Grief and Love
‘Grief and love are sisters, woven together from the beginning; there’s 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’ (Francis Weller -The Wild Edge of Sorrow)
In order to fully turn and face into the headwinds of the incoming year, I recognise that I have to open my heart to the grief of the world and abide in what Joanna Macy named blessed unrest, and is often the way of things, a series of synchronicities led me to the beautifully profound The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller. A psychotherapist, writer and soul activist Weller presents us with the Five Gates of Grief; That Everything We Love, We Will Lose / The Places That Have Not Known Love / The Sorrows of The World / What We Expected and Did Not Receive / Ancestral Grief.
Weller writes ‘today, the sources of loss are multiple and tumble into our lives continually. Much of the grief we carry is not personal, it circulates around us, arriving on unseen currents that touches our soul. We are not isolated cells partitioned off from other cells, we have semi-permeable membranes that make possible an ongoing exchange with the great body of life. Our broken hearts have the potential to open us to a wider sense of identity – there is no isolated self stranded in the cosmos. The personal and planetary are inseparable, as is our healing.
When our grief cannot be spoken it falls into the shadow and resurfaces in us as symptoms. Grief is not a problem to be solved, not a condition to be medicated, but a deep encounter with an essential experience of being human. Grief becomes problematic when we are forced to carry our sorrow in isolation or when we are pressured to return to ‘normal’ too soon. Grief and loss touch us all; when we gather together in grief circles, the many tributaries of sorrow flow into the room and there is a dawning recognition that this is our shared sorrow – the communal cup from which we all drink. Loss binds us together in a potent alchemy, confirming the hearts intimacy with all things.
Grief work offers us a trail leading back to the vitality that is our birthright. When we fully honour our many losses, our lives become more fully able to embody the wild joy that aches to leap from our hearts into the shimmering world. This is a deep soul activism that encourages us to connect with the tears fo the world, calling us back to a life of intimacy and wonder.’
As I continue to rest in the womb of winter, my animal body knows this liminal time between the earth sleeping and waking as a time for visioning the year ahead. My vision is to hold space for community grief circles here at The Soma Rooms, and as such I plant this seed of intention deep in the fertile soil of my heart and will gently tend it. As Weller says ‘ the accumulation of losses are pressing on our psyches and demanding that we engage with the multiple sorrows that are enfolding our world and our lives. This crack in our denial is one of the most hopeful signs I see for the planet’.
Ali ROSE, founder of The Soma Rooms is a Registered Somatic Therapist, combining talking, clothed touch and movement that can support you physically, emotionally and psychologically. Recognising body and mind as inseparable we give space to what the body knows to support the integration of life experiences. Click to find out more about her individual therapy work in Chepstow and Bristol.