The Five Gates of Grief

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“The work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and be stretched large by them. ~ Francis Weller

Francis Weller’s book, The Wild Edge of Sorrow, is a stunning descent into the pain and beauty of grief. How we experience it currently in our modern, Western culture, how we could better experience it, and rituals of renewal.  

I am a fan of Francis Weller’s work for good reason. He is a true elder, a wise man with a deep well of compassion which he shares with the world. I have written a blog post about his work, which you can find here.  

One of the most potent chapters in The Wild Edge of Sorrow is “The Five Gates of Grief.” One of those five gates is familiar. The others most of us have never even named.  

The First Gate: Everything We Love, We Will Lose.

The chapter starts with a quote from Oscar Wilde. Where there is sorrow, there is holy ground.

This is the most familiar, and the only gate many of us acknowledge. It is the gate we walk through when we have lost someone or something we love. Everything in life is a gift. Nothing lasts. Not our relationships, health, jobs, pets, or even our lives.  

Acknowledging and accepting this truth will bring much more joy and gratitude to one’s life. To suppress it leads our heart into living a flatline existence. The deeper the grief, the higher the joy.  

Francis Weller shares a 12th Century poem about this gate, which you can read and listen to here. 

When we allow ourselves to grieve, we tell ourselves and the world that we have loved. 

And this is a holy thing indeed.  

We live in a culture that denies grief, grieves only in privacy, and tells ourselves to “get over it.” We’ve grieved enough. Time to move on. In reality, we should allow ourselves to drop deep into this fertile darkness where love is in pain.  In this place of stillness, we are given time for our hearts to heal and learn, and to open again. Only then can we better experience even more of this incredible world of impermanence.  

I intend not to give away too much of the book. My hope is that sharing a bit about the different gates of grief will whet one’s appetite to read the book.

Over the next couple of weeks, I will share the gates that we deny or don’t even know exist. 

In the next post, I will introduce the second gate, “The Places That Have Not Known Love.”  

Epitaph

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What is left of us after we are gone but those left behind whom we have loved and lived our lives with and for? The thing that matters, the thing that can change a heart or a world, is this: Love.

I narrate a poem by Merrit Malloy called Epitaph in memory of my uncle, who passed out of the physical world yesterday.

EPITAPH

by Merrit Malloy

When I die

Give what’s left of me away

To children

And old men that wait to die.

And if you need to cry,

Cry for your brother

Walking the street beside you.

And when you need me,

Put your arms

Around anyone

And give them

What you need to give to me.

I want to leave you something,

Something better

Than words

Or sounds.

Look for me

In the people I’ve known

Or loved,

And if you cannot give me away,

At least let me live on in your eyes

And not your mind.

You can love me most

By letting

Hands touch hands,

And by letting go

Of children

That need to be free.

Love doesn’t die,

People do.

So, when all that’s left of me

Is love,

Give me away.

Last Breath

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You ask me if I am afraid.

But I am not afraid.

I swore you were the breath in my life.

But you were the wind.

And like the wind

you are gone. 

I walk out of the dark. 

And see the light for the first time,

in a long time.

I know now that you were not the darkness.

You were the moon.

We were the breath.

We are the wind.

Blog Announcement

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Hi everyone,

I just wanted to let you know that I have decided to change the name of my blog from Caregivers Journal to The Grace Tree.

As much as I have loved narrating poetry and writing short blog posts about loss and gratitude, I would like to expand my writings to include my search for spirituality in everyday life. That means, more original content, some longer, some shorter. I do still plan on narrating poetry since that is very healing for me and I hope for you as well.

Have a beautiful weekend.

With gratitude,

LaNell

Beauty in Broken Things

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There is a beauty in broken things.  The Japanese call it Wabi Sabi.  I call it life.  

The imperfect nature of each of us gifts us with unique ways to see the world and express ourselves for the benefit of everyone.  When we add our uniqueness to the whole, we create openness within ourselves and within the world for even more expression, creation, and compassion.

