The Wild Edge of Sorrow, page 18
After a short pause to let this truth sink into our bones, someone picks up the bowl, and there is a procession outside, where the water is poured onto a plant, taking our grief and turning it into nourishment for the green world. Someone then agrees to take the stones to a river, a pond, or the ocean, so the movements of the water can scour these stones clean once again. This is a simple yet powerful ritual.
This ritual has been used in many settings: a community dealing with the suicide of one its youths; a group of activists protesting a logging action along the Canadian border; and as a process for a monthly grief circle.
Speaking to the Earth
This ritual is common among many cultures, and we have adapted it for our use. This ritual is often experienced alone, though you can invite witnesses to join you. It is useful for those times when you are alone and feel the need to move grief out of your body. The deep truth that emerges from this ritual, however, is that you are never fully alone. In this particular ritual, you come to feel the loving pulse of the earth surrounding you.
Find a place outdoors that feels utterly safe. It may be your backyard, a friend’s backyard, or a place in the wild. Dig an opening in the earth big enough for you to speak into, approximately a foot wide and a foot deep. Begin by saying some words of gratitude to the earth for being able to receive your grief. Place some tobacco or ash—which are often used in traditional cultures as offerings—or any offering you feel is right for you into the hole as you say your words of gratitude. Then let the earth know what you need. You can say something like, “I have been carrying this grief for so long, and I cannot hold it any longer. It is too big for me. It is weighing me down and depriving me of any joy. I know you can hold this sorrow. In fact, you can turn it into something sweet for the roots that rest in your body. I do this to set down my sorrows so I can better participate in the mending of our community. Thank you for being here for me and all of us.”
Then, lying on your belly, speak, weep, cry, or scream your grief into the earth. She is able to take it all in and will reshape it into nutrients for all life. When you are done, it is important for you to thank the earth for her loving and holding. Close the opening and leave it as close as possible to how you found it, so no one would know that something had happened in this spot.
I have suggested this ritual many times to individuals with whom I work. Inevitably, they return feeling lighter and moved by the feeling of benevolence they felt from the earth during the ritual.
Resources for Working with Grief
There are many sources of support for working with our grief. Here are a few.
POETRY
Baca, Jimmy Santiago. Healing Earthquakes. New York: Grove Press, 2001.
Berry, Wendell. New and Collected Poems. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2012.
Hall, Donald. Without. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1998.
Hogan, Linda. Dark. Sweet: New and Selected Poems. Minneapolis, MN: Coffee House Press, 2014.
———. The Book of Medicines. Minneapolis, MN: Coffee House Press, 1993.
Housden, Roger. Ten Poems to Say Goodbye. New York: Harmony Books, 2012.
Machado, Antonio. Times Alone: Selected Poems of Antonio Machado. Translated by Robert Bly. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan Press, 1983.
Nye, Naomi Shihab. Words under the Words. Portland, OR: Far Corner Books, 1995.
Oliver, Mary. Thirst. Boston: Beacon Press, 2006.
Rilke, Rainer Maria. Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke. Translated by Robert Bly. New York: Harper and Row, 1981.
———. In Praise of Mortality. Translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy. New York: Riverhead Books, 2005.
Whyte, David. Where Many Rivers Meet. Langley, WA: Many Rivers Press, 1990.
———. Pilgrim. Langley, WA: Many Rivers Press, 2012.
Young, Kevin (ed.). The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing. New York: Bloomsbury, 2010.
RITUAL/PRACTICES
Fox, John. Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making. New York: Tarcher/Putnam 1997.
Goldberg, Natalie. Thunder and Lightning: Cracking Open the Writer’s Craft. New York: Bantam Books, 2000.
Grimes, Ronald. Deeply into the Bone: Re-inventing Rites of Passage. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
Hinton, David. Hunger Mountain: A Field Guide to Mind and Landscape. Boston: Shambhala Books, 2012.
Nepo, Mark. The Endless Practice: Becoming Who You Were Born to Be. New York: Atria Books, 2014.
Rosen, Kim. Saved by a Poem: The Transformative Power of Words. New York: Hay House, 2009.
Sardello, Robert. Silence. Berkeley, CA: Goldenstone Press, 2006.
Somé, Malidoma. The Healing Wisdom of Africa: Finding Life Purpose through Nature, Ritual, and Community. New York: Tarcher/Putnam, 1998.
PSYCHOLOGY/SOUL WORK
Cornell, Ann Weiser. The Power of Focusing: A Practical Guide to Emotional Self-Healing. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications, 1996.
Deardorf, Daniel. The Other Within: The Genius of Deformity in Myth, Culture and Psyche. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2009.
Epstein, Mark. The Trauma of Everyday Life. New York: Penguin, 2013.
Glendinning, Chellis. My Name Is Chellis and I’m in Recovery from Western Civilization. Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1994.
Greenspan, Miriam. Healing through the Dark Emotions: The Wisdom of Grief, Fear, and Despair. Boston: Shambhala Books, 2004.
