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

by Francis Weller

I remember the difficulty I faced when I attended my first grief ritual. I watched as dozens of men and women fell to their knees, weeping and expressing their sorrow. I could not touch my grief, could not coax it to the surface and onto the ground. I stood there numb, frightened by the raw display of suffering. It wasn’t until I participated in my third grief ritual that I was able to release my tears. I needed to keep going, needed to be near the energy of sorrow. I couldn’t run away, because I was aware that I had a reservoir of grief in my body but lacked the means of freeing it. I realized now how frozen I was, how disconnected I had become from my emotional body. Learning to befriend this vulnerable piece of soul has, in turn, opened the way to experiencing a much wider array of emotions—joy, love, anger, sadness, delight, amazement—the entire range of my emotional landscape.