No matter who we are or how long we live, each of us contributes to the ever-expanding consciousness where our ancestors live.  Someday, we, too, will be called ancestors.  Let us be worthy of the prayers and pleadings.  Let us pave the way for our descendants to live their own lives of free will.  

We can start this daunting task with a simple understanding.  

Understand that the shattered pieces of our broken hearts, minds, and bodies shine like prisms.  Every new crack brings a brighter light.

Our brokenness does not stop us from seeing beauty and being beauty herself.  In fact, it is the reason beauty exists and is seen at all.  Imperfections may be precisely why we see so differently than everyone else.  These are gifts that need to be shared.  

Our imperfections have the power to give us compassion for all life – if we can love this brokenness within ourselves.  Compassion that can change the world must begin within and for ourselves.  

Life on this planet is short-lived; each being is a different expression of creation and consciousness, whether a flower, a rock, a human, or another animal.  It is imperative to share your uniqueness and your way of seeing and speaking with the world.

For what other reason have you been created?

video of poem

The Two-Headed Calf

By Laura Gilpin

Tomorrow when the farm boys find this freak of nature,

They will wrap his body in newspaper and carry him to the museum.

But tonight he is alive and in the north field with his mother.

It is a perfect summer evening: the moon rising over the orchard,

The wind in the grass.

And as he stares into the sky,

There are twice as many stars as usual.

A note to readers: I have increasingly been writing about consciousness, cosmos, and spirituality. For that reason, I have a new blog called anahatanada.online. If that is of interest to you, please check it out.

With gratitude,

LaNell

What Are You Waiting For?

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Life is born out of the divine shrapnel of the big bang. We are energy that simply changes form. Perhaps in our time of grieving, when darkness seems to envelop us, we can remember this one thing:

The physical world is mortal and immortal;

In time, everyone and everything passes through the lower energies of matter and then leaves;

Changing into a different vibration of energy, without form and without a physical avatar.

That darkness we feel sometimes is also part of divinity.

It reminds us to hold this precious and temporary time when we embody physical matter tenderly;

and be thankful for those we have loved and lost;

and appreciate those we have now;

because too soon, this life will change form.

What Are You Waiting For?

by Jan Phillips

Intelligence permeates the universe

It makes our hearts pump, our fingernails grow.

Every cell knows what to do

because it is intelligence materialized.

In the circle of life,

the wave of knowing becomes the particle of being.

Energy slows down and becomes matter.

Like Einstein said: energy is simply matter

times the speed of light squared.

Energy never dies. It just keeps changing form.

A dewdrop becomes a cloud, becomes rain,

becomes the sea, becomes a cloud, becomes sleet

becomes the icy road.

The hydrogen atoms forged in the Big Bang

are in your eyelash, your cat’s fur,

your piano bench.

You are more than a child of the heavens and earth.

You are mortal and immortal,

finite and infinite,

human and divine.

Own up to it.

Inside you burns the flame of Creation Itself.

If you heard it once, you heard it a hundred times:

You are the light of the world.

You are the miracle you are waiting for.

Your body is a chalice holding Mind-at-Large.



What in the world are you waiting for?

One Day

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One day we all, one by one, will enter into our last season, and our earthwalk will come to an end. Like the ebb and flow of the tides, each generation arrives and then, too soon, departs. Oh, but what a gift this short time, this life, has been. And what of ourselves will we leave behind to carry on with that indelible act of living a life? Our loved ones, and pets, and flowers, and birds, and the craggy rocks in the desert. The colors and sounds and songs of the vibrating everything.

And then too soon, another tide, another turning, as they release their last breath. And we, the divine cosmos, inhale. Just as it always has done. This divine, energetic ebb and flow, where we have always been together, and together, we have been everywhere, forever.

spoken poetry video

One Day by David Whyte

One day I will say

the gift I once had

has been taken,

the place I have

made for myself

belongs to another,

and the words I have sung

are being sung by the ones

I would want.

Then I will be ready

for that voice

and the still silence

in which it arrives.

