When we are passing our gifts along to others, or feeling deep gratitude for the gifts we receive from others, our hearts are already on a path of healing.
Can loss make us larger? This was a surprising question that came up in a recent workshop I led on the “Poetry of Loss and Healing.” The first and most obvious answer to this question is… No! How can losing someone we love, or a career, a cause, or any precious thing for that matter, not disturb, distress and diminish our lives? The honest answer is, a loss does all these difficult and fierce things and more.
And yet, the more full and complex answer is our hearts were made (and seemingly destined) to be broken again and again. Therefore, out on the frontier range of our lives where clichés and platitudes quickly melt in the face of significant loss, we suffer real and profound pain.
But mysteriously, somewhere inside our pain, isn’t it also possible that we can begin to experience a deeper level of appreciation and gratitude for all gifts, the ones, of course, we have lost, plus all those that remain in our lives? The gifts of others and our own, that we so often take for granted.
In fact, when it comes to our own gifts, I often tell workshop participants that the only proper thing to do with our own personal gifts is to pass them on. And guess what? When we are passing our gifts along to others, or feeling deep gratitude for the gifts we receive from others, our hearts are already on a path of healing. And yes, I realize that much of what I’m speaking about here is paradoxical. We would all do everything we could to avoid the kind of loss I am speaking about here! And yet…
Here is a short piece that came to me recently that seems to dance into this territory just a little. The last three lines were a surprise to me. Until this poem, I did not know this. Of course, finding (or writing) the language we most need is essentially the same thing.
Our Broken Hearts
When I am asked about our broken hearts, I speak of poetry’s pull. How
a remembering self, reimagines itself to connect and be whole again.
A self beyond separation, real, raw, and with a knowing that arises
before and beyond thought, there in the deep down jazz of our bones.
Words that do what words ought not be able to do, a great leaping
invitation to grieve, ache, laugh and love what’s been lost out loud.
And then with a halting courage, we hold our tender hearts out
into such a fiercely world, and with only these trembling hands.
Our hearts held and broken, again and again.
Yet in this holding and in this breaking,
all that is broken mends.
Dale Biron is a poet, author, coach and adjunct professor at Dominican University OLLI Program. He is a former poetry editor and board member for A Network For Grateful Living. His longtime friend and mentor, Brother David Steindl-Rast has long inspired Dale’s work with gratefulness and the power of grateful living. Dale has shared his poetry-inspired presentations at TEDx, The Herbst Theatre in San Francisco, as well as non-profit, university and business conferences nationwide. Dale is the author of a poetry collection entitled Why We Do Our Daily Practices. His latest work is a recently published prose book entitled: Poetry For The Leader Inside You – A Search and Rescue Mission For The Heart and Soul. For more information, visit Dale’s Web Site. Dale’s on-demand eCourse is available here: A Fierce and Enduring Gratitude: How Poetry Supports Us in Good Times and Bad