Monday, October 16, 2017

Spiritual & Religious Care Awareness Week - Oct 16-22, 2017 ...



Spiritual health is the path to inner peace
regardless of the turmoil around you.

Anonymous




Hi Everyone!

This week is Spiritual and Religious Care Awareness (SRCWA) Week in BC. The theme for this year's observance is a timely one, Forgiveness in an Unforgiving World. (See the Canadian Multifaith Federation's SRCWA Handbook "Theme Readings" for an excellent list of resources on forgiveness.)

While a significant portion of the population professes no spiritual leanings at all, most people agree that we humans are endowed with a spirit that requires as much care and attention as our bodies and minds if we are to be fully "well".

Our research shows that those with a strong, nurturing spiritual life are more resilient to the impacts of adversity - our own and others'. Hundreds of rigorous, elegant, peer-reviewed scientific articles show spirituality as the root of wellness in children throughout the first decades of life and beyond.

In her best-selling book, The Spiritual Child: The New Science on Parenting for Health and Lifelong Thriving,  Columbia University researcher and author, Lisa Miller, PhD, says that children who have a positive, active relationship to spirituality are 40% less likely to use and abuse substances, 60% less likely to be depressed as teenagers and 80% less likely to have unprotected sex.

At the other end of the developmental spectrum, the Canadian Military Journal reports that, "Whereas religion/spirituality impacts military operations writ large, it can also play a significant part in the healing of individual warriors after those same operations." The US Department of Veteran's Affairs  also cites positive outcomes of healthy spirituality on PTSD and depression in some trauma populations and on the intensity of clinical symptoms like anger, rage and desire for revenge in trauma survivors. Healthy spirituality can also help with meaning making, the processing of guilt and moral injury and grief and bereavement after trauma and loss.

Spiritual and religious care providers are among the least well-recognized helpers in our communities. Those who support others in their spiritual development, particularly through times of crisis -  clergy, spiritual directors or guides, chaplains, pastoral care volunteers and others - may have the benefit of having spiritual resilience practices already in their toolboxes but they are still at risk for compassion fatigue and burnout.

The sheer volume of people seen by spiritual care providers, the traumatic circumstances under which these people often seek support, the need to protect confidentiality, expectations of exemplary reactions and behaviours on their part, and not infrequently, a culture of competition and judgement can all contribute to the symptoms of post traumatic stress, emotional disengagement and loss of capacity for empathy that are the hallmarks of compassion fatigue.

If others' spiritual wellness is at the centre of your helping work, (and even if it isn't) you are warmly invited to attend the next Caring On Empty: Creative Tools for Compassion Fatigue Resilience workshop on Friday October 27th at the Granville Island Hotel in Vancouver, BC. (email Jan for registration forms at caregiverwellness@shaw.ca)

And if the notion of positive spirituality is new to you, or it's been a while since you've thought about it seriously, here are a range of books with ideas you might enjoy exploring:


1.  The Spiritual Child: The New Science on Parenting for Health and Lifelong Thriving  (2015) by Lisa Miller

2.  Embers: One Ojibway's Meditations (2016) by Richard Wagamese

3.  Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life (1992) by Thomas Moore

4.  My Grandfather's Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge and Belonging (2000) by Rachel Naomi Remen, MD

5.  Soul Moments: Marvelous Stories of Synchronicity - Coincidences from a Seemingly Random World (1997) by Phil Cousineau

6.  The Spirituality of Nature (2008) by Jim Kainin


And here are a couple of great spiritually-based websites:

1.  Brain Pickings: An Inventory of the Meaningful Life 

2.  On Being: The Big Questions of Meaning


Whatever your personal spiritual leanings, perhaps this would be a good week to nurture that part of your life and to notice and show your appreciation for those who work to provide spiritual solace and support for others' spiritual growth.






Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Is Compassion Fatigue a Myth ...?







I discovered that compassion fatigue is a real thing.

Chris Marlow





Hi Everyone!

Happy Autumn! And welcome back from a hot, dry and smokey summer. I hope you've kept safe and well and have managed to make some time for respite and refreshment.

During the summer heat, a colleague sent me an article suggesting that Compassion Fatigue (CF) is a myth because compassion research (not compassion fatigue research) shows no negative effects of using compassion in relationships. This critique, like others I've seen over the years, seems to indicate a misunderstanding of the basic concept of CF. It assumes that CF arises from the use of compassion rather than from trauma exposure.

