I’m appreciating my friend and colleague Kinde Nebeker (New Moon Rites of Passage) today. She is supporting and guiding so many deep and needed layers of change.
I went to her to get some help working with grief. In the spirit of Francis Weller’s “apprenticeship with sorrow.”
Kinde hosted me through a process of listening, council / dialogue, and shamanic journey. This is the kind of work that is so much needed for many of us these days.
I’m grateful to Kinde for her knowing stuff, and for her intuition of knowing what’s helpful and when.
Kinde also offered me this poem, from the 13th century Persian poet, Rumi. To help learn the sweetness of grief.
The Undressing
Learn the alchemy
true human beings know.
The moment you accept
what troubles you have been given,
the door opens.
Welcome difficulty,
as a familiar comrade.
Joke with torment,
sent by the Friend.
Sorrows are old rags of clothes
and jackets that serve to cover,
and then are taken off.
This is the undressing
and the naked body underneath
is the sweetness that comes
after grief.
Rumi