And if my faith is good

then we’ll meet again

on the road

and we’ll be thirsty,

and stop

and laugh

and drink together again

from the deep well

of things as they are.

Is It Possible?

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  1. Is it possible, I wonder, to be whole in our spiritual lives without being intimate with death?  Is it possible to truly be at one with Spirit and with our own sacredness without healing this fear of physical death?  Isn’t death part of the divine Möbius strip of creation and dissolution and creation? 
  2. How can I set on fire my passion for Spirit and the divine without this healing?  Otherwise, won’t my ability to live my true purpose be subverted by this fear of death?  Death of loss.  Loss of those I love. Loss of a job, a home, a future.  Death comes in many forms and our fear may just be derailing our true expression.
  3. Perhaps the only way to heal this fear is to become intimate with it and to truly let ourselves feel the feelings that arise when we see it in our own lives or the lives of others.  Too often we numb ourselves by staring at our screens or indulging in food or substances that dull our feelings.
  4. What if instead, we allowed ourselves to sink down into the darkness of our grief?  What if we gave ourselves that gift? Or what if we held someone else’s hand as they sat in their own darkness?  What would emerge from the darkness? 
  5. Perhaps an open heart would flower.  Or compassion for ourselves.  A conversation with Spirit.  What might come from the ashes of this burning? 

THE HOLY LONGING

I praise what is truly alive,

What longs to be burned to death.

A strange feeling comes over you

when you see the silent candle burning.

Now you are no longer caught

in the obsession with darkness,

and a desire for higher love-making

sweeps you upward.

Distance does not make you falter,

now, arriving in magic, flying,

and finally insane for the light,

you are the butterfly and you are gone.

And so long as you haven’t experienced

this: to die and so to grow,

you are only a troubled guest

on the dark earth.

~ Goethe, trans. Robert Bly

The Longest Night

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Solstice. Darkness. Hibernation. Think of the night and the earth and all the things that rest during these long, dark hours. When even our broken pieces sleep in the cold, moist, earthen soul. This is the fertile ground where our healing begins. Where we will someday wake into that day that may seem so far off to us now. When we are strong enough to gather our strength and our pieces together into something new.

It is a beginning. A time when our wounds become portals to a new world.

Blessing for the Longest Night

All throughout these months
as the shadows
have lengthened,
this blessing has been
gathering itself,
making ready,
preparing for
this night.

It has practiced
walking in the dark,
traveling with
its eyes closed,
feeling its way
by memory
by touch
by the pull of the moon
even as it wanes.

So believe me
when I tell you
this blessing will
reach you
even if you
have not light enough
to read it;
it will find you
even though you cannot
see it coming.

You will know
the moment of its
arriving
by your release
of the breath
you have held
so long;
a loosening
of the clenching
in your hands,
of the clutch
around your heart;
a thinning
of the darkness
that had drawn itself
around you.

This blessing
does not mean
to take the night away
but it knows
its hidden roads,
knows the resting spots
along the path,
knows what it means
to travel
in the company
of a friend.

So when
this blessing comes,
take its hand.
Get up.
Set out on the road
you cannot see.

This is the night
when you can trust
that any direction
you go,
you will be walking
toward the dawn.

~~Jan Richardson

Empathy

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I have been volunteering with a hospice organization. At first, I was not sure what I should say when sitting by the bedside of someone who is leaving this earthly realm very soon. After weeks of trying to convince myself that I had something of value that I could give to the hospice residents, I came across this poem by Susan Frybort. It helped me realize that my presence, silently sitting and listening could be what I might offer. This could be a soothing salve.

I hope when I take my last breath, someone is sitting beside me. Not with words of wisdom that might make my departure easier. That would be too heavy a burden to ask of anyone. But rather, their attentiveness. Just their being.

Empathy – spoken poetry

EMPATHY

by Susan Frybort

Today I woke feeling my ordinariness next to me.

