Collective Love as Grief's Antidote

Mirabai's devotion was solitary—she sang alone, she danced alone—yet it was deeply communal. Her songs brought people together, created spaces for shared longing and love. In public tragedy or the loss of a beloved figure, communities have an opportunity to practice collective love. Grief can isolate, but it can also bind. When people mourn together—in vigils, in shared art, in conversation—they acknowledge their interdependence and mutual vulnerability. Collective love as grief's antidote doesn't mean replacing sadness with forced positivity. Rather, it means recognizing that we survive loss together, that bearing witness to each other's grief is itself a form of love, that communities are strengthened through honestly facing what they've lost. Mirabai understood that love—even love for the absent, the impossible, the gone—is what makes us most alive and most connected. For communities mourning public figures or tragedies, collective grief becomes an opportunity to practice collective love: to show up for each other, to hold space for varied responses, to affirm that what mattered to one matters to all.