
We live in a world drowning in ungrieved losses — unable to accept death as part of life.
Instead of grieving, we distract. We numb. We destroy.
Instead of accepting death and grief as necessary alchemical elements and tools to bring more life, we bring about destruction.
In that destruction, we seek eternal revenge.
How Christianity Stole Grief & Gave Us a War on Death
Christianity, at its core, is a religion built on defeating death.
Jesus didn’t just die—he conquered the grave.
He overcame death.
He beat the grave.
In this story, grief was never necessary.
Death was not something to be held, honored, or understood. It was something to be feared, avoided, and ultimately vanquished.
This is the story that has shaped Western culture for 2,000 years.
It’s why we refuse to face loss.
It’s why we deny the reality of death.
It’s why we uphold stories of “eternal life” rather than learning how to actually accept death as part of a full life.
Instead of grief, we cling to power.
Instead of surrender, we choose control.
Instead of mourning, we rage.
We have not grieved the genocide of Indigenous peoples.
We have not grieved the enslavement and exploitation of Black bodied souls.
We have not grieved the stolen autonomy of women — whose free labor, wombs and breasts, hands and support have built civilizations while receiving no recognition, rest or voice of their own.
Instead of grieving and accepting death, we double down.
We seek revenge.
When people call for justice, those in power don’t hear a cry for healing, a pleading to slow down and re-evalutate our ways.
No — they only hear a threat to their way of life.
Ironically because they do not know how to grieve a past way of living, they dig their heels in and say:
By God’s design. No way in hell will we allow grief in so we can evolve!
We will force patriarchy to once again rise up and dominate the women, races and others.
“Grief over death is a big thing for people, but certainly death is not the only kind of loss that can whip up the devastating syndrome of etneral revenge. For people love many things, and to lose a country or a way of life can be even harder than losing a relative.
Such people are too lazy and afraid to attempt the diligence necessary to allow the losses suffered by their people, country…movements or religious groups, their families, their party, their assumed race, to transform themselves into a fresher culture dedicated to the well-being of the general world. Instead of grief's poetry of survival through beauty, they would dismiss such sanity as a weakness and choose instead to find relief from grief's demands when a terrible calamity happens by seeking eternal revenge."
— Martin Prechtel, The Smell of Rain on Dust
The Obsession With Eternal Life
Instead of accepting death as a part of life, we have been taught to fight it.
We uphold stories about the possibility of beating or overcoming it.
We create billion-dollar industries to reverse aging, extend life, upload consciousness, and cheat death.
We elect leaders who promise to restore a past that never actually existed, and a version of masculinity that is the furthest thing from true masculinity (fragile masculinity).
We let fear drive us to seek control at all costs.
And all of this?
It’s nothing but unprocessed grief manifesting as destruction.
We don’t know how to grieve, so we destroy what we fear losing.
We don’t know how to mourn, so we take from others instead.
We don’t know how to accept death, so we cling to life at all costs, thinking this will allow us to control it.
"Instead of allowing the natural channel of grief to metabolize the sorrow of their losses, (they) prefer to preserve their losses, and deliberately petrify their pain into a family cause whose generational banner of hate is easier to maintain as a cultural identity than the messy smallness of grief's eloquence."
— Martin Prechtel, The Smell of Rain on Dust
Do you feel that?
This is the story of our world right now.
This is the story that started with Constatine circa 312 (the first era of Christian Nationalist)…passed down through the Catholic church violence and crusades…and cemented into America through the current MAGA movement that is infused with modern day Christian Nationalists.
The belief that we must: take back power from the “other”'; restore what was “lost” to the “other”; and reclaim what was “stolen” from us by the “other”. At all costs, this is our undying ideology we will die on this hill by.
But the truth?
What was stolen was not stolen by some “other”.
They stole from themselves.
What was lost was not lost to the immigrants.
It was in their wheelhouse of possiblities this entire time.
All they needed was to acknowledge that grief is the pathway to transformation…and their power, control and fame they seek? It would be “rebirthed” in their lives in a holistic way that would settle their raging soul’s quest for eternal revenge — allowing them to reliquinsh the need to always be right, always be on top, always be in control.
