By: Francis Weller
Sorrow helps us to remember something long intuited by indigenous people across the planet: our lives are intricately commingled with one another, with animals, plants, watersheds, and soil…The personal and the planetary are inseparable, as is our healing. Loss binds us together in a potent alchemy, confirming the heart’s intimacy with all things. Losing someone or something we love brings us into the shelter of our mutual grief. Grief and love are sisters, woven together from the beginning. Their kinship reminds us that there is no love that does not contain loss and no loss that is not a reminder of the love we carry for what we once held close. Alone and together, death and loss affect us all.
From: The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief. Francis Weller is a retired psychotherapist, writer and soul activist. He is currently on staff at the Commonweal Cancer Help Program, co-leading their week-long retreats with Michael Lerner.