the five gates of grief

by Francis Weller, compiled by Moya Keating

The following descriptions of the Five Gates of Grief are based on Francis Weller’s book

The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief

Gate 1: Everything We Love, We Will Lose

Impermanence is one of the core teachings of the world’s great wisdom traditions. Weller rites: “There is some strange intimacy between grief and aliveness, some sacred exchange between what seems unbearable and what is most exquisitely alive.” He writes further that he “has faith in grief” for it’s ability to expand the heart’s capacity for love. Through loss and sorrow, the heart breaks back open and connects with what we have lost. Grief is not a psychological issue; it is a soul issue—a revelation that through loving I am faced with loss. This is the call to Wake Up to the sacredness of life.

Gate 2: Places That Have Not Known Love

This is the work of radical acceptance, welcoming the parts of ourselves that have been banished because of shame and self blame. It is time, writes Weller, to recover from perfectionism, regrets, self-loathing, and to affirm self-love, self-compassion and worthiness. From Weller’s perspective recovering all parts of ourselves is not just a self-help exercise. It is what is demanded in our time. The world needs our unimpeded talents and gifts. We have to quicken, and to ripen. This is the call to Mature.

Gate 3: The Sorrows Of The World

When Weller wrote about the sorrows of the world, it is as though he foretold the moment we are living through right now. Science is delivering the message behind the news headlines, that it is human encroachment into wild habitats that created the conditions for the Covid-19 virus to emerge. Humanity is living the grief connected to the sorrows of the world in a totally new way. We are learning, as if for the first time, that humanity is one family. The call is to re-embody “an unmediated intimacy with the living world, with no trace of separation between the human and more than human world.”

Gate 4: What We Expected and Did Not Receive

Weller writes: “We are born into this world as stone age children,” and as such, we are hard wired to expect to belong to a village, and to a inherit the “wisdom that lies at the core of our imagination. “ We were born expecting a rich and sensuous relationship with the earth and communal rituals and celebrations, grief, and healing that keep us in connection with the sacred. We do not know what we did not receive, and so it is manifested as anxiety and alienation. From Weller’s perspective, it is a fiction to believe that salvation is private and internal. Healing occurs in a restorative relationship with a sense of belonging and participation. This is the call to Remember Where We Are, and Where We Belong.

Gate 5: Ancestral Grief

Weller writes: “This is the grief we carry in our bodies from sorrows experienced by our ancestors.” This gate opens to being with injustices levied by colonialism, genocide, slavery, and war; loss of languages, traditions, art and wisdom. This grief can be a heavy burden, and will take many generations of ritual, reconciliation and soul work to begin to heal lingering sorrow. The other facet of ancestral grief revolves around the very real loss of the ability to feel the presence of ancestors in our soul life and imagination. This leaves us with a feeling of homelessness. This is a call for Ancestral soul retrieval in order to move more deeply into relationship with the wider world.