CF is, at its core, a trauma issue, not one of compassion or fatigue, as the name might suggest.  In CF, exposure to others' trauma and suffering leads to symptoms of posttraumatic stress in the helper , culminating in a diminished capacity for, or interest in, being empathic with others' suffering and in emotional withdrawal from the very people we are trying to help.

We don't know, conclusively, what mechanism accounts for the transmission of traumatic stress from helpee to helper. Some researchers/theorists relate the transmission to emotional contagion through empathic engagement, some to overuse of compassion, some to underuse of compassion, some to the accumulated undischarged fight-or-flight energy from the helper's posttraumatic stress reactions to helpee's stories, some to workplace issues, some to the helper's unconscious need to atone for perceived childhood "badness" through "caring too much" for others, and others, to childhood attachment issues.

In my own experience of CF, the core experience was one of compassion becoming fatigued through acccumulated trauma exposure, not through overuse of compassion. Even now, I remember having a vivid daydream in which I was walking along a semi-circle of closed doors inside my head, pausing briefly to open each one in search of the caring person I used to be. I knew, intellectually, that I had once been that caring person but could find no evidence of her in my current felt sense. My caring, and even my desire to care, had disappeared - and, in fact, it took some years for it to return fully.

I believe that we in the field hold some responsibility for the ongoing lack of clarity regarding CF.  We often do not refer in enough detail to the rapid evolution of CF nomenclature when we teach about CF. We chose a "user-friendly" but ultimately confusing term in naming the experience "compassion fatigue" rather than "secondary traumatic stress".  And we don't yet agree on a standardized definition for CF. (Much of our theoretical fuzziness can be resolved through a careful reading of reading Chris Marchand's excellent article, Compassion Fatigue: History of a Concept.)

So, do I think CF is a myth? No, it is a real, painful and debilitating experience that requires the addressing personal trauma, workplace trauma and their accompanying burnout and accumulated grief in order to heal fully.  It is a response to trauma exposure rather than an over- or underuse of compassion.

The best news is that we now have skills and strategies that will help to ease the effects of our secondary traumatic stress and boost our resilience.

If you're interested in learning more, please do consider joining us at the next Caring On Empty Workshop at the Granville Island Hotel in Vancouver on Friday, October 27th. (email me at caregiverwellness@shaw.ca for registration brochures.)





Monday, July 10, 2017

Living With Uncertainty ...






Uncertainty is the refuge of hope.

Henri Frederic Amiel





Hello Everyone,

Again, it's been quite a while since I've been able to write here. I've been spending many hours a day working with the frozen shoulder that resulted from last year's fall and arm fractures and, more recently, I've also been working to find a new home after my landlords of 22 years decided to stop renting my half of the house (!) (Fortunately, neither situation has interfered with my ability to continue the teaching I love and plans are well underway for the fall workshops.)

As one who has always been more comfortable with a predictable life, this has been a time of uncomfortable uncertainty, a threshold time of limbo, angst and hope. Like all thresholds, it holds both anxiety and possibility. While I'm concerned about when my arm will heal and where my new home will be, allowing myself to live into the threshold experience has brought its own gifts. After the initial panic, I've found myself slowing down, waiting, and exercising (at least a modicum of) patience; spending more time with options and possibilities; and opening more to trust and synchronicity. It's been a liminal time of s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g and learning new responses to uncertainty and unpredictability.

Any time we humans find ourselves in the in-between place of uncertainty, a time when the familiar has already disappeared but the new hasn't yet arrived, we tend to experience a full range of uncomfortable reactions - fear, anger, irritability, grief, rigidity, forgetfulness, paralysis, loss of humour, aggression, fatigue, vulnerability and disorganization, to name but a few. If we can allow ourselves to tolerate, and even lean into the sources of this discomfort, and WAIT, we will probably find that it is also a time of hope and creativity.

Waiting in the threshold is an active kind of waiting. We pause as long as need be and then slowly put one foot in front of the other, trusting that we will see each next logical step as we move ahead. (As the poet, Antonio Machado, says the way is made by walking.)  This "active waiting" requires a great deal of presence, mindfulness, trust and listening, an openness to what is and to what might be. It asks us to be willing to risk living at the growing edge and being uncomfortable. It forces us to relinquish our desire for certainty and control and to walk into the fog of unknowing.

