Tending to the sacred inside of you

Choosing to become a grief pilgrim is choosing to step into the territory of Soul with our grief. When we deepen into a soulful relationship with ourselves, there is more opportunity to cultivate a healthy and even beautiful relationship with our grief. In doing so, we create more vitality and meaning in our lives. Becoming a grief pilgrim is about embracing what is, and allowing what is to ripen us into the humans we came here to be.

Grief is a human capacity, worthy of cultivation. It is a powerful and beautiful expression of love. Francis Weller writes that “Grief reveals the undeniable reality of our bond with the world.” Although we are culturally most familiar with grief being associated with the death of a loved one, we grieve for many reasons.

We may experience grief in divorce when we lose the imagined life we thought we would share forever with our partner. We may grieve when we lose the health of our bodies, or body mobility and vitality. We grieve for the ravaging of planet earth, for the loss of species, clean air and water. We grieve for the loss of an imagined healthy future for our children. We grieve for the loss of human dignity, integrity and kindness. We may grieve for the lives we didn’t have; for the attuned parents we didn’t have, the mentors we didn’t have, the elders, ceremonies, stories, rituals, kindness, love we never got.

Grief is a vast territory in the inner landscape that is nuanced and subtle and complex and unique.

Making good relations with this journey of loss and grief is simply a part of being and becoming human.