Even immersed in the blossoming and birth of spring, I’m aware of grief. A card comes, honoring the lives and passing of Tiger and Bella. Others have passed. I’m in a place of deep feeling, and in that place is gratitude.
I read these words by Bhante Sumano, from “One Thing for Sure”:
As Buddhist practitioners, we aim to let go of our attachments. At first, grieving for something or someone we’ve lost may look like clinging, but it’s actually a process of acknowledging our loss, which allows us to heal from the pain and loosen our grip on the past.
I’m not a Buddhist practitioner, though I have intention for non-attachment and living a philosophy of acceptance and trust by responding with “Is that so?
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s poem, “Seascape Near Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer” continues her examination of living with grief. Vincent Van Gogh writes to his brother Theo about the sea.
It’s always changing.
You can’t even tell if it’s blue because
a second later the changing light
has taken on a pink or gray tinge.
It wasn’t very cheery but neither was it sad
It was beautiful.
And isn’t grief the same, complex and always changing, allowing us to live even more deeply in the layers within us, the layers of soil, rivers, trees, and sea.
Stephen Levine: To heal is to touch with love that which was previously touched with fear.
The Poem:
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