Transforming Life’s Challenges
into Beauty and Story
by Dana Reynolds
 Recently I have become very aware of how often grief and mourning surface in our lives. Our losses include not only the departure of the physical presence of those near and dear through death, but we also endure loss through divorce, or moving away from familiar surroundings. Changes in employment, children growing up and leaving home, and other transitional life events also create voids in our hearts and souls. We are constantly letting go of people, places, and things as we circumnavigate the pathways of life.
How do we cope, and more importantly heal, during the times that sweep over us with grief, pain, and loss? How do we transform agony into the clay from which new beginnings can be shaped and formed? I believe that each of us carries tools for healing the empty places created by grief through our sacred imaginations and creativity.
There comes a time in the grieving process when the spirit signals it is ready to move forward, to engage in a return to life, to begin again... yet the body and mind resist. This is the time to co-create with the Divine to open the doorway to deeper healing and to begin the return journey to life from the depths of the abyss. Making sacred art, creating altars and shrines, writing poetry or expressing feelings in a journal, these activities engage the body, mind, and spirit in a dance of physical manifestation, imagining and contemplation, and mystical expression. When we engage with the sacred imagination we step into the alchemist’s chamber. This is the place where transformation occurs.
Many famous writers and artists have expressed that some of their greatest works were born from their darkest moments. Through the suffering, pain, and loss, the human heart and soul are dropped like a bucket into a
well to be filled with solace and healing...
>>> Continue Reading "Transforming Life's
Challenges"©
Copyright Dana Reynolds. This article was originally
published at our website, SoulfulLiving.com, in August
2000, as part of Soulful Living's "Art & Creativity" Issue.
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