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Cultivating an Apprenticeship with Sorrow
Grief and loss touch us all, arriving at our door in many ways. It comes swirling on the winds of divorce, or the death of someone dear, as an illness that alters the course of a life. For many of us, our grief is tied intimately to the ravages we witness daily to watersheds, forests and the disappearance of species, the silencing of languages, and the coarsening of culture. And yet our encounters with sorrow are often met with confusion, fear and overwhelm. We are uncertain how to meet this difficult guest when it surfaces in our lives.
This course is designed to inaugurate an Apprenticeship with Sorrow. It is through the rites of grief that we are, in turn, ripened as human beings. Grief invites gravity and depth into our world. Our work is to understand grief not only as an emotion, but also a core faculty of being human, a profound capacity to metabolize sorrow into something nutrient dense for the community. This apprenticeship is, at heart, about the crafting of elders capable of meeting the pain and suffering of the world with a dignified and robust bearing. This is soul activism intended to foster deep cultural change.
Cultivating the skills of grief work is critical in these days of wild uncertainty and rampant loss. While the pandemic has quickened our awareness of the fragile threads that hold a culture together, it is only one of the pending threats that we must come to face. Social issues such as systemic racism and economic disparity, global concerns around climate catastrophe, all weigh on us, requiring a strong and vital response. We need to fortify our inner and outer connections to not only weather the storms but to be tempered by them as well.
During our time together, we explored multiple threads that support and sustain our apprenticeship with sorrow. We wrestled with the challenges as well. The topics we engaged were not light or easy. We worked with the emptiness that many of us feel from the lingering effects of individualism; with the legacy of trauma in our lives and our ancestors and how the impacts in their lives are still present with us today. We acknowledged the truth of what lies ahead of us, the Long Dark, that carries with it anxiety and trepidation. In the end, we leaned into the truth of our entanglement with one another, with this shimmering world and came to honor the power of the heart's affections.
This is the work of our times. Grief and loss will be our constant companions. It is up to us to become skillful in the ways that keep our faces turned into the winds of sorrow. So much depends on these next decades and the upcoming generations. So much hinges on a heart enamored with the world. As our elder Wendell Berry says, "It all turns on affection."
Week 1. At the Heart of All Our Sorrows
Week 2. Rough Initiations: Radical Change in Uncertain Times
Week 3. Medicine for the Long Dark: Disciplines for the Underworld Journey
Week 4. It All Turns on Affection: Keeping the Heart Open
©2020 FRANCIS WELLER
Audio engineer: JOSE ENCISO
Production engineer: ALAN FITCH
Musical introduction: PHILIP RICHARDSON
Cultivating the skills of grief work is critical in these days of wild uncertainty and rampant loss. While the pandemic has quickened our awareness of the fragile threads that hold a culture together, it is only one of the pending threats that we must come to face. Social issues such as systemic racism and economic disparity, global concerns around climate catastrophe, all weigh on us, requiring a strong and vital response. We need to fortify our inner and outer connections to not only weather the storms but to be tempered by them as well.
During our time together, we explored multiple threads that support and sustain our apprenticeship with sorrow. We wrestled with the challenges as well. The topics we engaged were not light or easy. We worked with the emptiness that many of us feel from the lingering effects of individualism; with the legacy of trauma in our lives and our ancestors and how the impacts in their lives are still present with us today. We acknowledged the truth of what lies ahead of us, the Long Dark, that carries with it anxiety and trepidation. In the end, we leaned into the truth of our entanglement with one another, with this shimmering world and came to honor the power of the heart's affections.
This is the work of our times. Grief and loss will be our constant companions. It is up to us to become skillful in the ways that keep our faces turned into the winds of sorrow. So much depends on these next decades and the upcoming generations. So much hinges on a heart enamored with the world. As our elder Wendell Berry says, "It all turns on affection."
Week 1. At the Heart of All Our Sorrows
Week 2. Rough Initiations: Radical Change in Uncertain Times
Week 3. Medicine for the Long Dark: Disciplines for the Underworld Journey
Week 4. It All Turns on Affection: Keeping the Heart Open
©2020 FRANCIS WELLER
Audio engineer: JOSE ENCISO
Production engineer: ALAN FITCH
Musical introduction: PHILIP RICHARDSON
"Where there is sorrow, there is holy ground."
-Oscar Wilde
-Oscar Wilde
This program is suitable for individual or group work. A PDF is included with your purchase that offers instruction for the writing practice, several meditations, reflection questions to deepen your inquiry, and a list of poems shared during the recordings.
This program is suitable for individual or group work. A PDF is included with your purchase that offers instruction for the writing practice, several meditations, reflection questions to deepen your inquiry, and a list of poems shared during the recordings.