Healing Grief

What to do with the salt of suffering?

Posted by Diane Morrow on October 15, 2014 in Blog, Healing Grief, Healing Places, Healing Poetry, Writing and Healing Prompts

Sometimes when I’m at a loss for words it helps to come across other’s words, and just this morning I came across a treasure trove of poems at, of all places, a website of the Frye Museum, an art museum in Seattle, where they hold a weekly mindfulness meditation session on Wednesdays, and have published some poems and pieces they’ve used at these sessions. Here is one piece that seems particularly illuminating this morning. It’s not a poem, but it’s like a poem—a healing story as short as any poem. It’s not attributed to anyone. At another source I found it attributed to a Hindu master. Here’s the story: An aging master grew tired of his apprentice’s complaints. One morning, he sent him to get some salt. When the apprentice returned, the master told him to mix a handful of salt in a glass of water and then drink it. “How does it taste?” the master asked. “Bitter,” said the apprentice. The master chuckled and then asked the young man to take the same handful of salt and put it in the lake. The two walked in silence to the nearby lake and once the apprentice swirled his handful of salt in the water, the old man said, “Now drink from the lake.” As the water dripped down the young man’s chin, the master asked, “How does it taste?” “Fresh,” remarked the apprentice. “Do you taste the salt?” asked the master. “No,” said the young man. At this the master sat beside this serious young man, and explained softly, “The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains exactly the same. However, the amount of bitterness we taste depends on the container we put the pain in. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things. Stop being a glass. Become a lake.” Stop being a glass. Become a lake. I feel a small shift when I read that—I feel something get a bit larger. The salt may not change—or there may be a limit to how much I or anyone can change it. But I can change? I can become a lake? Maybe? And feeling this kind of shift when I read can be one of the things that words can do? What would it be like to become a lake? What could help make that happen? What could make the container get even a bit larger and more spacious than it is now? Say, even a pool? How might healing places shift the size of the container? How might meditation shift the size of the container? How might reading poems shift the size of the container? How might writing shift the size of the container? When have you felt the size of the container shift? How could you encourage that to happen again? The poems posted at the Frye museum can be found here. The photo is of Lake Mapourika in New Zealand and is by Richard...

Satellite Call by Sara Bareilles

Posted by Diane Morrow on September 14, 2014 in Blog, Healing Grief, Healing Poetry

A couple weeks back I wrote about William Stafford’s poem, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other,” and those lines that seem like such clear instructions: the signals we give—yes or no, or maybe— should be clear; the darkness around us is deep. After writing about the poem, this song, “Satellite Call” by Sara Bareilles, came to mind. Itself a poem. It seems to me as if in these lyrics Bareilles is following William Stafford’s instructions. Sending out a satellite call into and across the darkness: You may find yourself in the dead of night Lost somewhere out there in the great big beautiful sky You are all just perfect little satellites Spinning round and round this broken earthly life This is so you’ll know the sound Of someone who loves you from the ground Tonight you’re not alone at all This is me sending out my satellite call I also think it’s just such a pretty song. The video here is a live version, her singing at the piano in Indianapolis. I’ve also included a link below to a video version with lyrics. I love the idea of writing going out like a satellite call. So that we can become both receivers and senders. If you could send out a satellite call what would you say? And if you could receive one, what would you most like to hear? The song is from her album, Blessed Unrest. A video of the song with lyrics is here. The piece about Stafford’s poem is...