I never wrote a masterpiece, painted a perfect landscape
or played an etude.
I cannot beat the African healing drum like a shaman
to intercede between the realms.
I don’t know how to touch people to resolve them of all their inner conflict or traumas.
I never looked into a crystal and saw the divine…
I’m not a psychologist,
a therapist, a counselor or a saint.
And Das is not part of my name,
my name is ordinary.
As I thought about how the opportunity to tend to a painful wound
as if it were an injured plant
or delicately administer soothing salve to another earthly soul
would not be mine because I do not possess the official requirements,
I felt a particular sadness,
as though I were, somehow, not enough.

Then suddenly I remembered everything is well within me.

For I know that all my certainties
and all that has ever been established before me
are in sacred correspondence.
I know about the stars and how they gather as constellations
to guide the wanderer through all the eras.
I know of the bamboo that will not flower until many years pass by
and how the blossom gives its life as nourishment and protection
so that the tiny seedling within may push forward and grow.
I know there are mysteries not fully understood.
I know each life holds a unique path,
eventually drawing to an end for all.

And when I sat at the bedside of an elderly woman dying,
or on my knees next to a fading animal struggling for her last breaths
after a long earthly journey,
there was no difference in my attentiveness.
I felt equal compassion for both,
then wept the same mournful tears.

And I know for certain that when I look into another human being,
whether they have eyes to see or not,
I can behold them.

I can view the hurt in them and feel the wounds in me.
It is a pain that agonizes quietly inside
as we share it…
So I reach out to comfort them.
These are the opportunities to extend
and touch another soul with all that is in me now.

And that is good enough for me.

Stay

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“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known …suffering…. and have found their way out of the depths.  (They) have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern.”   ~ Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

Today I am sharing a poem from a wonderful book I have recently come across that has brought me hope and comfort. It is by Jan Richardson titled, “The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief.”

Though the author wrote this book of blessings during her husband’s illness and subsequent passing, grief can come to us in many forms. Grief over lost dreams, over parts of ourselves that are not loved, the loss of so much of the natural world, the loss of our or a loved one’s physical abilities. Aging. Loss of memory. Loss of a pet.

But if we can stay with our grief until we come through to the other side, what blessings may await?

Blessing for the Brokenhearted

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What if I told you that by avoiding going deep and walking through the darkness of heartbreak, you only take yourself further and further away from who you truly are.

Many of us, if not most of us, do not believe we can carry that kind of pain for very long. We avoid feeling it and skim along the surface of the heartbreak, never taking a deep dive.

We keep afloat with distractions, self-medication, overwork, anything else but feeling.

These dark times, when we sink into grief and let it hold us like a heavy blanket, are the times that give birth to a new way of being in the world. That is that fertile soil from which we emerge with a tender yet strong heart, a heart that, despite the painful memories, wants to give and receive even more. A heart that knows how to carry grief and love together.

The only way out is through. And without that deep dive, we never know who we could become on the other side.

As Henry David Thoreau stated, “There is no remedy for love but to love more.”

Below is a Blessing for the Brokenhearted. I hope it gives you comfort.

A poem by Jan Richardson @ www.paintedprayerbook.com

BLESSING FOR THE BROKENHEARTED

Let us agree
for now
that we will not say
the breaking
makes us stronger
or that it is better
to have this pain
than to have done
without this love.

Let us promise
we will not
tell ourselves
time will heal
the wound,
when every day
our waking
opens it anew.

Perhaps for now
it can be enough
to simply marvel
at the mystery
of how a heart
so broken
can go on beating,
as if it were made
for precisely this—

as if it knows
the only cure for love
is more of it,

as if it sees
the heart’s sole remedy
for breaking
is to love still,

as if it trusts
that its own
persistent pulse
is the rhythm
of a blessing
we cannot
begin to fathom
but will save us
nonetheless.

—Jan Richardson

Construction Site

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When we begin to emerge back into the world after grief has struck, we become aware that we cannot emerge alone. A lifeline comes to us from a friend, family member, mother nature, poetry, community.

The time will come when we will tether ourselves to this lifeline and throw the other end out to someone else. So perhaps it is more than a lifeline. It is a web. One we share with all life and offer back to another someday. Weaving together ourselves with all that we love.