For many of us, questions like these help to guide us into and through the fog:


1.  How can I calm my body so I can think clearly?
2.  What do I want/need? What are the deep desires of my heart?
3.  Where am I now and where might I be headed?
4.  What is the meaning of this time? Why this and why now?
5.  How can I step outside the box of my habitual patterns and see this situation with "beginner's eyes"?
6.   What/whom will sustain me in this in-between place so my imagination and creativity can flourish?
7.   In what/whom can I trust and abide deeply to provide a supportive sense of hope?

Questions like these expand our awareness and help us to make better decisions as we make our way forward. Whether you're facing the uncertainty of job loss, a loved one's illness, the loss of a partner, economic uncertainty or other imposed change, may such questions help you to feel your way toward more certain times. 







Friday, April 21, 2017

Reverence for the Earth ...



The earth and all creatures are
imbued with intrinsic value
and worthy of reverent care.

Bron Taylor




 Hi Everyone!

Tomorrow is Earth Day 2017 and a reminder that we are all tasked with being care-givers for our beloved planet. As with most tasks, this one is easier to fulfill when it flows naturally from deeply held values such as reverence for the Earth and all its creatures. 

Reverence is one of those words used rarely enough that we may be excused for being a little unsure of its meaning. The Oxford Dictionary defines it as, "a deep respect for someone or something". The Reverence Project,  a programme of the Spirituality and Practice website, says that reverence enhances worth and awe and balances or counters wastefulness and ennui (a kind of world-weariness). It is a way of being and acting embraced by ancient cultures and valued, now, by our own indigenous communities.

Spirituality educators, Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, describe the basic spiritual practice of reverence this way:

Reverence is the way of radical respect. It recognizes and honours the presence of the sacred in everything - our bodies, other people, animals, plants, rocks, the earth, and the waters. ...
Nothing is too trivial or second class for reverence. But it has to be demonstrated with concrete actions. Don't abuse your body - eat right, exercise, get enough rest. Don't abuse the earth by being wasteful of its gifts. Protect the environment for your neighbours and future generations.
Reverence is also a kind of radical amazement, a deep feeling tinged with both mystery and wonder. Approaching the world with reverence, we are likely to experience its sister - awe. Allow yourself to be moved beyond words.

So, how might we take concrete action to show reverence for the Earth and her creatures tomorrow  and in the days to come? Here are just a few suggestions:

1. Spend time in nature every day - what we learn to love we will want to protect.
2. Make a baby-step change in your daily habits: don't leave the water running when you brush your teeth, turn the lights off when you leave a room, walk or bike or take public transit, fix a leaky faucet, give up bottled water, buy local, go paperless.
3. Make a phone call and encourage your elected representatives to follow through on the environmental promise to reduce methane emissions, no matter what other governments are doing or not doing.
4.  Do everything possible to save green space - and where you can't, plant new trees to help compensate for losses.
5.  Insist on power from clean, renewable resources.
6.  Develop a greener spirituality. Learn more by reading books like Essential Writings by Albert Schweitzer, A Sacred Place to Dwell: Living With Reverence Upon the Earth by Henryk Slolimowski, Sacred Trees by Nathaniel Altman, Field Notes by Barry Lopez, The Hidden Life of Trees by Tim Wohlleben and Tim Flannery,  Why I Wake Early and A Thousand Mornings and others by Mary Oliver, At Home On the Earth edited by David Landis Barnhill or What are People For? by nature poet Wendell Berry.
7.  Get involved in a community garden. Grow and share your own fresh produce.
8.  Volunteer for an environmental charity.
9.  Join a March for Science. 
10.  Go vegan or vegetarian.
11. Have an eco-swap party. Trade good old stuff with family, friends and neighbours.
12. Support green political initiatives

However you choose to mark Earth Day 2017, do it with reverence and allow yourself the joy of participating in the protection of this wonderful world.



Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Embers: One Ojibway's Meditations ...



All we have are moments. So live them as though not one can be wasted. Inhabit them, fill them with the light of your best good intention, honour them with your full presence, find the joy, the calm, the assuredness that allows the hours and the days to take care of themselves. If we can do that, we will have lived.

Richard Wagamese
Embers: One Ojibway's Meditations



Good morning, Everyone!

