Francis Weller has my favourite definition of Grief, he calls it “soul hygiene.” His book The Wild Edge of Sorrow is the best book I’ve ever read about this kind of stuff, and I’ve included it here. He talks about grief as a spiritual threshold, and a place of deep encounter with ourselves, and each other. 

For Weller, there are Five Gates of Grief:

1. The First Gate: Losing Someone or Something We Love
2. The Second Gate: The Places of Self That Have Not Known Love
3. The Third Gate: The Sorrows of the World (extinction, war, natural disasters)
4. The Fourth Gate: What We Expected and Did Not Receive
5. The Fifth Gate: Ancestral Grief

Here is a video explaining a bit of the importance of practicing and engaging with sorrow, to give you a bit of a taste of his work.
 
There are a myriad of grief rituals around the world, from the collective and cultural to the deeply personal. This is bigger than religiosity, humans have been using rituals to mark transitions for as long as we’ve existed. 

I like to think of ritual as a practice that uses symbolism and metaphor to build a bridge between the stuff that’s hard to put words to, and the stuff we can touch/understand. For example, using a circle of rocks to represent a sacred space, or choosing certain objects from your home or nature, to represent memories and emotions.
 
I designed a ritual for you. This is because I deeply believe that untended grief has a way of eating at us and destroying our potential, diminishing our quality of life and relationships. It follows us. It sneaks up on us when we least expect it and revisits us unexpectedly or at certain times of year. 

Grief is asking to be cleared, not shoved into the closet and ignored. Denying grief is like not washing your clothes or bed sheets (since you were 5, 20, for a year, your whole life, however long) …can you imagine?

Unexpressed grief drains our vital energy like a tidal wave of depression, or low-grade, ever-present blues. Armour gets placed unconsciously over our hearts in order to protect us from what is painful, and unacceptable to us. Grieving consciously is about taking that armor off. Grief rituals are a cleansing gift we give to ourselves.
 
What it boils down to is this: Your sadness is sacred and significant. Feeling your feelings is important. This process matters. Your inner world, matters. We can’t acknowledge, integrate, and ultimately accept what we do not grieve. Grief is an act of radical honesty with ourselves, and what hurts.

Ok, here we go. 

Preparation

Take a Reflective Bath
Begin with a bath infused with Epsom salts. Reflect on the cleansing and transformative power of water. Let it symbolize renewal and the release of heavy emotions, much like tears that carry sorrow and bring healing.

Gather Seasonal Biodegradable Symbols
Collect small, natural items tied to the holiday season. These could include an evergreen sprig, a pinecone, a cinnamon stick, a dried orange slice, a feather, or a handful of seasonal spices like cloves or star anise. The objects represent aspects of your grief: an unmet expectation, a regret, a treasured memory, a quality of your —- you’ll miss etc. You can also think about the 5 Gates of Grief when searching for objects. For example, a dried orange slice could represent The Fourth Gate: What We Expected and Did Not Receive, symbolizing the sweetness and vibrancy that once existed, but has now changed.

Curate a Personalized Playlist
Create a playlist of music that blends seasonal favorites with tunes that remind you of the person you’re honoring or moments you hold dear. The music should create a reflective and comforting atmosphere.

Prepare for Reflection
Gather paper, a notebook, or even a holiday card to write your thoughts and feelings.

Gather Items for a Special Space
The things I’ve included here, plus anything pretty you think would make a good addition to your altar. Maybe a blanket or piece of fabric, maybe something you made or a plant or some dried flowers. The idea here is simply that your grief is a gift to the universe. An offering.

Ritual

Prepare the Space
Put on your playlist, and light the candles/incense.

Reflect on the Holiday Season
Close your eyes for a moment and call in the essence of the season.
Reflect on what this time means for you, and how it relates to your grief.

Create Your Special Space
Set up your special space, arranging the chosen items. This space is meant to be an offering of your grief, acknowledging that it is sacred and transformative.

Writing Process
Grab your paper and write whatever comes out. Even if it’s “I have no idea what I’m doing, I’m sitting cross-legged in my bed and someone I love deeply is gone…” just let the words spill out. Don’t lift your pen. Set a timer for longer than you think you need, and fill the whole space.

