“The Peaceful Dying Project….was so helpful in connecting me with my feelings and fears regarding death and allowing me to share and express them…. I realized that I don’t have to do this alone – that by involving my loved ones, the process becomes easier for everyone. I discovered that the thread of community and heartfelt relationship extends into all corners of life experience, including death”
Read More“Prema….guides people with ease, clarity, confidence and gentleness into territory that our culture seldom explores. She creates a very safe space for delving into both fear and grief and experiencing the beauty of feeling these emotions, for they bring us more deeply into life.”
Read More“This was the kindness act that I could do for myself! Our conversation about death and dying was all about life (and) since the workshop I have been more available to live this life!!!”
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by Prema Sheerin, Sacred Fire Asheville, North Carolina
A well-tended garden has a balance of the essential elements: fire, earth, water, air and growth. In this, the fourth in a series of five articles, traditional healer Prema Sheerin continues to reveal the vital energies and gifts of each of the ‘elemental emotions’ that, similarly, are meant to provide for a healthy ecosystem in every human being. These elemental emotions are happiness, fear, anger, sympathy and grief. This article addresses grief, which is traditionally associated with the season of autumn.
As we enter the season of autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, we feel the poignancy of the fading light, the waning warmth and brilliance of summer. It is a good time to explore the emotion of grief, the energy that supports us in letting go and navigating the many losses and transitions of life. Like the rain that comes to cool the heat of summer, grief provides the nourishing moisture that allows us to process and heal the losses we inevitably encounter.
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by Prema Sheerin, Sacred Fire Asheville, NC, USA
In this fourth article in a series of five, traditional healer and Sacred Fire Community Lifeways provider Prema Sheerin continues her exploration of the five “elemental” emotions that are a natural part of the human experience.
Like the rain that comes to cool the heat of summer, grief (which is associated with the season of autumn) provides nourishing moisture that allows us to process and heal the losses we will inevitably encounter. In our modern western culture we have become obsessed with happiness and we have shunned the emotion of grief, believing that it is ‘negative’ and ‘depressing’. We apologize for our tears and sadness, thinking that we are ‘bringing everyone down’. A vast polarity has been created between sadness and happiness and we see happiness as being the desired outcome, a place to arrive and stay. We have forgotten that happiness, like all elemental emotions, will arise and then subside to make way for the next feeling that will swell in response to the circumstances of our lives.
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