Alchemy, In the Best Sense

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a lot of losses in my life. I’ve lost relationships, communities, loved ones, jobs–I’ve even had a child who died. And, no matter the loss, each has hurt, deeply.

Now, as a culture, North Americans are not good with loss. We like to profess our undying love and loyalty to those we care about. We like to deny our mortality to the extent that frail and elderly people make many other people uncomfortable.

On the one hand, I get this. To dwell constantly on loss is not only morbid. But it also has many negative psychological consequences.

Yet, on the other hand, to deny loss, to squelch, stuff, or not acknowledge it–this too can come back and bite us.

To dwell constantly on loss is not only morbid. But it also has many negative psychological consequences.

I remember a time earlier in life when I was living with multiple losses, and I hadn’t dealt with any of them very well. I thought that if I ignored my feelings, if I maintained my strong front, my serious and unemotional self, that everything would be OK. And it was, at least I thought it was.

But then I experienced some further losses. And that’s when everything fell apart.

I didn’t know what to do with myself. Tears would come uncontrollably. I was depressed and despondent. Worse still, I told myself the only things I had experienced in life were loss. I began to expect the rest of my life would follow that pattern. I began to despair for my future.

Perhaps ironically, it wasn’t until my wife and I experienced the full-term stillbirth of our second child that I began to deal with loss differently.

In that situation I made a conscious decision to be changed for the better by that experience. But did that ever hurt!

By surrendering myself to the waves of grief and sorrow that would come to me unexpectedly, I learned there was part of myself that grief and sorrow could never touch.

This was not because I was numbing out or ignoring my pain–quite the opposite.

Instead, I was so acutely aware of the fullness of my grief that I came to understand that my grief was only part of my experience.

I was so acutely aware of the fullness of my grief that I cam to understand that my grief was only part of my experience.

In the days and weeks that followed that tragic event, there was such love and compassion extended to me, my wife, and my family that even now my eyes brim with tears when I think of how we were supported after our son’s stillbirth.

So, while there was part of me that was fully riding the ups and downs of grief, I also experienced my heart as torn open by love. What love I couldn’t offer my son, I found I received and expressed as much to all the other people who surrounded us at the time of that loss.

I know this is not everyone’s experience of such a tragedy.

While there was part of me that was fully riding the ups and downs of grief, I also experienced my heart as torn open by love.

What I learned through that experience is that loss, change, and transition are always deeply challenging times. They destabilize our sense of self, of wellbeing, and often our sense of connection with others.

Yet, if there’s a way to remain openhearted in the midst of loss–and I know how deeply fear inducing this can be (I really do!)–somehow that openheartedness can enable us to be transformed by whatever we experience because of the loss.

___________________

There’s those seemingly crazy stories coming from the European middle ages about the alchemists who tried to transform lead into gold.

When taken literally, these stories illustrate how much science we’ve learned over the past thousand years.

But when taken differently, there’s a deep truth expressed in alchemical thought.

Loss, and the grief that comes with it, have a strange sort of wisdom. If we open ourselves to this wisdom then the leaden feelings that often come with grief can be transformed into the gold of love and connection.

Yet discovering such wisdom will not dismiss grief forever. Once grief arrives, she will come again and again, sometimes in a familiar form, sometimes in a different one.

But if we learn to meet her in whatever form she takes, we may discover she has gifts to offer, if only we receive her properly.

What a strange visitor grief is, yet what wisdom she possesses! For what gold could be more valuable than that which is hard won, that which has been wrest forth from lead, as if our very lives depended upon it.

May love and connection come to you, regardless of whether they are produced from lead or not.

Disclaimer: The advice and suggestions offered on this site are not substitutes for consultation with qualified mental or spiritual health professionals. The perspectives offered here are those of the author, not of those professionals with whom readers might have relationships as clients or patients. In crisis situations, readers are encouraged to contact these professionals for appropriate support and treatment if needed.