Ritual. That’s a word, a practice, that I have despised and regarded as totally unnecessary throughout most of my life. Thankfully, I’m learning how wrong I was. Now I appreciate ritual. I sometimes long for it.

Ritual can be elaborate and something you must plan for in advance. Equally viable, it can be simple and something that just comes to you on the spur of the moment. Your ritual could be naming a loss, writing it down and then burning that paper. You might dance in movements to match your feelings as you talk to it or say good-bye. Perhaps you’ll honor it with five minutes of silence, or sit beside a spring and speak to it. Let your heart lead you in what to do.

I think in large part, recognizing the grief of a loss and then commemorating it in ritual gives it a place to belong. It builds a shelf for it and honors its role in the story of our life. It brings healing and closure. Otherwise, grief falls to the floor as clutter. It slowly deteriorates. Eventually we smell its stink but can no longer remember what it was. We don’t know what’s bothering us, only that we hurt. 

It’s far better to welcome grief, to bring it into our heart and give it a place to rest as an integral part our life. I offer you this Francis Weller quote:

“Sorrow and joy, grief and gratitude, side by side. It is indeed the mark of the mature adult to be able to carry these two truths simultaneously. Life is hard, filled with loss and suffering. Life is glorious, stunning, and incomparable. To deny either truth is to live in some fantasy of the ideal or to be crushed by the weight of pain.  Instead, both are true and it requires a familiarity with both sorrow and joy to fully encompass the full range of being human.” —The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief

I look forward to entering 2023 fully alive, fully human, fully open to all the greatness that it will bring. That’s my hope and prayer for you as well.