Yesterday, as I put my life back together after a week on Vancouver Island facilitating two wonderful workshops, my long-awaited copy of Richard Wagamese' last book, Embers: One Ojibway's Meditations, arrived in the mail.

Stopping only long enough to make a piping cup of tea, I curled up on the couch and opened the small volume, savouring its smooth cool pages, fitting photographs of Nature and her creatures and the sweet, spare, honest prose of Richard's hard won wisdom. Within moments, tears were rolling down my cheeks as I sat, overwhelmed by the emotional and spiritual power of his words. I thought, "This is my new book of scripture. My new source of sacred writings." If I could live my life in accord with these truths-of-the-heart, I would live my life well.

Richard writes as one who had long ago died in order to survive but then, at the time of writing, had come back to life in all its fullness. There is wonder, simplicity, authenticity and clarity in his wise words and every short meditation opens a window to hours of transformative reflection.

If you have not read this book, do order it now as a Spring gift to yourself. Here are a few quotations that may entice you:

Keep what's true in front of you, Old Man said. You won't get lost that way. I was asking about making my way through the bush. He was talking about making my way through life. Turns out, all these years later, it was the same conversation.
I'm learning that happiness is an emotion that's a result of circumstances. Joy, though, is a spiritual engagement with the world based on gratitude. It's not the big things that make me grateful and bring me joy. It's more the glory of the small: a touch, a smile, a kind work spoken or received, that first morning hug, the sound of friends talking in our home, the quiet that surrounds prayer, the smell of sacred medicines burning, sunlight on my face, the sound of birds and walking mindfully, each footfall planted humbly on earth.
There are periods when you exist beyond the context of time and fact and reality. Moments when memory carries you buoyant beyond all things, and life exists as fragments and shards of being, when you see yourself as you were and will be again - sacred, whole and shining.
There is sunlight in the mountains today. The morning is crisp and clear as untrammelled thought. Against the sky, the trees raise crooked fingers in praise. To be here is to be affected, made more. Filled. The creative energy of the universe. Drink it in, my friends ... 
May the rich writings of this lovely little book touch and help to transform your life.







Thursday, March 23, 2017

On Becoming Wise ...




This is a book for people who want to take up the great questions of our time with imagination and courage, to nurture new realities in the spaces we inhabit, and to do so expectantly and with joy.

Krista Tippett





Hello Everyone!

Happy Spring! I'm beginning this wondrous season of new life by reading Krista Tippett's intelligent, reflective, small "s"spiritual book, Becoming Wise

Krista is a Peabody Award-winning broadcaster, New York Times best-selling author and the recipient of the US National Humanities Medal for "thoughtfully delving into the mysteries of human existence". She is the host of the US National Public Radio program and blog, On Being(one of my favourite places to go on a rainy Saturday afternoon with a hot cup of tea), and a wise woman in her own right.

I love this book. I'm reading it with two friends and we're discussing it chapter-by-chapter using the equally thoughtful study guideI commend both to you.

Here are some quotes from the Introduction to the book:

Change has always happened in the margins, across human history, and it's happening there now.  Seismic shifts in common life, as in geophysical reality, begin in spaces and cracks.
The interesting and challenging thing about this moment is that we know the old forms aren't working. But we can't yet see what the new forms will be.
History always repeats itself until we honestly and searchingly know ourselves. 
Our spiritual lives are where we reckon head-on with the mystery of ourselves, and the mystery of each other.
We create transformative, resilient new realities by becoming transformed, resilient people. 
Our spiritual traditions have carried virtues across time. They are not the stuff of saints and heroes, but tools for the art of living. They are pieces of intelligence about human behaviour that neuroscience is now exploring with new words and images: what we practice, we become. 
Listening is about being present, not just about being quiet ... 
The world right now needs the most vivid, transformative universe of words that you and I can muster. And we can begin immediately to start having the conversations we want to be hearing, and telling the story of our time anew.
I hear the word love surfacing as a longing for our public life everywhere I turn.
I have yet to meet a wise person who doesn't know how to find some joy even in the midst of what is hard, and to smile and laugh easily, including at oneself... (Humour) is one of those virtues that soften us for all the others. 
I define hope as distinct from optimism or idealism. It has nothing to do with wishing. It references reality at every turn and reveres truth ... Hope, like every virtue, is a choice that becomes a habit that becomes spiritual muscle memory. It's a renewable resource for moving through life as it is, not as we wish it to be.
What has gone wrong becomes an opening to more of yourself and part of your gift to the world. This is the beginning of wisdom.

