Grief Without Words

I am a clairvoyant, a visionary artist and a psychotherapist. When I was 50 years old I met a man, who shared and enhanced these qualities in both my inner and outer worlds. I felt seen by him at my deepest levels. When I was 65 years old he died next to me in his sleep. This book is a pictorial journey of a few of the intense feelings and thoughts I experienced while grieving the loss of my Beloved Other, during the first year after he died. We all cycle through numerous stages of grief and loss at various times. The death of a dog, a relationship, a job, a house, a child or a beloved other normally triggers a grief response in most people. Different levels of grief take different amounts of time to resolve. Grieving for my husband has been the most gut-wrenching and the most self-revealing experience of my life. I drew one picture a day to force my heart, my body, my spirit, and my unconscious, as well as my intellect, to interact with the pain I was feeling as I witnessed my transition from Together to Alone. This book is for you to cry on, draw in, write in, scribble in, color in, heal with. I drew these pictures because, as a clinical psychotherapist, I knew that I must address my own personal grief daily to move through it. I am still moving through it. Now though I can hold nostalgia next to new patterns. A year and three months after my husband’s death, the tears come unexpectedly, especially when I am with our family and I see him in them. DIRECTIONS FOR USING THIS BOOK: In a quiet place, say a little request or prayer to your inner Self, All That Is, God, or your guardian Angel, to be led to the picture or pictures you need right now. Open the book to any page or pages. LET THE PICTURE(S) INTERACT WITH YOUR DEEPEST HEART, BECAUSE THAT IS WHERE GRIEF RESIDES. Read the quote on the "NOTES" page. If tears or thoughts come, fully embrace them. Allow them to move into your heart fully before picturing them draining out the bottom of your feet into the earth. (I think of the emotional energy I channel into the earth as fertilizer for wild flowers.) If the first page you open to doesn't touch your heart, mind or spirit, open to others. Give yourself permission to focus and feel deeply with these pictures every day even just a very short glimpse. You are not alone in your grief. I along with many others are out here surviving with you, cycling through one intense emotion after another, along the pathway of our grief. SHOCK, DENIAL, NUMBNESS, ANGER, FEAR, SEARCHING, DISORGANIZATION, CONFUSION, GUILT, LONELINESS, PANIC, DEPRESSION, SADNESS, RE-ENTRY, NEW STRENGTHS, NEW PATTERNS, HOPE, ACCEPTANCE.