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Many of you will know Francis Weller from his incredibly moving conversations about grief with Anderson Cooper. Francis worked as a psychotherapist for more than four decades, and he has written some of the most beautiful books on making sense of the human experience.

One of his best known books is The Wild Edge of Sorrow. And then his newest book, which is exactly what I think we need right now, is called In the Absence of the Ordinary: Soul Work for Times of Uncertainty.

Today, we talk about the wisdom and vitality that our grief can bring forth if we resist the impulse to go numb. Francis talks about, as he says, keeping our grief company. It’s not about shaping the outcome of our grief, but about allowing it to stay soft, allowing it to keep moving so that it can become what it wants to become. And when we manage to do this, there is such an immense relief—when our psyches recognize that this is what we’ve needed all along.

While so many of us fear our grief, Francis illuminates how what’s actually far scarier is what happens when we don’t tend to our grief. The way it comes out sideways, and the chance that we miss out on to connect to our own immensity…To accept the invitation of what Francis calls the long dark… To, when faced with uncertainty, move toward imagination instead of regression.

Francis reminds us that we are not bereft of soul medicine. We’re not empty containers—we’re also our own medicine carriers.

This conversation—Francis’s wisdom—feels like medicine to me. I hope you find it healing and beautiful, too.

In the Absence of the Ordinary: Soul Work for Times of Uncertainty

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

Entering the Healing Ground

Francis Weller’s Website

ELISE: