by Ashley Gregory, LMFT
How to Learn About Death
At some point as a young person, were you also absolutely fascinated by Ancient Egypt? Perhaps your sixth grade history class was also woefully uneventful before learning about mummification, hieroglyphics and golden sarcophagi (plural for sarcophagus). Honestly, what I remember most is what it meant to me to be talking about death.
At that time, I had not lost anyone close to me; there were no friends or family members I knew who had died. I did not know what to do if someone were to die. There was no guide or practice to lean on. I only knew to hope that no one close to me would die before I figured it out or someone told me. The Ancient Egyptians, on the other hand, knew how to prepare their beloved for death. Some part of me longed for direction around such a profound life event. I had so many questions -- questions that had yet to take shape in words, yet were becoming louder in my being.
In his book The Wild Edge of Sorrow, Francis Willer introduces the “Five Gates of Grief.” When I first heard of the gates of grief, I remember feeling relieved. Finally, I thought, an invitation to grief that is open to everyone. The gates offer structure to the shared woundedness in our human experiences, pointing us to healing in ways that are both profoundly unique and exquisitely collective. As you become familiar with the Five Gates of Grief, I invite you to notice what arises in your experience and to be gentle with yourself in the process.
The First Gate: Everything We Love, We Will Lose
For Weller, the first gate is the gate most popularly acknowledged--it is the grief of when we lose something or someone we love. That something can be a tangible thing or an idea about ourselves in the past, how things used to be. Whatever it was, it meant something to us. It met our need for beauty, perhaps, or for choice or for order. Loss of a way things once were may describe an experience of illness. It is at this gate that we are confronted with impermanence. Essentially, “everything is a gift, and nothing lasts (24).” It is change that is most reliable because nothing and no one lasts forever.
The Second Gate: The Places That Have Not Known Love
Grief at the second gate is about the parts of us who “have been wrapped in shame and banished to the farthest shores of our lives (31).” We enter this gate by designating parts of us as despicable and unloveable. What would happen if we listened to these parts? What would it take for us to acknowledge the worthiness of our most despised aspects of ourselves? Much of the time, the exiled parts of us are those who have suffered the loss of tender touch or soothing embraces. These parts are the young ones who made sense of harsh words or persistent betrayals by blaming themselves. These are the experiences of what is known as developmental trauma--ruptures in our sense of self, in the way we understand the world and who we can count on to protect us. What do we need to do in order to approach our exiled parts and reassure them of their worthiness?
The Third Gate: The Sorrows of the World
It is at the third gate that we acknowledge losses on a planetary scale. Weller asserts that “Whether or not we consciously recognize it, the daily diminishment of species, habitats, and cultures is noted in our psyches. Much of the grief we carry is not personal, but shared, communal (46).” In our fast-paced world, how often is it that we pause to honor the grief arising from the streams, mountains, oceans and land? Entering grief through this gate means opening ourselves up to profound feelings of despair and awe. “Remembering our bond with the earth,” Weller suggests, “helps heal our bodies and souls (52).”
The Fourth Gate: What We Expected and Did Not Receive
The fourth gate speaks to our felt sense of emptiness, of isolation embodied in the fractured relationships with all life and the instability of societies prioritizing profit over collective well-being. “Our profound feelings of lacking something are not a reflection of a personal failure, but the reflection of a society that has failed to offer us what we were designed to expect (Weller, 53).” We are designed for connection and contribution. For thousands of years, humans relied on one another to flourish. Not until relatively suddenly in our long history have many of us lived in a way which denies our unique gifts. To be known and to be seen through creativity, play and story is familiar and soothing. What might it mean for you to explore your sense of purpose?
The Fifth Gate: Ancestral Grief
At the fifth gate we acknowledge the grief of our ancestors, an acknowledgment of the ways we have taken on their suffering. It is also where we face the monumental injustices of our past, the violence and systematic assaults of war, colonialism, slavery and genocide. “The long shadow of this violence persists in our psyches, and we need to address it and work with it until there is some genuine atonement for these wrongs (Weller, 68).” Lastly, this gate offers an invitation to re-establish awareness of one’s roots while mourning the loss of our ancestors.
Our Grief is Worthy of Attention
Comparison and dismissiveness lay the foundation for dis-ease. Drawing our attention to and offering compassion towards our own suffering does not diminish our care and consideration for the suffering around us. In truth, we are all worthy of attending to what brings us to the gates of grief.
