tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2377252801421681569.post278850473364982909..comments2023-10-28T04:53:32.505-07:00Comments on View From The Northern Wall: The Doe's Sorrowchristopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04201537517464996231noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2377252801421681569.post-2108870630120836012010-11-26T03:23:37.550-08:002010-11-26T03:23:37.550-08:00What a cool story. Your friend Robert is a remark...What a cool story. Your friend Robert is a remarkable man. The rest of the story is just as interesting. That cat trained you guys too. It was Robert coming in untrained that permitted the cat to change.<br /><br />I am having the same experience with a neighbor cat. I am slowly training him to no longer be the feral spook he is, at least around me. He was named Hell Boy for good reason. I may or may not succeed. It was possible that Robert could have failed too. Cats tend to be more fully formed autonomous beings, less dependent on the pack. That is why we tribal creatures can train pack creatures like dogs - we are not so self contained and understand each other.christopherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04201537517464996231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2377252801421681569.post-74880583314716233352010-11-25T18:34:27.644-08:002010-11-25T18:34:27.644-08:00Yes. It is small for me, but I am a doe. I have ...Yes. It is small for me, but I am a doe. I have reason to grieve, but I try to do it quietly. I'll not be that cat.<br /><br />On a brighter note, I had two cats. One, my favorite, died a couple years ago. The remaining one was always a needy and annoying thing. We had all rejected it here. It was very hard to tolerate and I was not generous in spirit. Robert can and retrained this cat to be a cat, to lose much of its skittishness, to experience this house and this family and even the outdoors, as it never had. An old cat, new tricks.:)<br /><br />xo<br />erinWoman in a Windowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14747858840088922077noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2377252801421681569.post-59265025320399575932010-11-24T04:45:54.149-08:002010-11-24T04:45:54.149-08:00Grief work is possibly the most important healing ...Grief work is possibly the most important healing work, the most essential. Grief itself may lie at the hidden heart of many distressed lives, unacknowledged and primary, while the manifestations are confused and deflected. People end up being treated for many things but not for the grief itself because it is too diffuse and unclear.<br /><br />In my experience grief is often too dangerous and so remains hidden in many lives. We perceive grief as too dark, too deep, too unchanging and we cannot bear it. It gives rise then to terror, to fear. We think we are afraid. We think the fear primary. It is not. We treat the fear and perhaps succeed to some extent but then it arises in some other shape, and all because it is secondary to the unfinished and frozen grief.<br /><br />Grief is closely connected to another intolerable state that may have many names. I call it bewilderment. This is the heart of my own distress, my emotional lifework. I am not fearful, I am bewildered and sad. My distress includes fear of course but fear is not first. Guilt and shame come later too. First I am bewildered and saddened. Then my fear, my guilt and shame arise. And actually there is not that much guilt. It is mostly shame. Bewilderment and sadness, and then shame that I should be bewildered and sad, and then fear that I will be discovered as shamed, bewildered and sad. And this is very ancient, I think, a preverbal complex, set down in me before language, and perhaps even before this life in some other.<br /><br />Knowing my shape took decades, and I am a better man for it, better able to navigate skillfully in the work of the heart, both mine and yours. Grief work is certainly primary for me.christopherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04201537517464996231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2377252801421681569.post-59903898954234674442010-11-24T02:35:41.204-08:002010-11-24T02:35:41.204-08:00Beautiful and heart-rending, and terribly true, al...Beautiful and heart-rending, and terribly true, all of it.Lucyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09764296105901909328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2377252801421681569.post-27213522749122689692010-11-23T21:02:06.326-08:002010-11-23T21:02:06.326-08:00Grief can kill, Christoper, if not literally at le...Grief can kill, Christoper, if not literally at least in spirit as you suggest. Thank you for this sad sad poem.Elisabethhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04015624747225433940noreply@blogger.com