If this is the Introduction to Becoming Wise, you can imagine what the rest of the book offers to an open, reflective and hopeful mind. Enjoy!


Friday, March 3, 2017

Holding Space ...



In such a holding environment the (person) is consistently there as an attuned, solid, reliable, trustworthy presence.

Linda Finlay
Relational Integrative Psychotherapy



Hello Everyone,

During the seven years I spent care-partnering my husband as his heart failure progressed, I noticed some significant differences in the ways that people tried to support me. Some stayed with Derrick so I could do errands or get a break, some sent funny or encouraging notes and letters, some went grocery shopping for me, some accompanied me to waiting rooms while Derrick underwent procedures, some brought meals, some visited and gave me hugs, some helped financially, some gave me advice, some tried to make me happy with their sometimes relentless cheerfulness and some just sat beside me and listened. It's the support of these latter dear people I'd like to explore more deeply today.

One of the most skilled companions to sit with me and listen during those illness years, and during the early years of my bereavement, was my spiritual director, Wendy. Perhaps because her core training and the central mission of her work was to "be" with others as they walked their life journeys, she rarely, if ever, slipped into "doing" or "advising" mode. I never felt pressured to be other than who I was. She had no expectations of changed behaviour or mood (or if she did, she hid them admirably!) She just created a small space of silence, safety and restfulness in the midst of the chaos of my life where I could take the time to breathe and be.

There is enormous healing power in this sort of "relationship of presence" and, judging by the number of blog posts featuring the notion of "holding space" to be found on the internet right now, the idea of creating a safe holding environment for our own and others' developing wholeness is hitting a new tipping point. The notion of holding space is not a new one. It has been a core feature of good psychotherapy, spiritual companioning, bodywork, healthcare, communications, teaching and family caregiving for many years. What is changing, now, I think, is our recognition that we can all learn to "hold space" for ourselves and each other as we go through difficult events, transitions and healing processes.

To hold space is to compassionately companion ourselves or someone else as we walk through a difficult experience - to walk alongside with respect and support but without judgement. It means having clear boundaries between where our experience ends and the other's begins. For active people it can feel uncomfortable, like "doing nothing", but in fact it's doing something very important. It's intentionally creating a safe space within which we or another person can explore and express experience and, through that process, find comfort, healing, learning and growth. 

One of the best descriptions of holding space that I know is that of grief specialist, Alan Wolfelt, in his work on companioning:

Companioning is about:
~ honouring the spirit, not focusing on the intellect.
~ curiosity, not expertise.
~ learning from others, not teaching them.
~ walking alongside, not leading.
~ being still, not frantically moving forward.
~ discovering the gifts of sacred silence, not filling every painful moment with words.
~ listening with the heart, not analyzing with the head.
~ bearing witness to the struggles of others, not directing those struggles.
~ being present to another person's pain; not taking away the pain.
~ respecting disorder and confusion, not imposing order and logic.
~ going to the wilderness of the soul with another human being, not thinking you are responsible for finding the way out.

Wouldn't you just love to sit with someone who practiced and honoured these ways of being? In a similar vein, Narrative coach, Heather Plett, offers 8 lessons she has learned about holding space for others:

1.  Give people permission to trust their own intuition and wisdom.
2.  Give people only as much information as they can handle.
3.  Don't take away their power.
4.  Keep your own ego out of it.
5.  Make them feel safe enough to fail.
6.  Give guidance and help with humility and thoughtfulness.
7. Create a container for complex emotions, fear, trauma etc.
8.  Allow them to make different decisions and to have different experiences than you would. 

Whatever language we use, the process is about being deeply present, still, quiet and supportive in the face of our own and others' pain so the voice of that pain can be heard, acknowledged and accepted and healing and growth can happen. Is there someone in your life who could use some place holding or companioning today?




Friday, February 17, 2017

Compassion Fatigue Bibliography ...



Knowledge will bring you
the opportunity to make a difference.

