Tending the Sacred: Grief
- Jeffy - Founder
- May 10
- 9 min read
I've often heard that there are two different kinds of people: those who have experienced grief and those who haven’t. But I don’t think that’s true. I think the real difference is between those who have sat with their grief and those who have buried it.
I remember being 10 years old, preparing for my Lolo’s funeral.
"Daytoy nga abel ket para iti natay."
"This specific woven blanket is for the dead."
"Madi kanu dayta nga suot, masapul nga kasjay."
"He shouldn’t wear that. He should be buried wearing this instead."
So many familial, cultural, and spiritual rituals that I had never known before suddenly emerged. The number of animals to be butchered. The clothes the mourners had to wear. The way the hearse had to drive. And the prayers, unending, and honestly, pretty boring to my preteen self. I’d often sneak away to play around the house or scroll on my iPad.
We found out about Lolo’s death over the phone. We were in Washington State. He was in the Philippines. We booked our flights and began the 24+ hour journey back to our homeland, Benguet.
He was a large part of my brother and I's childhood, we had spent some summer breaks in the Philippines with him and my Lola. He was quiet, kind, and purposeful, nearing 75. To the rest of that side of the family he had become everyone's father figure, helping his siblings go to school, encouraging them to build their careers. He had lived through the tail-end of WWII and was dirt poor until he started his career as a police officer and made it up the ranks. He once told me that his family didn't have money for candy and he used to sit by the sari-sari stores and wait for people's wrappers or already chewed bits of bubble gum.
People came from all over to visit in those first few days after he passed and was embalmed. They cried with us. Prayed with us. Reminisced with us. Ate with us. Sang with us. They cooked meals for our family and for the guests. They brought flowers, vegetables, bread, and envelopes of cash. We weren’t left alone for even a moment in those two weeks.
Even as a child I felt lots of support but I thought this was the norm and how all funerals were. Boy oh boy was I wrong.
I worked in healthcare for a large portion of my early working years, first as a Nursing Assistant in Adult Family Homes, then as an Emergency Room Technician in one of the busiest ERs in the nation. Saw death often, saw how often people died on their own, and learned that lots of folks experience grief and death differently in the Western world.
Even as a child, I felt how powerful it was to be held in grief, not just by my own family, but by an entire community. That kind of support isn't common everywhere. In the Western world, grief is often treated as something to push through quickly, quietly, and alone. Studies show that Americans are more likely to experience grief in isolation, while many communities across the world center grief around extended rituals, family presence, and shared responsibility. The U.S. Surgeon General even named loneliness a public health crisis, and yet we keep asking people to grieve in silence (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [HHS], 2023).
That’s why we start here. Grief is not just a moment of pain, it’s a portal. It reveals what we’ve lost, what we long for, and what we need to rebuild together.
In the next posts, we’ll explore the different kinds of grief rituals from cultures around the world. We’ll talk about what ritual looks like when it’s reclaimed, adapted, and made our own, ethically. Because no matter what you’ve lost, you deserve a way to honor it. And you don’t have to do it alone.
Grief is natural... literally
Grief rituals aren’t just cultural. They are biological. They are ancestral. They are natural.
In a 2018 paper, Archer explains that when we grieve, our brains stay on high alert for signs of the person we’ve lost. We look for them in crowds, in sounds, in dreams. We revisit memories over and over. This mental state evolved to help us reconnect with someone who might still return. It worked when people went missing or were gone temporarily. But when someone has died, the same system keeps us searching for someone who will never come back. That disconnect is part of what makes grief so painful (Archer, 2018).
And this pattern isn’t just human. In a 2022 study, Anderson and colleagues showed that primates also respond to death in ways that look a lot like mourning. They carry their dead, guard their bodies, and revisit the places where they died. These actions may help them process the loss, shift roles within the group, and begin to form new bonds after death has created a rupture (Anderson et al., 2022).