Hollis, James. Swamplands of the Soul: New Life in Dismal Places. Toronto: Inner City Books, 1996.
Levine, Stephen. Unattended Sorrow. Emmaus, PA: Rodale Press, 2005.
Macy, Joanna, and Chris Johnstone. Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in without Going Crazy. Novato, CA: New World Library, 2012.
Moore, Thomas. Dark Nights of the Soul: A Guide to Finding Your Way Through Life’s Ordeals. New York: Gotham Books, 2004.
Murphy, Susan. Minding the Earth, Mending the World: Zen and the Art of Planetary Crisis. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2014.
Nicholsen, Shierry Weber. The Love of Nature and the End of the World: The Unspoken Dimensions of Environmental Concern. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002.
Plotkin, Bill. Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche. Novato, CA: New World Library, 2013
Ray, Reginald. Touching Enlightenment: Finding Realization in the Body. Boulder, CO: Sounds True, 2008.
MEMOIR
Didion, Joan. The Year of Magical Thinking. New York: Knopf Books, 2005.
Moore, Kathleen Dean. Wild Comfort: The Solace of Nature. Boston: Trumpeter Press, 2010.
Romanyshyn, Robert. The Soul in Grief: Love, Death and Transformation. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 1999.
Williams, Terry Tempest. Finding Beauty in a Broken World. New York: Pantheon Books, 2008.
———. Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place. New York: Vintage Books, 1992.
HEALING
Hogan, Linda. Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995.
Jensen, Derrick. A Language Older Than Words. New York: Context Books, 2000.
Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony. New York: Penguin Books, 1977.
STUDY GUIDE
If you would like to work with my book in a group setting, you can use a study guide that has been created by Kim Gosney. Kim directs the educational programs at Pacific Unitarian Church in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. To order a study guide, contact Kim at moments2amplify@att.net.
FILM
Many films touch on the experience of loss and sorrow. I have listed a few for your consideration.
Angels in America (2003, directed by Mike Nichols).
Antwone Fisher (2002, directed by Denzel Washington).
As It Is in Heaven (2004, directed by Kay Pollak).
Dead Poets Society (1989, directed by Peter Weir).
Departures (2008, directed by Yojiro Takita).
Griefwalker (2008, directed by Tim Wilson).
In America (2002, directed by Jim Sheridan).
Kundun (1997, directed by Martin Scorsese).
Lars and the Real Girl (2007, directed by Craig Gillespie).
Legends of the Fall (1994, directed by Edward Zwick).
The Secret Life of Bees (2008, directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood).
Smoke Signals (1998, directed by Chris Eyre).
NOTES
Preface
1. James Hillman’s thoughts on the soul of the world revealing itself through symptoms comes from his book The Thought of the Heart and the Soul of the World (Dallas: Spring Publications, 1981).
2. James Hillman addressed his concerns regarding “psychological moralism” in a series of talks at Pacifica Graduate Institute. The program was called “The Art, Practice and Philosophy of Psychotherapy” and was recorded between June 29 and July 1, 2007.
3. Primary satisfactions. These are the basics of our lives, matters essential to our well-being: how to welcome our children into the world, how to give thanks, how to help our youth move through the whitewater of adolescence into adulthood, how to grieve together, and how to replenish and renew the world. These practices address how we can assure an adequate measure of belonging in one another and how we can maintain an intimacy with our inner and outer worlds. When these basics are met, we are at ease in our bodies and connected with the others in the world, sensing that all lives are comingled with ours. These basic requirements are our primary satisfactions. They are the undeniable and irrefutable needs of the psyche that were established over the long journey of our species and are imprinted in our beings as expectations awaiting fulfillment.
4. Wittgenstein’s quote can be found in Stephen Buhner’s excellent book, Ensouling Language (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2010), 54
5. Mary Oliver, “The Summer’s Day,” in New and Selected Poems (Boston: Beacon, 1992), 94.
6. Pema Chödrön, the gentle Buddhist teacher, has written many books offering her wisdom to the world. This phrase was very meaningful to me. The extended statement is “everything we encounter becomes an opportunity to develop the outrageous courage of the bodhi heart.” No Time to Lose: A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva (Boston: Shambhala, 2005), 7.
One: An Apprenticeship with Sorrow
7. The soul of the world is a term that refers to a belief or perspective found in many traditional cultures. It suggests that the world is animated, filled with soul. Within this perception, everything possesses soul and, as such, carries an interior reality worthy of respect. This way of seeing the world provides an intimacy with the living body of the earth, which, in turn, encourages an ethic of respect, restraint, and protection.
8. Rilke, “It’s Possible,” in Selected Works of Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. Robert Bly (New York: Harper and Row, 1981).
9. John O’Donohue’s elegant phrase regarding an “approach of reverence” comes from his book Beauty: The Invisible Embrace (New York: HarperCollins, 2004). It is also found on his website, at www.johnodonohue.com/reverent-approach.
10. Jung’s thoughts on the complex are found in his essay “A Review of the Complex Theory,” in The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, volume 8, trans. R. F. C. Hull (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1960), par. 253.