This is my reading of the poem, “Construction Site” from a poet found on Twitter @the_librarian1.

Construction Site by CL @the_librarian1 on Twitter

Please have a listen to the poet’s reading. It is absolutely beautiful.

Stardust

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Stardust comes to Earth

in our bones and blood

breath and being.

In loss and love and

mercy and cruelty scarring so deep,

they carve a new trajectory in humanity’s path

with each life,

as silk

rubbing over stone.

In time

we

will

go

back

home.

Earth’s Desire

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If your heart is heavy, if you feel exhausted from it all, plant your fingers in the soil of our Mother Earth, breathe in her breath that gently touches your skin as it passes, and walk barefoot on her body.

Let our Mother heal you. And let us care for her in return. This exchange of nurturing is what she needs now, as do we.

I share this poem written by a late, great elder of our time, Thomas Berry.

Video of Earth’s Desire by Thomas Berry

Earth’s Desire

By Thomas Berry

To be seen
in her loveliness

to be tasted
in her delicious
fruits

to be listened to
in her teaching

to be endured
in the severity
of her discipline

to be experienced
as the maternal
source
whence we come

the destiny
to which we
return.

Blessing for Coming Home to an Empty House

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I realized that I had not posted much lately. I am in the homerun stretch of graduating from the apprenticeship program at The Guild for Spiritual Guidance, which has carried me through the last two years in community and love. After this Sunday, I will be a graduate and will dive deep into my writing and sharing with you here in this space. I very much look forward to posting more.

In the meantime, I came across this poem by Jan Richardson. I hope it brings you comfort.

Blessing for Coming Home to an Empty House

I know
how every time you return,
you call out
in greeting
to the one
who is not there;
how you lift your voice
not in habit
but in honor
of the absence
so fierce
it has become
its own force.

I know
how the hollow
of the house
echoes in your chest,
how the emptiness
you enter
matches the ache
you carry with you
always.

I know
there are days
when the only thing
more brave than leaving
this house
is coming back to it.

So on those days,
may there be a door
in the emptiness
through which a welcome
waits for you.

On those days,
may you be surprised
by the grace
that gathers itself
within this space.

On those days,
may the delight
that made a home here
find its way to you again,
not merely in memory
but in hope,

so that every word
ever spoken in kindness
circles back to meet you;

so that you may hear
what still sings to you
within these walls;

so that you may know
the love
that dreams with you here
when finally
you give yourself
to rest—

the love
that rises with you,
stubborn like the dawn
that never fails
to come.

—Jan Richardson

Power of Beauty

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Beauty has the power to heal us. 

The divine beauty of nature can heal us.

Beauty of a flower,

of moonlight over the ocean,

of the colors of autumn. 

As I walk through this broken world,

I carry the shattered pieces of my heart

and they become like a constellation within,

lighting my path forward

to see beauty everywhere.

In every face,

Every flower,

Every tree,

Every rock.

Every step on this Earth is taken in a sacred place.

The Thing Is

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When the darkness of despair

finally gives way

to that small sliver of light,

I pull my eyes upward

toward the source of the light

And inward

to my heart,

knowing the two are connected.

I grab the edge of the light

and I hold tight

And let it bring me back to this indelible world.

Click for the Video of The Thing Is by Ellen Bass

Video of the poem The Thing Is

The Thing Is

BY ELLEN BASS

to love life, to love it even

when you have no stomach for it

and everything you’ve held dear

crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,

your throat filled with the silt of it.

When grief sits with you, its tropical heat

thickening the air, heavy as water

more fit for gills than lungs;

when grief weights you down like your own flesh

only more of it, an obesity of grief,

you think, How can a body withstand this?

Then you hold life like a face

between your palms, a plain face,

no charming smile, no violet eyes,

and you say, yes, I will take you

I will love you, again.

