With the British queen's passing I see many passionate decolonial posts fiercely defending their right to be angry and not mourn a monarch who was never their choice.

I see friends of mine who remember Elizabeth having tea with Paddington bear, pulling marmalade sandwiches from her purse. I remember her with her dogs, loving nature.

I see conspiracy theories staunchly state that she took 10 First Nation children from a reservation school to never be seen again - claims 'backed' by a misdated photo with no other proof.

I see people share about the horrendous abuse they were subjected to, as children, at the hands of church and state policies in those same schools - in Canada, Ireland and other colonies.

I see people share how they saw her as a human behind the title and rigid institution of royalty. People who saw her break the mould of duty and responsibility with smiles, hugs, jokes - simply human ways of being.

I see division,

I see anger,

I see heartbreak,

Most of all, I see grief.

Grief for a national British hero and household hope-bringer.

Grief for many nations, people's and communities torn asunder due to colonial forces of violence and oppression.

Grief for personal and national woes.

And with my own broken heart, I know that grief isn't easy.

Grief breaks us and shakes us.

Grief connects us to anger and truth, misdeeds and disbelief.

Grief opens us to depths of emotion we never knew were possible until they have consumed us and we don't know our way through the mire.

Grief is raw, honest and messy.

Grief is often unwanted and disregarded.

Yet grief always brings us back to our inevitable humanness. The whole-mess of being alive, of being human.

Whether we go there humbly with willing or kicking and screaming is our choice.

And in that place of anguish - through the cracks of grief's great chasm - our capacity to love and for-give can breakthrough.

Or, we can also choose to become bitter and resentful.

Knowing that the freedom to make the choice is ours, and one way or the other we must choose.

So wherever your grief may bring you today, (and yes, grief can often present as anger).

I hope and pray all that we are feeling can bring us closer together, not further apart.

May we remember that it is compassion and mercy that can break cycles of karma with effective precision.

I have a strong faith that the old out-dated systems of patriarchal and colonial abuse and violence have failed.

I believe we are now witnessing their fall.

Their foundations have crumbled beneath them. Many of us are seeing those stories for what they are - stories that can be rewritten for a new age.

In that seeing comes a choice to choose a new, gentler and more loving way - to write new stories that can heal our hearts and weave our communities closer together.

We have a choice today, to be with our grief wherever it may take us.

We have a choice to trust in the love that unites us all.

If we allow it, our grief can be the sinew which has the capacity to weave together our old ways and the new, as we death-doula the old paradigm and painstakingly midwife and birth the next iteration.

I hope and pray all that we are feeling - and all we continue to feel as these systems collapse and compost - can bring us closer together.

We've planted thousands of new seeds, of love and wholeness. They are growing - I see them.

Do you see them too?

Our tears are watering them.

Our faith grows them.

And we can choose to trust,

All is Love,

All is Well.

le grá,

Mel xx