to truly grieve
is to, somehow
(by Grace?)
find the guts
to welcome
goneness
Grief and sadness are often mistakenly thought to be the same. They aren’t. Sadness will have its time and place – usually in the immediate aftermath of a loss. But sadness isn’t good company for those whose work is to grieve.
Sadness, as Byron Katie so succinctly put it, is “a hissy fit”. Sadness looks backwards and wants the what-is to still be the what-was.
Grief meets the what-is with no agenda other than to be 100% present, nakedly nowful.
The astonishing gift of grief and grieving is that it opens us to a love beyond anything we have ever known.
Rashani Réa, in her quietly, powerfully, honest book Beyond Brokenness says she has never met anyone who isn’t unconsciously holding grief.
I decided to take a look, and yes. There it was, patiently awaiting the impartial light of awareing. A little list of gonenesses, each one a treasure, an irreplaceable chapter in the story of a Life.
As this unlit light beams them into presence they come into full bloom, they mature and scatter their seeds of wisdom. Then – they vanish.
The only residue is the wetness on my cheeks.
And this love!
This sweet, helpless, holy love; it is love to die for.
Might you have a goneness list in hiding?
Go for it beloved.
Whoever finds love
beneath hurt and grief,
disappears into emptiness
with a thousand new guises
~ Rumi
this unlit light 
So beautiful Miriam!!
Gosh you are on-the-ball dearest Susan! The print wasn’t even dry!
Thanks and love
~ ml
Inexpressible gratitude to Rashani for the writing that beams through her, and for her beautiful friendship.
~ ml
Beautifully said. I have lived this truth to the deepest possible extent. It is a lonely road back home to the Self. Much must be discarded and yet at some point, it is all given back to us.
Yes, dear Vicki, you are a shining light for us all. Gratitude for your heart-full comment.
In love
~ ml
Dearest ML…So beautiful to read This first thing this AM.
I see such such dear Light of Lights on this comment thread.
Thank You….xoxo ♥
-L.
And you are one of those dear Lights, Leslie!
Thank you for your joy and generosity
Love always
~ ml
All pains the immortal spirit must endure,
All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow,
Find their sole speech in that victorious brow.*
Shakespeare
* savage wisdom?
Could be. I don’t know the context dear AM. But thank you for commenting – perhaps other readers will be more Shakespeare-savvy than I am!
~ ml
Truth and beauty…hugs!
Maria! Lovely to find you back here again. Thanks for your appreciative comment, and the hugs.
Love
~ ml
“It seems to me that almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension, which we feel as paralysis because we no longer hear our astonished emotions living. Because we are alone with the unfamiliar presence that has entered us; because everything we trust and are used to is for a moment taken away from us; because we stand in the midst of a transition where we cannot remain standing. That is why the sadness passes: the new presence inside us, the presence that has been added, has entered our heart, has gone into its innermost chamber and is no longer even there, – is already in our bloodstream. And we don’t know what it was. We could easily be made to believe that nothing happened, and yet we have changed, as a house that a guest has entered changes. We can’t say who has come, perhaps we will never know, but many signs indicate that the future enters us in this way in order to be transformed in us, long before it happens. And that is why it is so important to be solitary and attentive when one is sad: because the seemingly uneventful and motionless moment when our future steps into us is so much closer to life than that other loud and accidental point of time when it happens to us as if from outside. The quieter we are, the more patient and open we are in our sadnesses, the more deeply and serenely the new presence can enter us, and the more we can make it our own, the more it becomes our fate.”
— Rainer Maria Rilke
A beautiful contribution dearest Rashani!
Gratitude and love
~ ml