The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief

by Francis Weller

‘Tis a fearful thing To love What death can touch. To love, to hope, to dream, And oh, to lose. A thing for fools, this, Love, But a holy thing To love what death can touch.

Grief and love are sisters, woven together from the beginning. Their kinship reminds us that there is no love that does not contain loss and no loss that is not a reminder of the love we carry for what we once held close. Alone and together, death and loss affect us all.

“Where there is sorrow,” wrote Oscar Wilde, “there is holy ground.”

“This is my clock. I operate at geologic speed. And if you are going to work with the soul, you need to learn this rhythm, because this is how the soul moves.”