Grief - Songs of Sorrow, Seeds of Hope
As summer begins to loosen its golden grip, you may feel your bones attuning to the slower rhythm of fall, like a gentle drumbeat calling us inward. The seasons turn, and with them, so do we. At Sacred Moon, the months ahead will be devoted to tending grief; that quiet companion who so often lingers unseen.
I’ll name what many of us already know in our hearts: as a culture, we stumble with grief. Though it is woven into our everyday lives, true spaces that can hold its vastness and tenderness are rare. Here, we are choosing to lean in, to listen, and to honour grief as part of the great seasonal dance.
If you know anyone who is navigating any type of grief, please share and pass this blog along
Celtic Wisdom on Grief
In Celtic tradition, the turning of the seasons mirrored the turning of life and death. Autumn was not only harvest, but also a time of letting go; trees surrendering leaves, earth drawing inward, light waning. Grief was honoured as a natural season of the soul, not a problem to be solved. Just as winter eventually gives way to spring, sorrow was seen as part of a larger cycle that leads to renewal.
Traditionally, grief was not carried alone. Women known as bean chaointe (keening women) would gather to wail and sing laments at funerals. This was not seen as indulgence, but as sacred work, giving sound and form to the pain of the community, so it could be witnessed and released. The wails were thought to echo the cries of the earth and the spirits, linking human sorrow with the wider cosmos.
And so, as the seasons shift once again, perhaps the invitation is this: What might it feel like to let your grief be part of the great turning, not something to silence or carry alone, but a song that belongs to the wider circle of life?
The 5 Gates of Grief
Francis Weller, in his book The Wild Edge of Sorrow, (one of my favorite grief resources) speaks of five gates through which grief enters our lives. These gates offer a map, reminding us that sorrow has many forms and all of them deserve tending.
The First Gate: Everything We Love, We Will Lose
Every bond we cherish, people, places, even seasons will eventually shift or end. This grief is the price of love, a testament to the depth of our connections.
The Second Gate: The Places That Have Not Known Love
These are the hidden corners of ourselves, wrapped in shame or neglect. Grief arises from the parts of us that longed to be seen and embraced, but never were.
The Third Gate: The Sorrows of the World
We carry sorrow not just for ourselves, but for the earth, for communities in pain, for injustice and destruction. This grief connects us to the larger web of life.
The Fourth Gate: What We Expected and Did Not Receive
The unmet needs of childhood, love, recognition, belonging create grief for what never arrived. Naming this sorrow can bring a tender kind of healing.
The Fifth Gate: Ancestral Grief
We inherit the unresolved grief of those who came before us their traumas, losses, and displacements. To honour this grief is to lighten the burden for ourselves and for future generations.
These gates remind us that grief is vast, layered, and deeply human. It is not meant to be carried alone but tended in community, ritual, and compassion.
Reflection: As we step into autumn, which gate of grief feels most alive in you right now?