Dear friends,

Warm greetings to you. I hope this finds you well in the midst of these unsettled times. It is autumn here in Northern California and the warm hues of fall are blessing us all. I am writing to you on the eve of the elections here in this country. Many of us are feeling anxious about the outcomes. Whatever happens, whoever is chosen, our work will continue to be for the benefit of this tender, beleaguered earth. There is much to do.

We have entered a prolonged season of descent, taking us down into the unknown. In the imagery of myth and fairy tales, we have left the ordinary world and have entered the underworld, a sightless terrain that is shadowy and strange. I have come to call this time of descent, the Long Dark. It may be decades or more likely a few generations before we see the farther shore of this crisis, if we make it. I say this not with a note of despair, or with an attitude of hopelessness, but, instead, recognizing and valuing the necessary work that takes place in the dark. It is the realm of soul—of whispers and dreams, mystery and imagination, death and ancestors. It is an essential territory, both inevitable and required, offering a form of soul gestation that may gradually give shape to our deeper lives, personally and communally. Certain things can happen only in this grotto of darkness. Think of the wild network of roots and microbes, mycelium, and minerals, making possible all that we see in the day world, or the extensive networks within our own bodies, bringing blood, nutrients, oxygen, and thought to our corporeal lives. All of it happening in the darkness. 

The requirements for this time are not the familiar ones of achievement and growth, clarity and power. No, this season is asking for a new rhythm, one that is more attuned to humility and listening, stillness and rest. I hope each of you finds little pockets of refuge that support your intimacy with soul.

Green blessings,

Francis

Russian River Watershed

Facing the World with Soul online lecture

“In a dark time, the eye begins to see.”

— Theodore Roethke

We are living in a time of radical change and uncertainty on this beautiful, beleaguered planet. It is a season of descent, of breakdowns, and collapse.

We have entered what could be called the Long Dark, a necessary time when old calcified systems are breaking down and potentially composting into something life-sustaining. How well we respond to these evolving circumstances will determine the shape of the coming decades.

James Hillman, the brilliant archetypal psychologist, wrote, “The world and the gods are dead or alive according to the condition of our souls.” In other words, the vitality of the animate, sensuous world and our encounter with the sacred depend on our souls being fully alive! What would a soulful response to these circumstances look like? What practices and perspectives can support us leaning into the world? How can we register, deep in our beings, the profound entanglement between the world “out there” and the world “in here,” recognizing that the widening symptoms of collapse are also being felt and experienced in our bodies and souls? How do we keep our souls alive?

We will touch upon ways to cultivate a robust interior life rooted in imagination, creativity, fertile stories, ritual, self-compassion, and the vital necessity of friendship and living community.

Join us for an rich exploration as we wonder aloud, what facing the world with soul might look like in these tenuous, uncertain times.

Click on the image for more information and to register.

Lectures, Interviews, and More...

​Recently, Francis was interviewed by Anderson Cooper for the Third Season of the "All There Is" podcast series. Anderson's write-up for the conversation is below. Click on the image below to watch the video.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm the person I was born to be. If the life I've lived really is the one I was meant to. Or if it's some half life. A mutation engineered by loss. Cobbled together by the will to survive. The day my father died, the child I was disappeared, washed away by the turn of the tide. From time to time, I still catch glimpses of that boy swimming through warm water towards his dad in a crystal blue pool. His father smiles as the boy wraps his arms and legs around him and holds them tight. A seashell wind chime gently blows in the breeze. He can hear waves crashing somewhere through the hedges and over the dunes. Many times I've wished I had a mark, a scar, a missing limb, something children could have pointed at, which adults could tell them not to stare. At least then I wouldn't have been expected to smile and mingle, meet and greet. They would have seen. They would have known that, like a broken locket, I have only half a heart. I wrote that nearly 20 years ago. I found it recently in notes for my first book, Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters and Survival. When I published it in 2006, I had just started to understand the connection between my past and my present. I was just beginning to connect the dots I mentioned in the first episode this season that I've been struggling this past year. The grief which I buried as a child and ran from most of my life, has risen and I can't run from it anymore. I need help. I've rarely said those words to anyone, but I wrote them several months ago to my guest on the podcast today, Francis Weller. We've been talking by Zoom once a week ever since. He's helped me start to turn toward my grief, to try and touch it. And perhaps even more importantly, he's helped me begin to see the strategies I've used since I was a kid to keep it and all kinds of feelings buried. These strategies, which I use still every hour of every day, they helped me as a child and as a young adult, but they aren't helping me any longer. They're hurting me and I need to figure out a new way to live. This is a particularly personal episode of All There Is. So wherever you are in your grief, I'm glad you're here. I'm glad we're together. Francis Weller is a psychotherapist and author. His book, "The Wild Edge of Sorrow Rituals of Renewal in the Sacred Work of Grief," was sent to me by a podcast listener named Cynthia. And if you're listening, Cynthia, thank you. It's one of the best books on grief I've ever read. Francis Weller joins me for the second time on this podcast. Thank you for doing this. Appreciate it.       

Dear friends,

I hope this letter finds you well and savoring times of rest, silence, and a felt sense of our wild entanglement with one another and the shimmering world. As you well know, we are living in a time of uncertainty when the familiar markers that once offered assurance and security are fading. From all observable indicators, the season ahead will be challenging. We have entered what could be called The Long Dark, a time of endings, decay, and dissolution. It will be a prolonged season—a generation or two—during which the earth community will undergo tremendous challenges and the cumulative losses will touch everything and everyone. Grief will be the keynote for the foreseeable future.   

A central skill we will need to develop, is our capacity to hold potent spaces where the intense energies of sorrow can be witnessed and expressed. In the fall of 2023, we offered a five-month training to cultivate this skill. We’re honored to offer Entering the Healing Ground: Grief Ritual Leadership Training once again, now as an online, self-paced course. This program is adapted from our live five-month immersive training, exploring obstacles to grief, working with deep emotional states, dimensions of leadership, the art of vesseling, and the architecture of ritual. Past participants described this course as, “deeply medicinal and life changing” and, “the deepest, most soulful training I have encountered.”   

Our curriculum is crafted to expand your heart’s capacity for the troubles of these times and equip you with the skills to lead grief rituals in your community. Join us in the healing ground where we’ll remember and revision practices for communal repair. For more information and to enroll, visit the course landing page at: https://enteringthehealingground.thinkific.com/courses/GriefRitualTraining. For more information, email, griefritualtraining@gmail.com.

Green blessings,

Francis

Essential Support in Uncertain Times