retreat resources
ritual & retreat
living in love & loss
Thank you for co-creating a powerful village on the Pacific Coast to support us in our grieving and our healing.
Thank you for all of your personal work in creating a grief-literate community in your own lives and families.
I honor your process and am here as a continued resource for you and your communities.
Ongoing Grief Healing
If you are interested in continued grief work, view my offerings or email me at alyssarosehealingarts@gmail.com to di
- adrift -
Mark Nepo
Everything is beautiful and I am so sad.
This is how the heart makes a duet of
wonder and grief. The light spraying
through the lace of the fern is as delicate
as the fibers of memory forming their web
around the knot in my throat. The breeze
makes the birds move from branch to branch
as this ache makes me look for those I’ve lost
in the next room, in the next song, in the laugh
of the next stranger. In the very center, under
it all, what we have that no one can take
away and all that we’ve lost face each other.
It is there that I’m adrift, feeling punctured
by a holiness that exists inside everything.
I am so sad and everything is beautiful.
- pry me off dead center -
Ted Loder
O persistent God,
Deliver me from assuming your mercy is gentle.
Pressure me that I may grow more human
not through the lessening of my struggles
but through an expansion of them
that will undamn me and unbury my gifts.
Deepen my hurt
until I learn to share it
and myself openly and my needs honestly
Sharpen my fears
until I name them and release the power I have locked in them
and they in me.
Accentuate my confusion
until I shed those grandiose expectations
that divert me from the small, glad gifts
of the now and the here and the me.
Expose my shame where it shivers,
crouched behind the curtains of propriety,
until I can laugh at last
through my common frailties and failures
laugh my way toward becoming whole.
Deliver me
from just going through the motions
and wasting everything I have
which is today,
a chance,
a choice,
my creativity,
your call.
O persistent God,
Let how much it all matters
Pry me off dead center
So if I am moved inside
to tears
or sighs
or screams
or smiles
or dreams,
they will be real and I will be in touch with who I am
and who you are
and who my sisters and brothers are.
- feel it all -
Gina Puorro
Can you sit with this ocean of grief?
Can you feel the gravity of what is happening
without rushing towards silver linings
or happy endings?
Let the wound bleed a little longer
without running to cauterize it
with certainty or guarantees.
Let the lacerations cut a little deeper
carving lessons of the great mystery
into your flesh
and lean in close
to the pain.
Can you soothe without numbing?
Feel the deep and raw somatic sensations
that swell and ooze
through each subtle body layer.
Paint new landscapes with your frayed nerves
as your tongue searches for words
in a language that you have never had to speak before.
Feel the searing truth that nothing is certain
not today
or tomorrow
not the very next breath.
It never was
but in this moment
we cannot ignore that.
Death sits close right now
we have a front row seat
to the cycles
of living and dying.
Feel the shakiness of your trust
the gnawing fear
the sting of loss
the burning anger
the confusion leaving you grasping
for why
and how
and when will this end?
Dissolve into the stillpoint
beyond thinking and doing
and feel the exquisite ache
of the heartbreaking
heart-opening act
of surrender.
teachers & inspiration
Much of my work and this retreat was informed by the following teachers:
Sobonfu Some, Malidoma Some, Michael Meade, Stephen Jenkinson, Frances Weller, John O’Donohue, and so many more.
photos
“im sorry
please forgive me
thank you
i love you”
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