Bereavement Counselling
Dying, Death and Bereavement
Not withstanding the overwhelming emotions of grief, anger and fear that may accompany the pending loss of one’s own life, through illness or disability or the loss of a beloved family member, friend or animal companion; the experience can be one of spiritual, emotional and psychological exploration and growth which can lead to a peaceful and graceful acceptance of the continuity of consciousness through death.
16th February, 16h15
Grief pulls your strings
After letting you loose long enough
So you will feel the weight of another fall
Grief calls you inside, locks you up
Takes you back
To childish threats and tantrums
None of which make any difference
To what happened, what can never be replaced
Grief knows your secret weaknesses
your hiding places
Can turn the most ordinary places
Into alien landscapes
Grief changes your walk, your talk
Brings you unexpectedly to your knees
Grief ignores all your pleas
Grief makes you want to hurt yourself
Want to hold yourself back
When times pushes you forward
Grief tries to convince you
That nothing and no one can take its place
Grief pretends to disappear
Then jumps up in your face
Grief teaches you patience
Gives you no choice
Takes away your voice
Grief destroys all you have built
If you let it,
If you forget to give in
Grief is a cleansing fire; embrace it
Surrender to its demands
Grief knows the way
Within grief’s cave
Under the spell of its darkness
The real healing work begins.
[Invisible Earthquake - A woman's journal through still birth - by Malika Ndlovu]
HOW - Mary Oliver from Parabola
How shall I live my life?
How shall I love the one I love?
Once in a while
how tightly the clouds
hold the stars in their arms.
Then they let them
go.
IN THOSE DAYS - Mary Oliver from Parabola
The old ones lay down for the last time on their own beds.
They called us all by the wrong names, and then were silent.
Then they rested and rested,
as anyone would do, getting ready to travel.
What I must Tell Myself (extract) By David Whyte
…Watching the geese
go south I
find that even
in silence
and even in stillness
and even in my home
alone
without a thought
or a movement
I am part
of a great migration
that will take me to another place.
And though all the things I love
may pass away and
the great family of things and people
I have made around me
will see me go,
I feel them living in me
like a great gathering
ready to reach a greater home.
When one thing dies all things
die together, and must live again
in a different way,
when one thing
is missing everything is missing,
and must be found again
in a new whole
and everything wants to be complete,
everything wants to go home
and the geese travelling south
are like the shadow of my breath
flying into the darkness
on great heart-beats
to an unknown land where I belong.
Instruments
We are light Beings
Some slumbering
Some awakening
To the truth of who we are
indestructible stars
Housed only for a while
in these temples of flesh
Once our memories are refreshed
We can see
That this life
This body
Is simply a veil
A vision
A temporary reality
That we are more
That we hold perfection within
Just beyond our imagining.
We are light Beings
Portals of love
Makers of peace
Creators of beauty
We are healers
We are believers inherently
Re-discovering our way
Homeward
Inward.
Out of Earth-time
Where free is our natural state
Where love is the only way.
We are born to bring light
To honour the blessings of each life.
[Malika Ndlovu - copy right 1999. www.malika.co.za ]
We are not Separate
The physicist, Albert Einstein’s response to a Rabbi who had written to him for advice on how to explain the death of his daughter to her older sister wrote:
“A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation, and a foundation for inner security.”