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Hello everyone, The month of November brings remembrance of others into special focus. Nature is its own invitation to us to see through and into the essence of what we remember of those we’ve loved and still love. Somehow that clarity is possible in the waning light of autumn, as if the trees shedding their leaves allow us into the heart of things… like the knowing of a kingfisher from the momentary turquoise flash in our peripheral vision, normally obscured by deep green foliage. Remembering is not always welcome. Wise coaches and teachers have often invited me to take up a practice of self-remembering – finding a time each day to add to an ever increasing list of my gifts or qualities, things and people I love or am grateful for, a way to re-find my own centre-ground and rightful place in the wider constellation. I’ve often resisted these invitations, finding it hard to tolerate the inward gaze towards my own goodness. But I’m wondering how it is possible for me to properly, fully, remember and honour others if I can’t do it for myself. How can I bring to presence the wholeness of those I love, if I can’t bear my own? So, what might open up if I could consider self-remembering to be a gift to myself and others at the same time – a reciprocal recognition of each other? Here, I have an inkling of the good gifts of grief, the beauty and aliveness to be gained if I can, as Francis Weller puts it in his life-affirming book The Wild Edge of Sorrow, Rituals and Renewals and the Sacred Work of Grief, ‘undertake an apprenticeship with sorrow’ and learn the ‘wild alchemy that transmutes suffering into fertile ground.’ With warm wishes and in remembrance,
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