Making friends with grief

How do we draw wisdom from the pool of sorrow without falling in?

Even though it’s been 14 years since my mother died, I found myself in a particularly tender state of grief on the anniversary of her passing yesterday.

As I wrote earlier, my relationship with Mom was complicated, to say the least. In the first year or so after her death I found myself missing her more at the level of archetype than personality.

In other words, I didn’t miss her per se but rather grieved the acute predicament of being a cosmic orphan without the reference point of her presence in my life.

But now, 14 years later, the grief has become more personal—perhaps compounded by the reality of one’s own demise that aging brings; perhaps compounded by two close friendships I’ve recently outgrown; perhaps compounded by the weary parade of human and planetary suffering screaming across our screens each day.

Perhaps it’s been compounded by the glorious Autumn here in Southern Colorado made all the more poignant by its imminent, inevitable fade into winter.

The national forest land just across the street from my home. I’ve become positively enchanted by the aspens’ eyes that watch and wink as I pass through.

It’s at this seasonal interval, when everything in nature turns inward, that we might find vestiges of past losses forming a pool of grief in our being.

How can we take a generative relationship to such losses, so that we don't drown in the pool and collapse into depression?

I share some answers here, in a talk I gave to my Women, Food & Forgiveness Academy about how to harness the archetype of the Queen—she who transmutes her sorrow into leadership—to harvest the secret medicine of compassion that lies within the grief.

How is grief showing up for you these days? How might you draw from the wisdom in this talk to bring solace to your grieving?

Sharing our grief thoughtfully is one of the best ways to metabolize the pain and ease the heartache.

Let’s talk about it.