Abbey of the Arts

Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts

  • Welcome
    • Prayer Cycle
      • Introduction to the Earth Monastery Prayer Cycle
      • Day 1 Morning & Evening Prayer:
        Earth as the Original Cathedral
      • Day 2 Morning & Evening Prayer:
        Earth as the Original Scriptures
      • Day 3 Morning & Evening Prayer:
        Earth as the Original Saints
      • Day 4 Morning & Evening Prayer:
        Earth as the Original Spiritual Directors
      • Day 5 Morning & Evening Prayer:
        Earth as the Original Icon
      • Day 6 Morning & Evening Prayer:
        Earth as the Original Sacrament
      • Day 7 Morning & Evening Prayer:
        Earth as the Original Liturgy
      • Prayer Cycle Leader Resources
    • About the Abbey
    • About Christine Valters Paintner
    • About John Valters Paintner
    • About the Wisdom Council
    • Monk Manifesto
    • Join the Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks
    • Subscribe to Our Love Notes
    • Website privacy notice
  • Books
    • Sacred Time:
      Embracing an Intentional Way of Life
    • The Wisdom of Wild Grace: Poems
    • Earth, Our Original Monastery:
      Cultivating Wonder and Gratitude through Intimacy with Nature
    • Dreaming of Stones: Poems
    • The Soul's Slow Ripening:
      12 Celtic Practices for Seeking the Sacred
    • The Wisdom of the Body:
      A Contemplative Journey to Wholeness for Women
    • Illuminating the Way:
      Embracing the Wisdom of Monks and Mystics
    • The Soul of a Pilgrim:
      Eight Practices for the Journey Within
    • Eyes of the Heart:
      Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice
    • The Artist's Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom
    • Desert Mothers and Fathers: Early Christian Wisdom Sayings Annotated & Explained
    • Lectio Divina–The Sacred Art: Transforming Words and Images into Heart-Centered Prayer
    • Water, Wind, Earth & Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying with the Elements
    • Awakening the Creative Spirit:
      Bringing the Arts to Spiritual Direction
    • Lectio Divina: Contemplative Awakening & Awareness
  • Poetry | Art | Music
    • Music + DVD
    • Poetry by Christine Valters Paintner
    • Poetry Videos
    • Dancing Monk Icons
    • Other Art Collaborations
      • Monk in the World art series by Kristin Noelle
      • Saints & Animals art series by David Hollington
      • Sacred Time art series by Alexi Francis
      • Mary block print art series by Kreg Yingst
  • Programs
    • Live Programs: Pilgrimage & Retreats
      • Monk in the World (Ireland)
      • Writing on the Wild Edges (Ireland)
      • Vienna Monk in the World (Austria)
      • Hildegard of Bingen (Germany)
      • Awakening the Creative Spirit: Experiential Education for Spiritual Directors in the Expressive Arts (Northwest)
    • Community Online Retreats
      • Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color
      • The Way of the Hermit:
        A Spiritual Survival Guide for Dark Times
        with Kayleen Asbo, PhD
      • The Spiral Way:
        Celtic Spirituality and the Creative Imagination
      • Journey with the Desert Mothers and Fathers (Lent 2021)
      • Dancing with Fear in Troubled Times
      • Novena for Times of Unraveling
      • The Two HT’s-Harriet Tubman and Howard Thurman-on Being Free
      • Writing Into Bloom
        with Christine Valters Paintner
      • Sacred Time: Embracing an Intentional Way of Life (Spring 2021)
      • Poetry and the Sacred Garden of the World:
        An Online Writing Retreat
    • Self-Study Online Spiritual Retreats
      • Creative Flourishing in the Heart of the Desert:
        An Online Retreat with St. Hildegard of Bingen
      • Dreaming of the Sea:
        A women’s discernment journey through the story of the Selkie
      • Earth, Our Original Monastery
        A Companion Retreat to the Book (SELF-STUDY)
      • Exile and Coming Home:
        An Archetypal Journey through the Scriptures
      • Eyes of the Heart:
        Photography as Contemplative Practice
        (Companion retreat to the book)
      • Honoring Saints and Ancestors:
        Online Retreat for the Season of Remembrance
      • Lectio Divina:
        The Sacred Art of Reading the World
      • A Midwinter God:
        Making a Conscious Underworld Journey
      • Sacred Rhythms of Sky, Sun, Sea & Stone:
        A Creative Retreat with the Elements (SELF-STUDY)
      • Sacred Seasons:
        A Yearlong Journey through the Celtic Wheel of the Year
      • The Soul of a Pilgrim:
        Eight Practices for the Journey Within
        (a companion retreat to the book)
      • The Soul's Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices for Seekers of the Sacred (a companion retreat to the book)
      • Water, Wind, Earth & Fire
      • Watershed Moments
        in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures
      • Way of the Monk, Path of the Artist:
        A 12-Week Companion Retreat to The Artist's Rule
      • The Wisdom of the Body:
        A 10-Week Online Companion Retreat to the Book
      • The Wisdom of Mary and the Sacred Feminine
  • Calendar
  • Reflections
  • Contact

Grief

The Art of Grieving

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning is a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
[S]he may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
—Rumi (trans. Coleman Barks)

I am very familiar with the landscape of grief. My mother died almost three years ago after five days in the ICU with pneumonia, a huge loss for me as we were very close and I am an only child. At 61 she definitely died too soon.

