National Grief and Bereavement Day returns on Nov. 19., encouraging discussion around access to grief and bereavement support. For Jason M. Brown, Simon Fraser University’s (SFU) first ecological chaplain, grief is a normal part of the lived experience.
“Grief is a companion,” he says. “It is not something you have to pathologize…. but [something] to cultivate a relationship with.”
A spiritual connection
With education in anthropology, forestry, and theology, Brown came to Vancouver to pursue doctoral studies in ecological humanities from the University of British Columbia. Working in partnership with SFU’s Multifaith Centre, he now offers spiritual guidance that helps students manage their anxiety and grief towards climate change.
“[Students are] sardonic about their future and with the future looking so bleak, they wonder why they went into the environmental field at all,” he says of his experience teaching an ecological ethics course.
He stresses that his role as an ecological chaplain “doesn’t have to be attached to any religion,” but is about connecting spirituality, religion and ecology to help students “build resilience to ecological uncertainty.” At SFU, he hopes to provide a safe, non-judgemental space for students to express their anxieties and grief over ecological loss.
“In teaching, my full-time vocation, I care about students, their success and happiness,” he says. “[I was looking] for a spiritual vocation and [recognized] a need at the university level to process environmental change.”
Brown also sees grief manifest different for everyone from cynicism to intense range, depression, and generalized anxiety. In contrast to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s commonly referenced stages of grief– denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, Brown argues for seeing grief as a continuum, not five neat stages, and connecting with this continuum allows people to act rather than becoming numb.
“Grief is a normal part of life,” he says. “[We need] to be tuning into the natural response of grief and loss [in contrast to the habit] to tune out or numb reality.”
Harnessing positive change
Brown has planned several events to help students deal with emotions arising from the climate crisis. These events include the Climate Café, a space for participants to share their feelings, and Journaling Our Ecological Grief, a writing workshop guiding participants to reflect through journaling exercises.
“We’re going to keep tinkering with our Climate Café and bringing grief more space on campus and give presentations to display their grief in public,” he says.
Brown, in collaboration with SFU Library, has also created a collection of resources, titled “Solastalgia: Resourcing Resilience to Climate Anxiety and Grief,” for dealing with ecological grief. The collection will be displayed at SFU Surrey campus’ Fraser Library for the first half of November. It will then move to SFU’s Belzberg Library in Downtown Vancouver. In addition to communal reflections, Brown suggests “silent meditation, contemplative forest walks…and connecting with ancestral religious tradition” – all of which focus on building a spiritual connection with the world.
“There is a deep sense of meaning and purpose that religion and spirituality cultivates,” he says.
He also encourages people to explore nature beyond its biological frameworks by remaining open to a spiritual perspective. Brown further highlights the City of Vancouver’s vision of making Vancouver the greenest city in the world, but notes that it also carries the moniker of the loneliest city. For him, partaking in the sharing of grief may also alleviate loneliness.
In collaboration with SFU’s Faculty of Environment, Brown will host “Grief Shrine: Sitting with Personal and Ecological Loss” for the SFU community on Nov. 19 to commemorate the National Grief and Bereavement Day. Participants are invited to share their feelings of loss and grief by bringing a photograph that represents their loss, whether it be a loved one or an ecosystem.
For more information, please see: https://events.sfu.ca/event/42108-grief-shrine-sitting-with-personal-and-ecological
