Give Sorrow Words
Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak,
Whispers the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break.
(Shakespeare, Macbeth, 5.1.50-1)
Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak,
Whispers the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break.
(Shakespeare, Macbeth, 5.1.50-1)
Mother shooed us into the cellar. I turned my pockets inside out and showed her my discoveries. While we waited for the storm to pass, my mother told us stories: saints’ bones preserved in crypts of faraway cathedrals; healers who told the future by throwing bones as if they were dice; and air-raid cellars in…
“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.” —The Buddha (historically, Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.)
I propped up my feet wearing socks grabbed from a jumble bin in a thrift store. My socks and I relaxed and listened to the teachings coming in through the closed circuit TV from the ballroom. Afterwards, Bev came over and said, “Let me look at your sushi socks.” Sure enough, there they were…little prints…
Pelicans were part of my lyric life in Northern California as Daniel and I paddled round the small peninsula on Clear Lake in our kayaks and there, they are! A cloud of squawking white swirling and settling on the water. I see a blur of pelicans this morning, looking over my shoulder, as I drive…
We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails. ~Bertha Calloway, Founder of the Great Plains Black Museum
In The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Soyal Rinpoche in Chapter 19 “Helping After Dying” Rinpoche shares a beautiful HEART PRACTICE on pages 313-316 “that can truly help you when you are suffering from deep sorrow and grief. It is a practice my master Jamyang Khyentse always used to give to people who…
I loved the quote you use for this thought. My current book is about unwitnessed grief. I said that grief has many siblings — guilt, anger, separation among others but of course, Shakespeare says it best.
Your course sounds wonderful. I’ve suggested the “I remember” exercise and also the “I don’t remember” exercise that Natalie Goldberg uses in her Writing the Bones workshop. But your expansion of it to include differing points of view and to make it a way for people to express ranges of sorrow is truly inspired. Thank you for telling us about it on the Women writing the West website and for having this site and blog. You are appreciated! Warmly, Jane
I have articls about grief and a journal called A Year and a Day which I kept after losing my wife. Idaho State Unvieristy is the publisher.
Michael Corrigan