Haiku Poetry of Grief and Gratitude

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I have rediscovered Haiku poetry, a Japanese form of short poetry.  In the English language, Haiku is written according to the number of syllables: Three lines with 17 syllables.  5-7-5.  Japanese does not have syllables.  So, Haiku is written in what are durational sound units, sounds of equal duration.  In English, syllables can be of differing duration.  

I think I love Haiku so much for a couple of reasons.  First, because of my analytical side.  The counting of syllables and the effort it takes to fit a moment of life into 17 syllables is very satisfying to this woman whose favorite class in school (way back when) was math.  Many poets of Haiku in English think of this 17-syllable rule as a suggestion, and my older self is just fine with coloring outside the lines.

Second, Haiku helps me to reel in my errant thoughts and focus them like a light beam onto one moment, one object, a simple thing.  This is a type of meditation for me.  It has helped me, especially during these uncertain times. 

Noticing the smallest of things and being grateful for them, however fleeting, is what I attempt to hold in my hands as I walk through life now.

Here are a few Haiku poems focusing on grief and gratitude. I hope you find comfort in them.

Grief

A Japanese Poem Translated by Takashi Kodaira and Alfred H. Marks

At the deepest point

of grief, somebody nearby

breaks a withered branch

by Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828)

In a world

Of grief and pain,

Flowers bloom –

      Even then.

By Rev. Deb Vaughn

Just a single leaf…

One of many in autumn

A tree remembers

By Emily Thiroux Threatt

Remembering joy

Gazing into his brown eyes

We laughed together

by Hannah Spencer

“Not Fair”

How cruel my heart

is!… To persist in beating

although you’re gone…

by Dina Televitskaya

“Smile”

It has flown to me.

And it has given me grief.

It was your sad smile.

by P.S. AWTRY

“Not As Strong As She Seems”

formidable dam

     a breach in the night

          dread torrent of tears

by Paula Goldsmith

“Squirrel Time”

My cute furry friend

Eating nuts until the end

Chasing all your friends

Unknown

Morning fog rolls in

Not as dark as yesterday

         Or the day before

Gratitude

By Diane Yoza

My white coffee cup

So full of aroma

Sips to warm my heart

by David Byrne

“Beauty”

Ah, beauty must die

Impermanent flower

Showing gratitude

by Romeo Naces

“Grateful Sigh”

    …soil, sky and sea sigh

       gratitude from low and high

       we, us, you and I…

by Line Gauthier

“Summer Whispers”

summer whispers

in the garden of my life

  ~ chants of gratitude

by Dietra Reid

“Appreciation of Colors”

shades enlightened light

gratitude to primary

secondary thanks

by Suzy @ suzysomedaysomewhere.blogspot.com

Changing seasons drift

A twisting kaleidoscope;

   Life, a Thankful gift

The Thread

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What do I know of how to forge a path forward as the world is once again swept away in the wave of war?  What do I know of the significance of my life, a life, anyone’s life during these times?

One man’s dark dream can unleash such suffering onto the world that his name will live in infamy.

Another man’s courage can inspire millions and change the course of history.  Both names are written forever in the scarred and sacred journey of humanity.

It is easy to see the influence of lives such as these on our planet. 

But what of the rest of us?

Those of us who live quietly?  Who will never be globally influential or famous?

What can we do in times such as these? 

What is there for us to do?

What do I know of such things? 

I know of the beauty of the butterfly on the wind.

I know its life is short and quiet.  I know its life is essential to our world. 

I know the spiritual teachers of the past and present speak of the imperativeness of our connection to Spirit.

Our own spirit and the Great Spirit, God, Allah, Gaia, whatever name one chooses. 

As the past week has sent me into the depths of despair for the suffering that has been unleashed onto the Ukrainians, people I have never met, I sit in the embers of my hopelessness and try to hold tight to that which connects me to Spirit.  I pray for mercy and beauty and humanity.  I pray that those lost in the darkness of their own soul will find the string that connects them to love and the Divine.  I pray that they hold tight to that string.  And one by one, we can weave together a new path for humanity and all life on Earth.  Then perhaps there will be no more war. 

I leave you with this poem by Parker Palmer.  Hold tight to your string.