We long to feel cosmically significant, that it matters that we are here and that we make a difference.

There is some strange intimacy between grief and aliveness, some sacred exchange between what seems unbearable and what is most exquisitely alive. Through this, I have come to have a lasting faith in grief.

When all we are shown is the imagery of ascent, we are left to interpret the times of descent as pathological; we feel that we are somehow failing.

We live in a culture that has forgotten the basic needs of the soul. This is especially important today, as our world is increasingly dominated by the rhythm of the machine. As we succumb to the pressure to adapt to this rapid-fire world, we feel ripped out of our own natural human rhythms. Many of us feel exhausted, flattened by the energy

Through meaningful rituals, a community of friends, some time in benevolent solitude, and effective practices that help us stretch into our bigger selves, we are offered the opportunity to develop a living relationship with loss. We can recover a faith in grief that recognizes that grief is not here to take us hostage, but instead to reshape us in

We have the sense that we are on a slow walk with no obvious direction. Fortunately, grief knows where to take us; we are on a pilgrimage to soul.

the simple truth is that great loss is wasted if we do not use it, over time, to discover what lies beyond great

Contrary to our fears, grief is suffused with life force. It is riddled with energy, an acknowledgment of the erotic coupling with another soul, whether human, animal, plant, or ecosystem. It is not a state of deadness or emotional flatness. Grief is alive, wild, untamed; it cannot be domesticated. It resists the demands to remain passive and

My grief says that I dared to love, that I allowed another to enter the very core of my being and find a home in my heart.