Pat Taub
GUEST POST by JACOB WATSON
At first and for many months after my wife died, I felt brutalized. Grief is brutal, a word I used often when my grief was fresh. Then slowly, way too slowly for inpatient me, a transformation began to happen.
The author with his late wife, Kristine Watson, Nova Scotia, 2018
I remembered a class I took in my doctoral program taught by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, the feminist author of Women Who Run with the Wolves. She had been teaching about 50 of us for the morning, and as the class ended for the lunch break, she invited – which from her was more of a command – the men in the class, about 20 of us, to join her for the lunch hour.
She asked us to meet her in what was called the cave, a dimly lit meditation space. When we had gathered there, she told us that during the class she had noticed signs of our individual and collective grief, and no signs that we were either aware of it or knew how to express it.
She said now was the time and the place. With her deep compassion and skill, she facilitated our expressions of long held-in grief. Suddenly we had not only her permission, but that of the universe, for she spoke her invitation to us with the compassion and skill of an older wise woman of the universe.
Encouraged individually and as a group of men we accessed and expressed our sadness and pain. We didn’t have to find the words, only the sounds. And they poured out, embraced both by Clarissa and her compassion, and by each other. Suddenly there was no male image to uphold, competition to win.
We men experienced no barriers, only resounding encouragement. Our cries, wails, and screams filled the spaces between us and bonded us as brothers. I no longer felt alone.
I learned from Elisabeth Kubler-Ross that grief is a natural emotion, so when my wife died, I allowed myself to express my grief any way I knew how. After months I knew I would never fully exhaust it, yet I began to feel the beginnings of relief. I felt a new freedom begin to take hold, organic and very much my own.
The author with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Scotland, 1998, during the time he helped her lead Death and Transition workshops, nationally and internationally.
My sense of openness flew in the face of both cultural norms and political correctness. What was the source of pain became the source of discovery. It was as if the expression of grief cleaned out new pathways to the spiritual realm where I was never alone. My natural emotions became my guide to a deeper self.
Then one day, I was distracted from my grieving by a minor legal problem about my house. I asked for help from a neighbor who was a lawyer. She sat on the couch and listened to me begin to explain my legal problem. I had not finished when she leaned forward, looked directly into my eyes, and said, “You don’t have to worry about it. I’ll take care of it.” This was an immediate gift.
I knew my work was now to let her take care of it. I was relieved but days later I still worried about it. Then in a flash I got it. Sitting there on the couch she was embodying the Divine Feminine. It was She herself who was speaking to me and reassuring me. The lawyer’s words were divine words. I only had to accept them. The Divine Feminine was telling me she would take care of not just of it, but of me. This was the greatest gift of grief I could imagine.
Jacob Watson is an interfaith minister, author and spiritual teacher. He is the founding Abbot of the Interfaith Chaplaincy Institute of Maine, and has written three spiritual books, including Essence: The Emotional Path to Spirit. His recorded meditations and children’s stories are available on Insight Timer. Jacob provides Spiritual Companionship, individual meetings – in his home office sanctuary or via Zoom. Email: jacobw@gwi.net
