"It blew me away. I underlined things on nearly every page." —Anderson Cooper,
All There Is
The Wild Edge of Sorrow
offers hope and healing for a profoundly fractured world—and a pathway home to the brightness, pains, and gifts of being alive.
Introducing the
5 gates of grief
, psychotherapist Francis Weller explores how we move through the waters of grief and loss in a culture so fundamentally detached from the needs of the soul.
• The
first gate
recognizes—and invites us to accept—the painful truth that
everything we love, we will lose
. With this acceptance comes beauty and responsibility—and an openness into which we can pour the full love of our hearts. At the first gate, we meet the sorrow of losing a loved one; the grief of illness; and the unique and profound pains that accompany loss by suicide.
second gate
helps us uncover and tend to
the places that have not known love
: the neglected pieces of our soul that need restoration and care. These “places” can be our secret shames, or the parts of us that we feel are undeserving of love. At the second gate, we face our shadows and heal our most tender wounds.
third gate
meets us at
the sorrows of the world
, inviting us to open to the grave pain of our planet: the destruction of ecosystems, the harms of extractive capitalism, the unfathomable pain of war and occupation. We learn to honor and hold this grief even as we move through it, recommitting ourselves to the actions our souls call upon us to perform in service of healing and renewal.
fourth gate
,
what we expected but did not receive,
is present in each and every one of our lives. We may need love from a parent or partner unable to give it; we may lack the language to ask for the care we deserve. Each is a loss that must be acknowledged and grieved to move toward wholeness.
fifth gate
opens to our
ancestral grief
: the traumas, pains, losses, and unrealized dreams of those who came before us. Weller invites us to reconnect to our bodies, our communities, and the ancestral knowledge we hold in our bones...but may have forgotten.
Profoundly moving, beautifully written, this book is a balm for the soul and a necessary salve for moving together through difficult times. Grounded in ritual and connection,
welcomes each grief with care and attention, opening us to the feelings, experiences, and sacred knowledge that connect us to each other and ultimately make us whole.