A Ritual to Read to Each Other by William Stafford

Posted by Diane Morrow on August 30, 2014 in Blog, Healing Grief, Healing Poetry

I came across this poem thanks to Daniel Sperry, a cellist who has been working on a CD of William Stafford poetry combined with cello music. In his Kickstarter campaign, which I stumbled across (and which is now fully funded) he includes a few lines from William Stafford’s poem, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other,” which I don’t believe I’ve ever heard before. It inspired me to go find the whole poem. The poem begins: If you don’t know the kind of person I am and I don’t know the kind of person you are a pattern that others made may prevail in the world and following the wrong god home we may miss our star. I like the way this poem calls us to responsibility. We may not know much, but the little we do know we have some responsibility to share, if even in conversation—to share something of ourselves, at least now and then—to say something true, perhaps, rather than what is expected, or might be approved of. Or to simply make the effort to show kindness. Even when it’s a risk. Even when we can’t know how it will be received. The poem continues: For there is many a small betrayal in the mind, a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood storming out to play through the broken dyke. Here he seems to be talking about the listening piece of conversation. How we receive what is offered to us—what is shared with us in conversation. a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break. How important it might be not to shrug or look away in response. How fragile the sequence can sometimes be. The pain that can be let loose on the other side when we turn away—those horrible errors of childhood storming out to play through the broken dyke. And we are the ones, at least some of the time, who can keep that dyke from breaking? Simply by paying attention? And looking for opportunities to keep the sequence from breaking? Two more stanzas and then the poem closes: For it is important that awake people be awake, or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep, the signals we give—yes or no, or maybe— should be clear; the darkness around us is deep. Ah, such urgency. I appreciate that. And I’m wondering now why he gives this poem the title he does. So that we might realize this is something we may need to read and understand not once, but over and over, like a ritual, or a practice? Maybe? May you be awake this week. May you be encouraged in becoming awake—and staying awake. The full poem can be found at WilliamStafford.org, a site set up by the Friends of William Stafford. Daniel Sperry’s Kickstarter can be found here. The photo was found at morningmeditations.com See also: A piece on Kindness by Naomi Shihab...

All Shall be Well?

Posted by Diane Morrow on July 17, 2012 in Blog, Healing Grief, Healing Poetry

For some reason a couple weeks ago, I found myself looking for the quote by Julian of Norwich about all being well. I found this: All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well which T.S. Eliot then included in the fourth quartet of his Four Quartets: And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well And I also found, unexpectedly, this song, which I quite like, by a young man by the name of Gabe Dixon. The song is called, “All Will Be Well.” ____________________________________________________________________ The photo at the top of this post is from Wikipedia. Julian of Norwich was a Christian mystic in the fourteenth century who is described as an anchoress. I had to look up the term and discovered it’s the female form of the term anchorite and refers to a kind of Christian hermit who devotes their life to prayer. Anchoresses lived in simple cells or anchorholds built against the walls of a church. The photo is of one such cell or anchorhold. She lived during a time of plagues. It’s possible (history about her is sketchy) that she could have become an anchoress after losing her husband and/or children. Or it’s speculated she may have become an anchoress to become quarantined. In any case, it does place her famous quote in an interesting context. Plagues were spreading and encroaching all around her and she was writing that all shall be well. Denial? Insanity? Radical...

When I Am Asked by Lisel Mueller

Posted by Diane Morrow on June 11, 2012 in Blog, Healing Grief, Healing Poetry

I’m not at all sure that June is the right time for grief. But I’m in the process of revising my book, and that’s what I’ve been working on these last couple weeks. It’s interesting. I’ve tended, for a variety of reasons, to look at grief more in November—that’s when I tend to hear and feel most the voices of grief—and to feel a resonance between those voices and the waning light. Now, in a sense, I feel as if I’ve been looking at grief out of season. We’ve also had an especially mild summer so far, with cool, fresh mornings, the windows open, the kind of air that makes me want to be out of doors, walking, and out working in the yard and garden. I’ve been finding a rhythm of writing and then working outside. I’ve cleared and swept the patio and some of the flower beds. I’ve transplanted purple salvia—and dug up an enormous fern for a pot on the patio. I’ve gotten water back into the birdbath and the birds have been coming for drinks. A hummingbird has found the purple salvia. The voices of grief in a new place—a greener, flowering place—with a hummingbird. There’s a poem by Lisel Mueller that speaks to this contrast—the contrast of grief and summer. It begins this way: When I am asked how I began writing poems, I talk about the indifference of nature. It was soon after my mother died, a brilliant June day, everything blooming. I sat on a gray stone bench in a lovingly planted garden, but the day lilies were as deaf as the ears of drunken sleepers and the roses curved inward. Nothing was black or broken and not a leaf fell and the sun blared endless commercials for summer holidays. I can see this—I can see how summer could seem indifferent to difficult feelings and difficult experiences. In her case this itself becomes a catalyst for writing. The poem continues: I sat on a gray stone bench ringed with the ingenue faces of pink and white impatiens and placed my grief in the mouth of language, the only thing that would grieve with me. Placing grief in the mouth of language. This seems important—and wonderful. I can also see how these kind of days—these cool, fresh mornings—could have the potential to offer a kind of balm for grief—as if one were allowing the voice of grief to emerge for a time in a new location—a kind of healing place. With the possibility of finding language there too—in the cool, wet green of summer mornings. ___________________________________ Photo from my patio...