Session Twenty 2009

SESSION 20 – LOSS AND GRIEF, OCTOBER, 2009

ADAPTED FROM HEART TO HEART BY C. ROBINSON AND A. HAWKINS

Chalice: To be human is to know los; and, indeed, the more fully human we are, the more loss we will know and the deeper we will feel the losses; for the more we love and care, the more we have to lose.

Reading: “When we think of loss we think of the loss, through death, of people we love. But loss is a far more encompassing theme in our life. For we lose not only through death, but also by leaving and being left, by changing and letting go and moving on. And our losses include not only our separations and departures from those we love, but our conscious and unconscious losses of romantic dreams, impossible expectations, illusions of freedom and power, illusions of safety – and the loss of our own younger self, the self that thought it always would be unwrinkled and invulnerable and immortal. …For the road to human development is paved with renunciation. Throughout our life we grow by giving up. We give up some of our deepest attachments to others. We give up certain cherished parts of ourselves. We must confront, in the dreams we dream, as well as in our intimate relationships, all that we never will have and never will be. Passionate investment leaves us vulnerable to loss.

Quotes from the Common Bowl: see attached

1. What is a loss you’ve experienced that you’re willing to share with the group?

2. Are you always transformed by a loss? How? Do we always get “reshaped” after experiencing a loss of some kind?

3. Has a loss ever strengthened you in some way?

4. Are grief and loss always intertwined? Can you experience one without the other?

Closing ritual: May the light around us guide our footsteps, and hold us fast to the best and most righteous that we seek. May the darkness around us nurture our dreams, and give us rest so that we may give ourselves to the work of our world. Let us seek to remember the wholeness of our lives, the weaving of light and shadow in this great and astonishing dance in which we move.

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QUOTES FOR SESSION 20 – LOSS AND GRIEF, OCTOBER 2009

Whenever any kind of deep loss occurs in your life – such as loss of possessions, your home, a close relationship; or loss of your reputation, job, or physical abilities – something inside you dies. You feel diminished in your sense of who you are. There may also be certain disorientation. “Without this…who am I?”

A garden is always a series of losses se against a few triumphs, like life itself.

Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape.

We want to live like trees…dapples with scars, still exuberantly budding.

The only cure for grief is action.

Sorrow makes us all children again – destroys all differences of intellect. The wisest know nothing.

We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.

If you suppress grief too much, it can well redouble.

While we are mourning the loss of our friend, others are rejoicing to meet him behind the veil.

Grief is itself a medicine.