Finding Your Way Through Grief

On the evening of August 28th, with the full moon at its peak, Norway lost its King. His Majesty King Harald V. The whole country went into grief and shock, even though none of us could really say we hadn't expected it. I felt it too.

He wasn't someone I knew personally, even though you may feel like you do. But over the years, as a violinist, I had more encounters with him than I ever expected. I've played for him in big concert halls, at the grand City Hall in Oslo on several occasions, and once at a small private dinner with his friends, where I nearly fell off my chair when I suddenly looked up and found him standing right next to me, chatting with his friends and enjoying himself like anyone else at the party.

He met both my parents. My dad still tells the story with pride: how he kept forgetting to say "His Majesty" when they spoke, because King Harald was so relaxed and natural in the way he talked, like a friend, that the formality just fell away. My mother, Bea, was appointed Knight First Class of the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit, for outstanding service to Norwegian musical and cultural life. So you see, there's a lot of family history bound up in this.

What this weekend became

On Friday, the day of his death, I recorded the Air from Bach and played it from my heart for our late King Harald. It came naturally. And as a kind of consequence of that, and also to give a small contribution to the world to heal from loss, any loss, I used this weekend to create a soundtrack for you.

A 20-minute healing, hypnotherapy escape where you can allow yourself to be just you. And yes, I did include the Bach.

We have all experienced loss, and to have a safe space to grieve can be very healing.

One image: standing beneath a full moon

My meditation is built around one image: standing beneath a full moon, letting its light fall over you while you sit with whatever grief you're carrying. Not fixing it. Not rushing it. Just letting it be there while you breathe.

The soundscape moves through some of the things grief actually does. How it can hold love and anger and even unexpected laughter at the same time. How it comes in phases, more like the moon's than a straight line. And how remembering someone doesn't have to mean returning to the hardest parts, that there's a whole life to walk back through, not just an ending.

Setting the weight down, just for a while

There's a moment where I ask you to imagine setting some of that weight down beside you, not throwing it away, just resting for a while. I wrote it because I've noticed how often people feel guilty for putting grief down even briefly, as if a lighter afternoon means they've stopped loving someone. It doesn't. You can rest and still carry someone with you.

I'm not going to claim this track heals grief. Nothing does that on its own, and grief isn't a problem to be solved. What I hope it does is give you a stretch of time to feel what you're feeling without having to explain it to anyone, not even to yourself.

If King Harald's passing is part of why this exists, so is every private loss I've sat with in the people around me this year. Grief doesn't need a headline to matter.

I hope you find the healing helpful.

With love,

Aja