In nature, grief is not hidden. It is witnessed. It is processed through physical presence, ritual, and time.
In the Western world, that process is often cut short. Most employers offer just three to five days of bereavement leave. That is barely enough time to plan a funeral, let alone begin to understand what was lost. There is no space for the brain to adjust, for the heart to catch up, or for the body to be held.
This system treats grief like a disruption instead of a transformation but grief is not a task to complete or a deadline to meet. It is a sacred transition; it moves through the body slowly and often returns when you least expect it.
What elephants, whales, and primates seem to understand is what many of us have forgotten: grief needs space. It needs to be witnessed, held, and shared. Without that space, grief does not disappear. It just settles in deeper and lonelier.
Earliest Grief Rituals
Before temples. Before language. Before civilization. There was still grief.
And where there is grief, there is ritual.
The earliest evidence of mourning doesn’t come from modern humans, but from our ancient cousins, the Neanderthals. At sites like Shanidar Cave in Iraq and La Chapelle-aux-Saints in France, archaeologists found skeletons carefully placed in shallow graves, often surrounded by pollen traces and animal bones. Some were buried with stone tools and ochre pigments (Pettitt, 2011).
In the Shanidar grave, the body was surrounded by wildflowers. Some researchers believe they were placed there intentionally, suggesting tenderness, beauty, and remembrance (Solecki, 1971).
And even earlier than that, humans in Qafzeh Cave (Israel, ~100,000 years ago) were buried with red ochre and pierced shells. These gestures hint at early beliefs about the afterlife, identity, or a continued relationship with the dead (Mayer et al., 2009).
Grief Rituals from Around the World
Igorot
In the highlands of Ifugao, the Bogwa ritual stands as a profound testament to the enduring bond between the living and the deceased. This ceremony involves the exhumation, cleaning, and rewrapping of a loved one's bones, typically performed years after their initial burial. Far from being a morbid practice, Bogwa is a deeply spiritual act of care, respect, and reconnection with one's ancestors.
The ritual is initiated when the family perceives signs, like as illness or dreams, that the spirit of the departed seeks attention or is unsettled. A mumbaki (ritual specialist) is consulted to interpret these signs and to guide the family through the necessary rites. The process unfolds over several days.
Bogwa is more than a funeral rite; it is a reaffirmation of familial and communal ties, a celebration of life, and a means to maintain harmony between the physical and spiritual realms. Despite modern influences and changing times, the practice endures as a vital expression of Ifugao identity and reverence for ancestors.
Ga
In Ghana, particularly among the people of the Greater Accra region, funerals are vibrant, communal events that honor the life and legacy of the deceased. These ceremonies are rooted in the belief that death is not an end but a transition to another realm. Mourners often wear coordinated, custom-made outfits in bold colors, and the funeral processions include live music, traditional drumming, and dancing.
A distinctive feature of these funerals is the use of fantasy coffins, known as abebuu adekai, which translates to "proverb boxes." These coffins are intricately crafted to reflect the deceased's profession, personality, or aspirations. For instance, a fisherman might be buried in a fish-shaped coffin, while a teacher might rest in a giant pencil. These coffins serve as a final tribute, encapsulating the individual's identity and life's work.
These funerals often span several days, with the entire community participating. The events are not only a means to honor the dead but also to support the grieving family and reinforce communal bonds. Funerals are widely publicized, sometimes more so than weddings, and can include food, drinks, and performances.
Mexico
Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is one of the most vibrant and spiritually rich grief traditions in the world. Observed primarily on November 1st and 2nd, this ritual honors deceased loved ones not with silence, but with color, music, memory, and joy. It is a time when the boundaries between the living and the dead are believed to thin, allowing souls to return for a brief reunion with their families.
Families build ofrendas, or altars, filled with photos, candles, marigolds, papel picado, sugar skulls, and the favorite foods and drinks of the departed. These offerings are not just symbolic. They are invitations, welcoming the dead back home. Graves are cleaned and decorated, sometimes with all-night vigils, music, and storytelling. In many towns, entire communities gather in cemeteries to eat, laugh, and honor the lives of those who have passed.
