One of my biggest sorrows in the last few years has been the loss of my closest and most cherished friendships. Its absence has left a huge hole in my life that I continue to grieve over every time I am in the neighbourhood but no longer a welcome guest, whenever an issue that I would once have sought my friend’s counsel arises, or when, as happened more recently, a mutual friend dies and our brief reflections on a truly wonderful woman are marred by hostility because our late mentor was not willing to throw her towel in against the Covid vaccine.
Once upon a time our conversations would have shaped themselves around all things baby. We thought of ourselves on the wild edge of motherhood, home birth, free birth, extended breastfeeding. We went about our business with a baby tied somewhere to our person believing that a baby held close is well orientated to a stable and loving life. As our babies grew so did our friendship. I went through a harrowing break up and she was there by my side, my most stalwart and trustworthy companion. Although we were different in many ways, we were both drawn to spiritual teachings that emphasised love, unity and forgiveness. Sometimes we would spend an evening poring over the I-Ching or another deliberating one of A Course in Miracle’s lessons or weighing up Byron Katie’s method The Work. Fringe spiritualities admittedly, but ones that drove us to look for ways to be and express love in our lives and to those we encountered.
When Covid hit and our conversations turned to health, it was no surprise that we shared concern about the safety of the vaccine or worried that the draconian lock-down measures might be causing more harm than good or question the motives of government officials promoting ‘bubbles’ and PPE all the while partying their privilege and, rather than stock-piling like the rest of us, purchasing stocks in dubious PPE companies.
However, when she suggested that she might have to cut off contact from anyone who had had the vaccine because something it was emitting might also harm her, alarm bells began to sound. It was not only alarming, but alarmist. While I wasn’t overly minded to have the vaccine myself, I was certainly in favour of choice and comradeship as we all faced having to make the best decisions we could in the atmosphere of fear that was being fostered with daily death counts and isolation from our community networks and routines.
While I felt alarm at the extremity of this position, I was completely flabbergasted when she earnestly advised me that I should brace myself for an end-of-the-world event when Trump would bring justice to America and an evil Cabal of blood-drinking, satan-worshiping paedophiles, that included Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton, would be exposed. I didn’t know what to make of it. It was such a far cry from our earnest discussions about how to bring more love into our friendships, our left-leaning politics and appreciation of convivial meals and banter. I had the impression she was entertaining new friends who were expressing themselves in the desire to violently overthrow the regime, and the “regime” seemed to be framed by extreme right wing ideologies against leftist democracy. It was utterly baffling.
The end of our friendship was nigh. It didn’t come through our expressed differences of opinion about whether Trump really was the Messiah or whether fraternising with the vaccinated was more dangerous than associating with political extremists, it was a disagreement about a parenting decision I had made which she felt put both my family and hers in grave danger. I can’t be certain that without the QAnon conspiracy theory that this disagreement wouldn’t have fractured our friendship, but her growing fear, shift towards the right, obsession about widespread paedophilia certainly framed how she presented her concerns to me.
It’s taking me a long time to understand what happened to us. The first couple of years was shock, deep grief and incomprehension. For me, it was a loss that occurred in the midst of a very turbulent time so it became part of a griefscape, a panoply of losses, and it was hard for me to see the bigger picture. I focused on the issue that had been the final undoing of a rich twenty year long friendship that I had imaged would see us to the grave. It is only gradually that I have come to realise that QAnon is a widespread phenomenon that’s been described as cult-like in its capacity to inject fear through ideological indoctrination.
This knowledge doesn’t resolve my grief but it does contextualise it. It also invites me to consider my own proclivity for what has been coined ‘conspiritualites’. The podcasters Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, Julian Walker and Mallory DeMille put it like this:
As the alt-right and New Age horseshoe toward each other in a blur of disinformation, clear discourse and good intentions get smothered. Charismatic influencers exploit their followers by co-opting conspiracy theories on a spectrum of intensity ranging from vaccines to child trafficking. In the process, spiritual beliefs that have nurtured creativity and meaning are transforming into memes of a quickly-globalizing paranoia.
What arises in me as I reflect on the spiritual teachings that shape the way I interact in the world, is the value of humility. Humility in the face of the great mystery of life, humility as I present my take on situations to my friends and colleagues, and humility as I consider my friend’s decisions that differ from mine.
Conspiritualities are rife in the wellness industry where celery diets are promoted as a panacea, pseudo-science proliferates and spiritual cures promulgated with varying degrees of blaming the victim. I’m in favour of exploring more nurturing alternatives to allopathic medicine and it’s been an important part of taking care of myself and my family. I’ve also been a paediatric nurse at one of the world’s leading children hospitals where I’ve been witness to the tremendous power for good that allopathic medicine can be and the remarkable skills and commitment of surgeons, doctors, nurses and researchers who evolve the capacity of western medicine to ameliorate disease. But allopathy has limits. In my role as a nurse, I felt increasingly conflicted by my desire to care for my young cancer patients in a way that met all their needs and the relentless drive to cure the cancer at all costs, leading to protracted and difficult deaths. Death does not sit easily in the paradigm of western medicine, especially the death of a child. I left nursing in search of answers, beginning with a degree in African and Asian Medical Related Studies and Study of Religions, followed by a Masters in Contemporary Theology and a doctoral thesis on Healing in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
Now, working as a Grief Recovery Method Specialist, End of Life Planning Facilitator and Funeral Celebrant, I reflect on how I offer my skills to the world in a way that isn’t infused with fear mongering or cure-alls. What I can say is that grief arises in the face of any loss, not just death. Every experience of grief is unique and the tools we use to navigate it are a personal choice. I’ve chosen the Grief Recovery Method because it is evidence-based and heart-centred. It also changed the course of my life. After devastating news, it was the Grief Recovery programme and my colleague who took me gently through the steps that restored my sense of balance and gave me the courage to keep walking forward. It wasn’t the only support I called on. Breath work, the Emotional Freedom Technique and the Comprehensive Resource Model have all been part of my recovery journey, especially dealing with the PTSD symptoms. With my End of Life Planning Facilitator hat on, I would encourage everyone to have a comprehensive plan. It’s my belief that our dying is easier if we are educated about death and have made plans for its inevitable occurrence. It’s not for me to say whether you should decide against resuscitation, choose cremation over burial, or leave all your belongings to a cat sanctuary. However, there is wisdom in taking time to decide what is important for you and the help I offer is more of a guide to the resources that are available to support you making those decisions. And as a funeral celebrant, it’s my deepest belief that ritual and community helps us make meaning of our lives. The shape the ritual takes is not one I impose. I don’t know for certain what death is. Is it a doorway onto another realm, or is it the returning of that which we are to the earth where every element of our being is recycled into something new? I feel myself to be humbled in the face of this great mystery, and humbled by the creativity and love that directs all of us to bring meaning to our suffering.
The Grief Recovery Method and community based grief rituals are helping me tend the profound grief I feel over the ending of my life’s most significant friendship. As I navigate a way forward without her company and shared outlook on life, severed from watching her children evolve and having to delicately negotiate joint friendships, I acknowledge my sadness that there has been no goodbye and thank her, in my heart, for everything she meant to me. Our friendship was a casualty to the QAnon whirlwind.
If you’ve experienced the loss of a friendship or been severed from a family member because of a cult or ideological differences, you know the texture of this grief. If you’re curious about the tools I’ve used to find my way through the maze of my pain, please book a free session with me and I will take you through the first step of the Grief Recovery Method. Alternatively, explore my free offerings or join one of my live events.
May peace, humility and love guide your path.