Touchstones of Grief
Retreat with Me for a day Touchstones of GriefA One-Day Retreat | FRIDAY, JUNE 27th, 2025
🌒 The Pilgrimage
At the turn of dusk
the light leaves
a strip of day
writing its silver line
across
the distant hill.Sometimes everything
has to come
down to that
one
thin line
so you can touch
that knowing
inside you.Sometimes it takes
the turn of light
to dark
to know that
always, thesearch for light
is already carried
in our secret heart.No one else may know
how sometimes
when the last breath
has left
the body
someone in the room
has drawn something new
from the breathlessness
on
that silver line
between us.There is no leaving
even as the last of the light
disappears from view—for, there is a dawning gala
in all that is arriving
on the crest
of the other side.From Planting Lotuses in the Fire, The Zero Point Agreement
by Julie Tallard Johnson
Dear friend,
Grief is best met as a friend—or a mentor. As you know, it often rises in response to profound loss. But just as often, it arrives unannounced, asking for our presence in unexpected moments. It shows up at endings, in openings, and through slow or sudden disappearances. Rarely does it wait for an invitation, yet it always asks for our full attention.
I Am Standing Upon the Seashore
I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at my side,
spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts
for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck
of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.
Then, someone at my side says, "There, she is gone"
Gone where?
Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast,
hull and spar as she was when she left my side.
And, she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me -- not in her.
And, just at the moment when someone says, "There, she is gone,"
there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices
ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"
And that is dying...by Henry Van Dyke
✍️ Writing Prompt
Write your own poem on grief. What words can you gather to give shape to your experience of loss? What textures, images, or silences help you speak what grief feels like and reveals?
🌀 Active Contemplations
How have you experienced—or perhaps avoided—your grief?
In what ways might grief act as a mentor or guide in your life?
Reflect on a few of your personal losses. What did they ask of you? What did they reveal or change in you?
🌿 Contemplative Actions
Share your poem—or simply your experience of grief—with a trusted friend or companion.
Reach out to someone who may be grieving, whether from a death, a divorce, a lost home, or a shift in identity or belonging.
Light a candle, plant something, or take a walk in honor of a loss. Let the action hold space for your grief or someone else’s.