"If a society is alive and aware, those who have suffered loss will have a chance to heal, and those who have caused loss will be socially supported to sprout a new type of life-making person out of the death they have caused: a person who can now help others to heal from their losses, instead of causing more loss to the rest of the world….Grief over death is a big thing for people, but certainly death is not the only kind of loss that can whip up the devastating syndrome of etneral revenge. For people love many things, and to lose a country or a way of life can be even harder than losing a relative.""
— Martin Prechtel, The Smell of Rain on Dust
But right now, we are not a society that grieves.
We are a society that clings to power. At all costs. Leading us potentially into another mass psychosis.
We are a society that will burn itself to the ground rather than feel the unbearable weight of our unprocessed sorrow.
What Do We Do?
We get courageous.
We stop pretending that death is the enemy.
We grieve what has been lost — not in silent, polite pocket sized cliches.
But in full-bodied, gut-wrenching, wailing lamentation.
We make beauty out of grief.
"How relaxing it would be if there really just was a bunch of bad guys who you had only to dispose of to make the world all fixed up. But that's too simple and the source of even more loss, because the instant you try to cure it all by force, you plant the next round of sickness for revenge. So what do you do?
Get courageous.
Become a person. Make beauty out of grief.
Hand over the world with some modicum of possibility for peace."
— Martin Prechtel, The Smell of Rain on Dust
Grief is the medicine.
The only way forward is through.
The only way to stop the cycle of destruction is to let grief move—to let it be the medicine that transforms pain into life.
Because when we do?
That’s when we will finally understand what Christianity stole from us.
That death was never something to be beaten.
That grief was never something to be feared.
That the true resurrection?
Was always meant to be ours.
Martin so beautifully captures the truth in the story of Jesus, and all the stories of death and resurrection before him…as I pointed to with Inanna in our first post:
"Grief doesn't go away. It can change into many things…but as a substance and prescence it never leaves. To have caused and witnessed suffering and loss of life means grief is eagerly awaiting your decision as to what direction it will take in your destiny: to make more life or to make more death and violence, internally or externally.
The best decision is that all grief be turned into life-promoting grief-based beauty and usefulness. The willingness for violence-shattered soldiers to heal others make their malady into medicine. (The true power of death and resurrection!)
…those who have caused loss will be socially supported to sprout a new type of life-making person out of death they have caused: a person who can now help others to heal from their losses (the power of the Christ idea), instead of both them causing more loss to the rest of the world (the loss of power from this death/resurrection story we have inherited).
This not only gives a place to these people, but having been remade into a new type of human, they will become an indispensable necessity for the future well-being of the community on the whole.” (The idea that we all need death/resurreciton via a christ like figure in our life…to become ‘new type of human’.)
— Martin Prechtel, The Smell of Rain on Dust
What If We Chose Grief Instead of Destruction?
💡 What if, instead of waging wars, we held mourning rituals?
💡 What if, instead of numbing, we gave space for grief’s voice?
💡 What if, instead of blaming, we sat in the discomfort of loss?
We have been told that grief makes us weak.
That if we surrender to it, we will never recover.
That it will consume us, destroy us, and leave us broken.
But what if that is just yet another lie patriarchy has told us to keep us weak and powerless as individuals, and as a collective?
What if grief is not the end—but the beginning? The pregnant void of nothingness and everythingness at the same time?
Leave me your thoughts, comments, reflections…and that which you are grieving so I can “see you” in your powerful work!
If you are a dancer, movement medicine type soul...here is the last DJ set I have made that beautifully weaves together the right medicine to move into and out of the POWER of grief with support. Imagine me standing behind you, a rooted hand on your back between your shoulder blades, helping you remember to breath as you stand in goddess rooted pose my dear soul friend. the POWER of grief…Mixcloud.
Next week, we will bring this full circle: diving into the deepest lesson of all—how a culture's story of death determines how it lives.
**Links to Martin’s book are an affiliate link…and I know its Amazon. But again…using patriarchy’s ways to help us fund this educaiton so we can deconstruct it!**
Deconstructing Patriarchy is education we ALL need but don’t get. I am doing my best to keep it free — as it should be. But unfortunately still need to live. Help a gal out by suscribing here and YT…and getting some goodies to help you along the way…and hopefully a laugh or two.