Still Silly After All This Grief
One last chance to join School of the Holy Fool
Yesterday, I attended the No Kings protest.
And all I could do was cry.
Glad for my sunglasses, tears poured from my eyes.
My grief?
The collective’s grief and rage?
I can’t tell the difference right now.
I can’t discern between what I’m being manipulated to feel and what I actually feel.
But it hurts.
Tomorrow, I begin teaching Camp LightHeart’s School of the Holy Fool.
At the protest, I watched the clowns tramping and traipsing, frollicking and romping.
They pulled a movable dumpster fire puppet.
They chased each other with pretend DOGE chainsaws.
They handed out fake $100 bills and then grabbed them back.
I was grateful for their presence, but kept thinking:
I can’t play like that right now.
I’m too sad.
How am I going to get back to GlitterHeart, my clown, by tomorrow, in time to teach it?
And then I realized: THAT is the point.
How, amid so much despair this week, can we both feel the entire fullness of our grief, without losing access to our creativity, our deep joy, and our aliveness?
How indeed?
As I write this, I have no idea but I know one thing: it’s easier to figure it out together.
So if you see Camp LightHeart’s School of the Holy Fool as something for others, but not you, well, I’m with you.
But then today, I saw this in the grocery store parking lot.
The despair is never ending, yet I remain SILLY.
It made me think:
How can I become wide enough within myself to hold all of this?
And why is this crucial for my own heart, my good life?
That’s what we’ll be figuring out together this week, in the sweetest possible manner.
Look, friend, I made this camp for us.
It has no barriers to access, a resource for anyone who could use a little lightening up right now, which, in my opinion, is everyone.
Come play.
Give yourself (and us) a couple hours this week, a little silliness, some gentle vulnerability…
We’ll leave feeling lighter, weirder, and more alive, fool’s honor!
These pictures were such medicine for me, thank you for sharing them. Art is so important in these times, seeing protest art makes my heart feel lighter and more courageous.