“Saudade” is a Portuguese word. The feeling is familiar to each of us.
Spilled milk would be one thing to lament, but here I am, sitting by the campfire sipping on my gin and tonic when wham, I’m not paying attention and as I reach for the drink, I tip it over and as it hits the ground, my ice cold cocktail splashes up against my ankle.
Saudade.
A very mild case of saudade set in, which I immediately noticed, accepted, and let go.
Saudade (pronounced sow-dahd — click here for help with the pronunciation) “is a word of Portuguese origin designating a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one cares for or loves.”
Yes, my spilled drink is a silly example of saudade, but it was real, though fleeting.
More deeply, I carry with me a sad longing for a return to the joy I experienced with some precious friends and family — Craig, Peter, Chris — and I could go on and on naming people that I have loved and lost. The last handful of years have been particularly hard.
Saudade comes from my soul.
And it comes from your soul, too.
If we were sitting here together, you and I could share stories back and forth about the melancholic sadness, the grief that you and I feel, even now… right now… over lost relationships with special people and precious places.
The first that comes to my mind is the saudade I feel when I reflect on the wonderful years we enjoyed while our two kids were young and growing up. I really miss those busy years with them all around. Lately, I’ve been watching them as their own children, our grandchildren, are growing up and beginning to leave home. Today, a familiar and anticipatory sadness remains as the grandkids spread their wings, preparing to leave the nest.
When I enter into stillness, as I am today, I notice that the sadness, the saudade I am experiencing has an even bigger context. Something really deep and profound is happening.
I notice that my sadness is wrapped in the grief I am experiencing for the good old days when none of us really worried about the impact of our changing climate.
Things are different today. I am not taking my future for granted as I did for decades. And I’m not taking my children’s future, or my grandchildren’s future for granted either.
What I do know is that profound change is afoot in a way that is massively different than what previous generations ever dreamed of facing. Change that may be even more dramatic than what our species has ever faced in the course of human history.
When I look out my window through the forest around me, I see the smoke in the air from the fires burning in Canada.
Saudade emerges from my soul and I think it is Mother Earth crying out to me. To us.
We all know that we are now in a Global Environmental Emergency.
People all over our shared planet are experiencing saudade, and that feeling will only become more intense.
You know this is true.
Howard Thurman wrote, “In the stillness of quiet, if we listen, we can hear the whisper of the heart giving strength to weakness, courage to fear, hope to despair.”
Strength. Courage. Hope.
What we miss is gone and in its place is saudade, that deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one cares for or loves.
Yet, as I sit in the stillness and go deeper, I find that there is more to love.
Always, more to love.
For it is love that calls us forward to create something new and better.
We feel saudade when we lose the objects of our love.
But let us all remember, love never leaves us.
There is always more love.
While the milk has been spilled, and sadness lingers, let us yet move on to embrace, and be embraced by, a bigger love that is ever present and always evolving.
Strength. Courage. Hope.
I write about organized common sense that is meant to inspire. My personal mission in life is to explore, map, and guide people to the KIN-Dom of Heaven. Follow me on Medium, or subscribe and get an email whenever I publish. Thanks for reading along.