Claire Fagin




Hi Everyone,

I have just been updating the bibliography for the Caring On Empty workshop in preparation for workshops in Calgary and Vancouver Island next month and I thought you might like to have a look at some of the additions. Here they are:


1.  Articles:

*  Anderson, L (2016) The impact of a knitting intervention on compassion fatigue in oncology nurses Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing Feb 2016, Vol 20(1), 102-104

*  Claxton-Oldfield, S (2015) Hospice palliative care volunteers: Stressors, how they cope with them and implications for volunteer training/management  American Journal of Hospice and Palliative medicine Feb 10, 2015

*  Gilman, L et al (2015) Strategies to promote coping and resilience in oncology and palliative care nurses caring for adult patients with malignancy: A comprehensive systematic review JBI Database System Rev Implement Rep 2015 June 12;13(5):131-204

*  Labib, MYT (2015) Compassion Fatigue, the Wellness of Care Providers and the Quality of Patient Care BSc Honors Thesis Portland State University Paper 205

*  Jack, Kirsten (2017) The meaning of compassion fatigue to student nurses: An interpretive phenomenological study J of Compassionate Health Care (2017)4:2 doi 10.1186/s40639-017-0031-5

*  Miller, B and Sprang, G (2016) A components-based practice and supervision model for reducing compassion fatigue by affecting clinician experience Traumatology January 28, 2016  doi.org/10.1037/trm0000058

*  Thieleman, K and Cacciatore, J (2014) Witness to suffering: Mindfulness and compassion fatigue among traumatic bereavement volunteers and professionals  Social Work January 1, 2014

*  Zehr, KL (2015) The Effect of Education on Compassion Fatigue as Experienced by Staff Nurses Doctorate of Nursing Practice Thesis, Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, Indiana Evidence Based Practice Reports. Paper 65


2.  Books:

*  Levine, Peter (2015) Trauma and Memory: Brain & Body in a Search for the Living Past North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, CA

*  Richardson, Jan (2016) The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief Wanton Gospeller Press, Orlando, Florida

*  Esfahani-Smith, Emily (2017) The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life That Matters Viking Press

Enjoy!





The Wild Edge of Sorrow ...



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.

Francis Weller
The Wild Edge of Sorrow




Hello, Everyone,

I began the post below earlier last month but was interrupted and forgot to hit the "publish" button so here it is now, sans the snow! .....

Here in Vancouver, we are trapped in the wilds of winter with more snow on the ground, in the trees, on the roads and in the air in this past week than we usually see in a year! The whole world seems to be held in muted abeyance, hibernating as it waits for its natural rhythms to return. It's a time to bury yourself in a cozy blanket with a good book and that's just what I've been doing all weekend.

Having lost four dear ones since mid-December (five, if we count my sister's Maggie-dog, a lovely Bernese Mountain Dog who captured all our hearts), witnessed the devastation of so many  lovely trees at the lake during this year's unusual snowfalls, been stunned by the deaths of six innocent Muslims at prayer in Quebec City and experienced profound sorrow at the hateful rhetoric arising from so many parts of our world, I have been reading a new-to-me book on grief. I'd like to share some of its goodness with you this morning.

Francis Weller's book, entitled The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief, is one of the better volumes on grief I've had the pleasure to read. Beautifully written, it covers five categories of loss which Weller says form five gateways to grief

1.  The gateway of illness and death
2.  The gateway of the parts of our selves that didn't receive love -  parts that were then lost  through being wrapped in shame, banished and marked unworthy
3.  The gateway of the world's sorrows -  the loss of care for the earth and the devastated state of the earth and its creatures 
4.  The gateway of what we expected and did not receive -  the loss of the welcome, engagement, touch and reflection we are all hardwired to expect at birth and throughout our lives but may not have received because we weren't raised by a village that could meet multiple needs or because
5.  The gateway of ancestral grief - the losses of our ancestors, often unknown or unacknowledged, and the secondary losses arising from the ways in which they coped with their pain (violence, alcoholism, eating disorders, emotional abuse and neglect, rejection of culture etc), all still carried within our bodies

Weller spends a good deal of time talking about the importance of ritual, a form of support readily available to the bereaved but often missing for people with disenfranchised grief such as chronic sorrow. Because this grief response is not mentioned specifically in the book, the volume also lacks the needed cautions reminding family caregivers to avoid doing deep grief work around more than one loss at one time so as not to become overwhelmed.

