Sankirtan—Grief Held in Community

Sankirtan—the communal singing of devotional mantras and stories—was central to Mirabai's bhakti world. The practice embeds personal devotion within collective witness and shared vibration. Anticipatory grief often feels utterly isolating: only you know what's coming; others seem to move through life unburdened. Sankirtan reframes this isolation. Yes, *your* person will die. But everyone dies. Everyone grieves. By participating in communal grief practices—whether sitting with others who understand, sharing stories, gathering for ritual—you locate your particular sorrow within the universal human experience. This doesn't diminish your specific loss. It contextualizes it. Mirabai's devotion was intensely personal yet embedded in a community of other bhaktas, other lovers of Krishna. Similarly, anticipatory grief becomes less a private madness when held within a sangha of those who understand that loving deeply means grieving deeply.