Tag: Grief and Loss

topographia

Grief is the soul’s way of honoring what we have loved. It is not a state to be cured, but a wilderness to be journeyed through. While the world may see only affliction or distress, we recognize grief as the “keen sorrow” that carves out space for a deeper capacity to feel and exist. This space holds the totality of mourning—from the literal death of a loved one to the quiet bereavement of the lives we never got to live—inviting us to sit with the “sharp sorrow” until it reveals its transformative heart.

  • Flannel Shirt

    Flannel Shirt

    I am driving down Fourth Street, and my heart aches. It aches and pulls all the time since my husband died, but most of the time I keep ice on it.

  • Fear is the Mind-Killer

    Fear is the Mind-Killer

    Now that I’ve been a widow for a year and a half, I’ve been reminded yet again about how fragile life is, and more specifically how fragile I am. I am a limited resource, living on limited resources.

  • Hello, Traveler

    Hello, Traveler

    Hello, Traveler. As you make your way along life’s tumultuous highways, it’s important to note that you should always carry a map, have plenty of fuel in the tank, and take frequent rest stops.

  • Engaging Poverty

    Engaging Poverty

    One always looks for the way out of pain and crisis, because sitting in the crisis and feeling the pain seem unendurable. 

  • Perspective

    Perspective

    The truth is that we’re blind to reality. It’s usually blindness that gets us out of bed, not courage.

  • Tendrils

    Tendrils

    An unhappy peace settled on me: This is the way things are now that my husband is dead. I don’t know how they will be in the future. I only know how they are now.

  • From the Darkness

    From the Darkness

    Every break, every dissolution, everything that comes to an end after a time is part of the inner process of transformation. What changes outside changes the inside.

  • Tending the Flame

    Tending the Flame

    When alchemists failed at their projects, it was because they let their fire go out. The light, heat, and warmth went out of their work because they grew too weary to tend the flame.

  • In Case of Emergency

    In Case of Emergency

    When something in our world shifts to threaten our survival, we find ourselves plummeting from zenith to nadir in short order.

  • By the Throat

    By the Throat

    What are my psychological survival tools? What will help me maintain my sense of self? What will I need to believe, think, or do that will help me keep hope and joy alive?