Día de los Muertos has roots in pre-Columbian traditions that go back over 3,000 years. Indigenous peoples like the Aztecs held month-long festivals to honor the dead, believing death was a continuation of life, not its end. After colonization, these traditions blended with Catholic observances of All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day, forming the celebration we know today.
An important fact to note is that Día de los Muertos is not Mexican Halloween, despite the timing and visual overlap. It is not about fear or horror. It is about connection, remembrance, and joy in the face of mortality.
This ritual shows that grief does not always have to be heavy. It can be celebratory. It can be sensory. It can be shared. Día de los Muertos reminds us that honoring the dead can also mean inviting them to the table, lighting their favorite candle, and remembering that love continues beyond the veil.
Wendat
Among the Wendat of the Great Lakes region, the Feast of the Dead was one of the most sacred and large-scale grief rituals ever recorded in early North America. This ceremony took place every 10 to 15 years and was centered around the collective reburial of those who had died since the last gathering. Families carefully exhumed the bones of their loved ones from temporary graves, cleaned them with care, and wrapped them in bark or fur before bringing them to the site of the ceremony.
The remains were placed together in a massive communal ossuary, lined with animal pelts, beaver hides, jewelry, tools, and offerings of tobacco and food. This shared burial was not just practical. It reflected a deep belief that the dead remained active members of the community. By gathering them together, the Wendat ensured the ancestors would not be forgotten and would continue to guide and protect the living.
The ceremony itself lasted several days and brought together entire villages and neighboring nations. People sang, danced, shared food, gave speeches, and renewed alliances. It was both spiritual and social, a time to grieve, remember, and reconnect. The Feast of the Dead honored the ongoing relationship between the living and the departed, treating death not as an ending, but as a continuation of kinship and care.
What does this tell us?
Grief has always been with us. From ancient burials in caves to primates staying beside their dead, from the communal wakes of the Igorot to the vibrant coffins of the Ga, from altars lit with marigolds in Mexico to shared ossuaries in Wendat lands, grief has never been just one thing. It has always been layered, collective, and sacred.
What these rituals all reveal is that grief is not just about death. It is about love. It is about memory. It is about the spaces we create to hold both. And in many parts of the world, those spaces are held open by tradition, by song, by food, by prayer, by time.
In contrast, many of us today are left to grieve quietly and quickly. We are told to move on, to be strong, to get back to work. But the body remembers what culture forgets. It remembers how to sit with loss, how to ache together, how to ritualize absence into meaning.
This is why we begin here. Before we explore healing, before we talk about joy, before we reclaim other forms of connection, we come back to grief. Because grief tells the truth. It tells us what we care about. It tells us who we have loved. And it reminds us that we are never meant to carry it alone.
Sources
Anderson, J. R., et al. (2022). Primate thanatology and hominoid mortuary archaeology. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 377(1859), 20210300. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2021.0300ResearchGate+2PMC+2PubMed+2
Archer, J. (2018). An evolutionary account of vigilance in grief. Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health, 2018(1), 34–42. https://doi.org/10.1093/emph/eoy001Oxford Academic+1ResearchGate+1
Bar-Yosef Mayer, D. E., Vandermeersch, B., & Bar-Yosef, O. (2009). Shells and ochre in Middle Paleolithic Qafzeh Cave, Israel: indications for modern behavior. Journal of Human Evolution, 56(3), 307–314. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2008.10.005Oxford Research Encyclopedia+5In Africa+5PubMed+5
Pettitt, P. B. (2011). The Palaeolithic Origins of Human Burial. Routledge.PMC+9PMC+9Amazon+9
Solecki, R. S. (1971). Shanidar: The First Flower People. Knopf.Science+4Science+4Wikipedia+4
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2023). Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community. https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf
Comentários