The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief

mindful to share these vulnerable truths only with people you fully trust. As Goethe said, “Tell a wise person, or else keep silent.”

Grief work is not passive: it implies an ongoing practice of deepening, attending and listening. It is an act of devotion, rooted in love and compassion.

dark angel of grief,

The Mayan people say we all carry a deep spiritual debt for what we are given, which we can never fully repay. They say it is important that we do our best to honor this debt

The normal shrine at these rituals is a water shrine. Water is the element of healing and renewal in many traditions. On this occasion, however, the element of fire was also being called in. Fire is the energy of passion and ignition, and it is often associated with the ancestors. People needed an energy field large enough to fully receive their pr

a wild alchemy of sorrow and joy, played out once again, as it always has been, in the container of sacred ritual.

We live, however, in a grief-phobic and death-denying society.

We need to create circles of welcome in our lives in order to keep leaning into the world; to keep moving grief through our psyches and bodies, so we can taste the sweetness of life.

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.