I found this book a poetic read with exquisitely evocative language. It provides a needed reminder for all of us to acknowledge and work with our losses so they don't have a continuing negative impact on our selves and our world and so that our personal aliveness can be kindled through the transformation of our grief. Weller's writing is empathic and resonates with the grief of the reader and, although its  recommended group work for healing grief is not a process that appeals to my introverted soul, it obviously appeals to and helps many others. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about ritual and the healing of grief.

A second book I've found supportive and soothing in these days of sadness is Jan Richardson's new book, The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief. While written from the specific perspective of a United Methodist minister and new widow in the US, this book touches on universal themes of loss, grief and transformation and invites us to "know the tenacity of hope and to recognize the presence of love which ... is 'sorrow's most lasting cure'". Here is one of Jan's new blessings, one which I think applies to caregivers as much as to the bereaved:


The Blessing You Should Not Tell Me

Do not tell me
there will be a blessing
in the breaking,
that it will ever
be a grace
to wake into this life
so altered,
this world
so without.

Do not tell me
of the blessing
that will come
in absence.

Do not tell me
that what does not
kill me
will make me strong
or that God will not
send me more than I
can bear.

Do not tell me
this will make me
more compassionate,
more loving,
more holy.

Do not tell me
this will make me
more grateful for what
I had.

Do not tell me
I was lucky.

Do not even tell me
there will be a blessing.

Give me instead
the blessing
of breathing with me.

Give me instead
the blessing of sitting with me
when you cannot think
of what to say.

Give me instead
the blessing
of asking about him -
how we met
or what I loved most about the life
we have shared;
ask for a story
or tell me one
because a story is, finally,
the only place on earth
he lives now.

If you could know
what grace lives
in such a blessing,
you would never cease
to offer it.

If you could glimpse
the solace and sweetness
that abide there,
you would never wonder
if there was a blessing
you could give
that would be better
than this -
the blessing of your own heart
opened and beating
with mine.


Blessings to all of you who grieve today.



Saturday, January 7, 2017

Quickening ...





There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time.  This expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost. The world will not have it. 

It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself and your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware of the urges that 
motivate you.  Keep the channel open.

Martha Graham



Happy 2017, Everyone!

I hope you've had a peaceful and refreshing holiday season. 

The rather old fashioned word, quickening, has been playing at the front of my mind this week as I've prepared to spend the next two months writing. Quickening has several meanings -  to make more rapid, to enliven or return to life, to excite or stimulate and to reach the stage of pregnancy when a baby's movement is felt. It is the middle ones that we're interested in here.

Quickening is an experience of hope and possibility and potential. It is the restless energy that initiates growth and creativity whether we are moving into a new stage of development, painting a masterpiece, building a fence or coming up with a more comfortable way to tape a catheter to a loved one's leg. We can see examples of quickening in nature each Spring as seemingly lifeless seeds and branches respond to an inner urging that coaxes them to life. 

We are all familiar with these excited stirrings that can enliven and motivate us. I can recognize quickening in my own life when I spend time in contemplative silence; when grief lightens after a loss; when the first snowdrops push through in the spring; when I return from a fibre fair with a bag of beautiful yarns for a new project and when I feel the urge to take my camera to the lake, open to receiving whatever images may appear. I also feel a spark of this vital energy when I've struggled through a dry spell in my writing and then, suddenly, disparate thoughts fall into place and I rush to the computer to capture them before they disappear.

What about you? Where might you be feeling quickening or new aliveness emerging this New Year? Is something within trying to catch your attention, to help you solve a problem, to enliven a new part of you, to take you in a new direction? It doesn't have to be anything monumental. In fact, quickening often speaks in quiet excitement about seemingly small possibilities. We just have to learn to notice and pay attention to this voice of excitement and then respond.

Here, once again, is one of Jan Richardson's poems which I think well describes the experience of quickening:


This restless hope
is what drives me
beyond the weariness
beyond the discomfort
beyond every thought
that what I carry within me
will never come to birth.

This restless hope
beyond all reason
flutters beneath my heart
and grows within my soul.

It is beyond me,
and it is of me,
and it is delivering me
home.


I hope 2017 will be a year of possibility and promise for each of you. May you find ways within whatever constraints are present to "keep the channel open", to feel the quickening and to respond in the most life-giving ways you can.