Beginning our Apprenticeship with Loss
Part 2 of our series on Francis Weller’s work on the Five Gates of Grief
“Each of us must undertake an apprenticeship with loss." - Francis Weller
Loss seems an inevitable part of the lived human experience, but how do we begin our apprenticeship with it to turn our loss into the fertile ground of growth that those like Francis Weller and Carl Jung speak of?
In our first article of this series, we touched on Francis Weller’s assertion that we must allow ourselves to fully feel and process our grief - even those sources of grief which we may not have realized existed - in order to open to the fullness of our lived experience.
Weller has identified five gates that he believes can be powerful catalysts of healing and growth, if we are willing and able to work with the grief that lies within each one.
So what are they?
Francis Weller’s Five Gates of Grief
Loss of something or someone we love (which brings up the realization that we’ll eventually lose everything we love) - the loss of a loved one is the kind of grief we typically hear about in our society. What comes with this loss, inevitably, is the grief around the fact that we will eventually lose all of the forms that we once knew and loved.
Loss of parts of ourselves that have never known love (and which we therefore got rid of or hold in judgment) - Weller calls these losses to the integrity of our being. When parts of us were judged or not accepted by others when we were younger, they didn’t have the chance to fully integrate into our lives. These parts are then lost to us, and must be grieved in order to move forward with our lives in a fuller way.
Sorrows or losses of the world - we reach this gate through connecting to the collective grief around everything going on in the world: loss of ecosystems, war, lack of humanity, etc. and also all of the little things we see in our daily lives, like homelessness, roadkill, a parent disrespecting a child at the grocery store…the list goes on.
What our souls expected when we came into this world and did not receive - this speaks to our nervous systems being wired for the deep time, the tribal or village life experience of our ancestors including community, ritual, stories, deep connection with nature, cultural traditions, etc. - and finding something very different as we were born into and woke up more and more to this world.
Ancestral grief - loss of intact ancestral communities, traditions, and cultures - some of us may be more aware of this than others, but all of us in Western society have experienced this loss to one extent or another, as well as many losses and horrors as these losses occurred.
We may read about these gates, and instantly touch into our grief. We may feel it in our bodies, feel like crying or otherwise expressing emotion. We may feel nothing, or feel that these gates are impossibly vague, wondering what application they could possibly have in our real-world lives.
Regardless of our initial reaction, it can be helpful, and sometimes necessary, to seek help from loved ones or a professional who can hold safe space for us, and provide us with the required empathy, safety, and support to move through these thresholds in a beneficial way. (We just might be surprised what we find when we allow ourselves to feel what these gates have to offer!)
According to Weller, we should get comfortable working through these losses. “Each of us must undertake an apprenticeship with loss," he says in his book. (Check out our Five Gates of Grief Meditation here to begin - or further - this apprenticeship, and to feel how these gates are activated for you.)
Weller emphasizes the importance of giving space to all of our grief, though our flatline culture, as he calls it, has no words for many of the things we are grieving. We also have little if any communal grief practices, according to Weller. This keeps us from our joy, and points to essential human needs that our society is not meeting and solutions that we can not create until we grieve what is there.
(Read more about these gates in Parts 1 and 3 of this segment, check out the meditation on the gates on our podcast here, or experience them interactively and through meditation here.)
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The preceding was our take on Francis Weller’s work and is intended to share - but not to prescribe. We know grief can be many things - but rarely easy - and encourage all to seek help who may feel overwhelmed while moving through these experiences. Grief is hard, because life is precious <3.
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Resources:
Francis Weller, Wild Edge of Sorrow book and website, https://www.francisweller.net/the-wild-edge-of-sorrow-the-sacred-work-of-grief.html
Francis Weller on Grief (2013), Video:
You’re Going to Die, http://www.yg2d.com (We recommend following their socials)