Over ten years ago, my father died quite suddenly of a heart attack brought on by years of drinking and smoking. His death was in many ways a relief to me, but still brought its own kind of grieving along with it: the loss of a father I never really had.

I am aware this week as I deal with another significant loss in my life how the layers of grief are interwoven. Losing Duke so suddenly, feeling like he was literally torn from me, is heartbreaking. And it magnifies the history I have with sudden losses in my life. Not that loss after a long illness is any easier, I am just aware of this feeling that loved ones somehow vanish before me in a flash.

I could respond to this loss in a multitude of ways. Our society would want me to pretend that everything is still alright. That I can just get another dog to fill the hole that Duke has left. Mothers and fathers are supposed to die eventually and my mother had had years of dealing with serious chronic illness. I had many people tell me she was in a “better place.” I could drink or eat or take drugs or shop to numb myself, or any number of other possible ways of avoiding the feelings that swirl within me including letting work, or email, or television keep me from being fully present to my grief. Despite my familiarity with this terrain, it is never a place I get used to or comfortable with. Grief tears at us, exposing hidden wounds and raw places.

I love the poem above by Rumi. Each day it does indeed feel as though a “crowd of sorrows who violently sweep your house” has arrived. What happens when I stop resisting the pain, the anger, the rage within me at the fact that we have to lose anything at all? What happens when I surrender to the tide of feelings rising and falling within me? What if I am to consider my body a guesthouse, and the emotions that visit guides from beyond? Teaching me what it means to be fully human. Teaching me to know the range of what it is possible to feel. Teaching me deep compassion for all those who suffer around me. Teaching me of the preciousness of life and the delicate vulnerability of bodies. I also discover that in the midst of my sorrow, there also dwells gratitude, delight, pleasure in small things, abiding love for those closest to me. Rumi’s poem teaches me to make a place for all of this, to hold it together in all its ambiguity and messiness. Life does not unfold in neat packages or with clear step-by-step instructions. We are often flooded with a range of emotion, feeling confused or frightened.

I said last week that there is no way around this landscape of grief except for through it. Certainly I could pretend that I am fine and pretend all that really matters are the good feelings that are there alongside the raw ones. A year after my mother’s death I attended a grief retreat. One of the facilitators said that the degree of our grief is a measure of the love we had for the person we lost. I loved that phrase. It brought me such comfort. I loved my mother so much, certainly the vastness of my grief reflected that love. I am reminded of the phrase again as my love for my sweet dog was large and deep and wide and my grief will be as well. Grief tells us that we are alive. That something really and deeply mattered to us in a world awash with superficialities.

I believe that our grief is never fully resolved. We may come to a new relationship with it, but the process is more spiral than linear. Instead of “getting over it” we move to a new perspective with our losses. If we are able to grieve intentionally, that work of healing is facilitated. Perhaps some blessings even arise from the process.

So many of us carry grief that has gone unnamed, unclaimed, resisted, or pushed under. I often look for this orphan grief when I sit with people in spiritual direction. What are the losses that still linger for you and shape who you are? Perhaps it is a death, or maybe it is the loss of a job, a home, a relationship, an ability, an identity. When you breathe deeply and go inward, making space for whatever wants to come to your guesthouse today, what do you notice rising up in you? What has your grief taught you?

Our culture and even our churches do not give us many tools for healthy grieving. I will write more this week about some rituals and practices for the art of grieving.

-Christine Valters Paintner

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9 Comments August 27, 2006

Upcoming Programs

The Spiral Way:
Celtic Spirituality and the Creative Imagination

Hosted by the Rowe Center
February 1-21, 2021
with Christine Valters Paintner, PhD

Journey with the Desert Mothers and Fathers
Retreat for Lent 2021

February 17-April 1, 2021
with Christine & John Valters Paintner and Betsey Beckman

Recent Reflections

  • Celtic Spirituality and the Spiral Way ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess
  • Hildy Tales 3: Ní heolas go haontíos ~ by John Valters Paintner
  • Humility + Join us today for live prayer! ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess
  • Hildy Tales 2: Tús maith leath na hoibre – by John Valters Paintner
  • New Book Club for 2021: Lift Every Voice ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

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