11. Stephen Jenkinson, The Haiku Sessions, 2012, DVD, http://orphanwisdom.com/shop/haiku.
12. Dark wisdom is a term that comes from the thought of Michael Meade. This wisdom comes from the soul, from the experience of having gone down into the world of body and emotion and found the truths that emerge from this deep place.
13. Robert Romanyshyn, The Soul in Grief: Love, Death and Transformation (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 1999), 9.
Two: To and from the Soul’s Hall
14. I thank Michael Meade for introducing me to the idea of the sudden village.
15. Linda Graham, Bouncing Back (Novato, CA: New World Library, 2013), 134.
16. Denise Levertov, “To Speak,” in Selected Poems (New York: New Directions, 2002), 65–66.
17. Hillman’s quote is from his marvelous collection of essays on alchemy, Alchemical Psychology, Uniform Edition, vol. 5 (Putnam, CT: Spring, 2010), 23.
18. Barry Spector, Madness at the Gates of the City: The Myth of American Innocence (Berkeley, CA: Regent Press, 2010), 415. This book is a powerful reading of Western culture through the lens of myth.
19. Freeman House, Totem Salmon (Boston: Beacon Press, 1999), 201.
20. Mary Watkins and Helene Shulman, Toward Psychologies of Liberation (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008), 122–23.
21. Mary Gomes, “Altars of Extinction: Honoring the Broken Circle of Life,” Reclaiming Quarterly, www.reclaimingquarterly.org. The Altars of Extinction project began in 2002.
22. Stephen Levine, Unattended Sorrow: Recovering from Loss and Reviving the Heart (Emmaus, PA: Rodale Press, 2005), 6.
23. Robert Bly ignited a re-visioning of masculine psychology with his book Iron John: A Book about Men (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2004), 81.
Three: The Five Gates of Grief
24. I first heard this stunning poem when my friend Doug von Koss recited it at a gathering. I have researched the origins of the poem and some sources say it was written by that famous author Anonymous, and others attribute it to the names listed in the chapter.
25. Carl Jung’s vivid description of his experience following his heart attack was found in Kat Duff’s illuminating book, The Alchemy of Illness (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993), 98.
26. The Cancer Help Program at Commonweal, in Bolinas, California, is a powerful healing retreat for individuals facing the challenges of a life-threatening illness. Learn more at www.commonweal.org.
27. Kat Duff, The Alchemy of Illness (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993), 125.
28. Susan Griffin, “Nature,” in Bending Home: Selected and New Poems: 1967–1998 (Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 1998), 119.
29. I am deeply indebted to Gershen Kaufman for his marvelous work with shame. It offered me and many others a way of holding a deep source of suffering with the hands of compassion. His book, Shame: The Power of Caring (Rochester, VT: Schenkman Books, 1992) is essential reading.
30. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “The Holy Longing,” in The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart: A Poetry Anthology, ed. Robert Bly, James Hillman, and Michael Meade (New York: HarperCollins, 1992), 382.
31. Diane Ackerman’s quote was found in Newsweek, September 22, 1986.
32. Gudrun Zomerland, “Trauma: The Shaking of a Soul,” Chinn Street Counseling Center, www.chinnstreetcounseling.com/zomerland/zomerland_24.shtml.
33. Mark Epstein brilliantly weaves together Buddhist insights and psychological theory to offer a way out of the maze of trauma. The Trauma of Everyday Life (New York: Penguin, 2013), 23.
34. James Hillman, Insearch: Psychology and Religion (Putnam, CT: Spring, 1967), 56. Hillman’s observations about symptom and soul are invaluable in our approach to grief and suffering.
35. David Whyte is one of our most soulful poets. “Coleman’s Bed” is a teaching on inviting all that has been outcast. River Flow: New and Selected Poems (Langley, WA: Many Rivers Press, 207), 288–89.
36. I am grateful to Pesha Gertler for the permission to use her deeply moving poem. “The Healing Time,” in Claiming the Spirit Within (Boston: Beacon Press), 319.
37. Chellis Glendinning, My Name is Chellis and I’m in Recovery from Western Civilization (Boston: Shambhala, 1994), 161.
38. This was a statement of the alchemist Sendivogius. See James Hillman, “A Psyche the Size of the Earth: A Psychological Foreword,” in Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind, ed. Theodore Roszak, Mary Gomes, and Allen Kanner (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1995), xxi.
39. Naomi Nye, “Kindness,” in Words under the Words: Selected Poems (Portland, OR: Far Corner Books, 1995), 42–43.
40. Thomas Berry, The Dream of the Earth (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1988). In this book, Berry explores the disrupted relationship that has emerged between modern humans and the earth.
41. Paul Shepard, interview by Jonathan White in Talking on the Water: Conversations about Nature and Creativity. (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1994), 214. Shepard is someone who has profoundly altered my ways of thinking. I highly recommend his works.
42. R. D. Laing, The Politics of Experience (New York: Ballantine Books, 1971).
