Entering The Healing Ground – Francis Weller Bevin Donahue

To acknowledge and tend to our grief, we must understand the thresholds that Weller names as the Five Gates of Grief. Most of us are familiar with the first gate of grief, which is the sorrow we experience with the loss of someone or something we love. But the other gates receive little or no attention—and thus little or no care—in modern Western society. The grief that accumulates at these thresholds remains untouched.

And while we feel the weight of these unattended sorrows in our souls, we may not see them for what they are; we may have lost the ability to listen to what they’re trying to say. We may not recognize that they are profound sites of wounding. Chapter 3: Questions for Reflection The First Gate: Everything We Love, We Will Lose 1.

Weller shares a poem as well as his own thoughts on the innate relationship between love and loss. He says, “Grief is akin to praise” and “To love is to accept the rites of grief.” How would you put this idea—that love and loss are inextricably woven together— into your own words? 2. If you’re coming to this work because you’ve lost a loved one, what are your fears? What are your hopes? What does your soul tell you it needs on this journey of grief? It’s okay if you don’t know, or if you’re feeling some resistance coming up.

You can use your own journal or the lined pages at the back of this workbook to ask more questions or write whatever feels true for you. 3. How do you think that grief honors your love? What could it look like to express your sorrow in a way that embodies this love? It’s okay if other feelings come up here too. 4. The death of a beloved is an immense and unfathomable loss. What other kinds of sorrows meet us at the threshold of the first gate?

5. Why do you think Weller chose to include illness and suicide at this gate? 6. Do you think that our society offers a safe harbor to grieve non- death losses, like illness, loss of function, or physical deterioration? Do you think it’s different for different people? Do you feel as if you’re “allowed” to grieve these things for yourself or for others? Why or why not? 7. Have you ever experienced grief from an illness? Have you ever mourned the effects of illness in someone you love?

If so, what was it like? Did you experience your feelings at the time as expressions of grief? Or did grief show up as other emotions? 8. The pain related to loss by suicide can be complex. This pain is often encountered differently than other kinds of death by society, our communities, and even our own families. Why do you think this is? What does this bring up for you, if anything? Any feeling is okay.

Introduction: Entering the Healing Ground Preface and Introduction: Questions for Reflection Practice: The Generous Heart—The Gift of Self- Compassion* An Invitation to Ritual: Creating a Grief Shrine Chapter 1: An Apprenticeship with Sorrow Chapter 1: Questions for Reflection Practice: Deepening Your Kinship with the Living Earth Meditation Practice: The Fortified Ground An Invitation for Deeper Reflection: Opening the Conversation Chapter 2: To and From the Soul’s Hall Chapter 2: Questions for Reflection Exercise: Carrying Unfinished Stories An Invitation to Ritual: Talking Circles* Chapter 3: The Five Gates of Grief Chapter 4: Stories of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal Chapter 4: Questions for Reflection An Invitation: Envisioning Ritual Practice Chapter 5: Silence and Solitude: The House of Our Aloneness Chapter 5: Questions for Reflection Writing Practice: Freedom and Choice: Working with the Complex* Chapter 6: Pushing through Solid Rock Chapter 6: Questions for Reflection An Invitation to Practice: Giving Emotions a Bottom Meditation Chapter 7: Drinking the Tears of the World Chapter 7: Questions for Reflection An Invitation to Ritual: Speaking to the Earth* Chapter 8: Entering the Healing Ground: The Sacred Work of Grief Chapter 8: Questions for Reflection Chapter 9: Becoming Ancestors Chapter 9: Questions for Reflection An Invitation to Ritual: The Stone Ritual* About the Authors About North Atlantic Books OceanofPDF.com Entering the Healing Ground The Wild Edge of Sorrow Official Workbook Francis Weller with Bevin Donahue OceanofPDF.com Copyright © 2026 by Francis Weller.

All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher. No part of this book maybe be used or reproduced in any manner for the purposes of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems. North Atlantic Books Huichin, unceded Ohlone land 2526 Martin Luther King Jr. Way Berkeley, CA 94704 USA www.northatlanticbooks.com Cover art © basel101658 via Shutterstock Cover design by Jasmine Hromjak Book design by Happenstance Type-O-Rama Entering the Healing Ground: The Wild Edge of Sorrow Official Workbook is sponsored and published by North Atlantic Books, an educational nonprofit that collaborates with partners to develop cross-cultural perspectives; nurture holistic views of art, science, the humanities, and healing; and seed personal and global transformation by publishing work on the relationship of body, spirit, and nature.

North Atlantic Books’s publications are distributed to the US trade and internationally by Penguin Random House Publisher Services. For further information, visit our website at www.northatlanticbooks.com.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 97a608f38b88f46f
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 3,178,106 bytes (3.031 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9798889843313, 9798889843320
• Pages: 70
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 80.33 minutes
• Total Words: 16,067
• Total Characters: 91,785
• Average Words per Page: 229.53
• Average Characters per Page: 1311.21

Most Frequent Words

grief (229), think (106), feel (77), loss (73), weller (70), ritual (67), work (62), world (61), like (60), sorrow (53), time (50), practice (46), chapter (45), relationship (41), soul (40), life (36), hold (33), many (31), come (30), culture (30), experience (29), need (28), place (28), one (28), community (28), you’re (28), questions (26), ancestors (26), others (26), love (26), help (25), space (25), healing (24), reflection (24), earth (24), means (24), people (24), wild (23), feelings (23), com (22), sacred (22), feeling (22), reflect (22), way (21), lives (21), know (21), pain (21), ground (20), something (20), sorrows (20), also (20), connection (20), invitation (19), complex (19), losses (19), it’s (19), move (19), oceanofpdf (18), edge (18), ways (18), keep (18), times (18), emotions (17), part (17), body (17), close (17), want (17), okay (17), comes (17), workbook (16), present (16), find (16), feels (16), consider (16), grieve (16), shrine (15), nature (15), sense (15), between (15), experiences (15), moment (15), don’t (15), yourself (15), gate (15), child (15), get (14), look (14), ever (14), often (14), try (14), now (13), apprenticeship (13), first (13), felt (13), coming (13), alone (13), take (13), see (13), open (13), back (13).

PDF Download