The Sacred Invitation of Grief

In a season of unraveling, when the landscape of our inner and outer world is shifting, we can feel overwhelmed...Our own losses, the way life has turned out differently than we'd thought, the state of our politics, the extinction of animals and pollution of waters and earth. We will be guided through the "5 gates of grief" outlined by Francis Weller in his book, The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief.

In Western culture, grief is sidelined as weak or unimportant and we seek distraction or denial in an attempt to hide it, rather than allowing the natural process to unfold. And our bodies, and relationships and world suffer for it. Historically, grief processes have been communal, held by ritual and shared compassion. It is only by allowing and tending to it that allows transformation to unfold into a force that allow us…