Symbolic Offerings
Carefully place each symbolic biodegradable item you chose into a small glass or metal container, pausing to reflect or tell the story of each one aloud before you drop it in. You can choose whether or not you would like to add the papers you wrote on, or not. If you add them, burn them.

Cleansing and Release
Then, fill the bowl with water. Dump it outside in a small hole or at the base of a tree. Let the events of water and earth transform it.

The last thing I want to say is, try to release any fear or stories you might have about being “too much.” You have nothing to prove, no image to uphold, nothing you need to do or be. You don’t have to be consistent. You don’t have to be calm. In fact, I want to encourage you to be a bit wild and let go. Get outside, or close the bedroom door, whatever helps you feel far away from civilization and expectation. Lean into your creaturedom, if it feels safe. Open hearts hold the candle for a more compassionate, humane world. Cry, laugh, do what you need to. Give yourself permission to feel, and know that when you can do that, you invite others you meet into a deeper encounter with themselves also.

On that note…You also don’t have to cry! Maybe the well feels dry. Maybe the armour is up. Maybe you feel a bit guarded or just numb. That’s ok too. You constructed walls to protect yourself when they were very necessary, and maybe they still needs to be there for a bit. Maybe they are still doing some useful work. I trust your process. No “should”ing on yourself.

Grieving consciously is the most “productive” thing you could do right now I promise. 

During this holiday season, may you find space to honour both your grief and your joy.

This month, as Chanukah approaches, I want to explore the revolutionary and uncommon power of grace. Grace is one of those beautiful words that’s also theologically loaded (across faith traditions), but I invite us to gloss over the theology and marinate instead in its beauty. Chanukah itself is an act of grace: the miracle of the oil lasting beyond expectation and the survival of a community against all odds.

This kind of beauty can be confronting, even unnerving at times. The concept of grace is so counter-cultural, it is almost grating. Grace flies in the face of cause-and-effect, or the simple notion of fairness, meaning each person “getting what they deserve.” Grace has nothing to do with our deservingness.

Grace is love and forgiveness, freely given. The unconditional kind. The “just because” kind.

The kind that mends the rips and tears of our spiritual lives. As former Episcopal priest and professor Barbara Brown Taylor writes:

“By the grace of God, I am being mended, and God has called me to be a mender too. Since many threads are stronger than one, God has put me on a sewing team. Day by day, our job is to hunt the places where the world is ripped and bend over the damage to do what we can. Every good deed, every kind word, every act of justice and compassion tugs the torn edges closer together.”

You might have thought we are just a community, but in fact, this is a sewing team. We are all entrusted with the task of weaving this thread of healing and restoration into the world, a world that can be brutal at time.

Terror attacks on Israel, the rise in antisemitic attacks globally, including physical violence and discriminatory rhetoric, alarming mental health statistics, domestic violence, environmental destruction, and the list goes on. The layers of trauma and suffering can feel overwhelming at times. Maybe you’ve wondered where to even begin or doubted whether anything you do matters.

And yet, in the midst of so much pain and brokenness, grace offers us a way forward.

The invitation of grace--of love and compassion that is senseless and unmoderated--is about moving beyond sporadic philanthropy. If we accept the invitation of grace, we can no longer treat generosity as a hobby, volunteering or donating to whatever cause pulls our heart strings.

Instead, we are being invited into a total reorganization of our values and priorities. Re-drawing the boundaries of our circles, widening them to include those who are struggling in our local ecosystems. Grace asks us to spread our arms and stretch our fingertips beyond what feels comfortable, normal, or socially-acceptable – to see who we can reach. Walking in grace means mending the gaps in our communities. So, where do we begin when the world feels overwhelming? Right here. We begin right here.

Grace is the starting point, the place of new beginnings.

I didn’t always know what grace looked like. Of course, I had an intellectual grasp, but I wouldn’t have recognized it in a photo, or a moment on the street.

I appreciate Rabbi Rami Shapiro’s philosophy on grace, which circulates around radical liberation and acceptance. He equates the Hebrew word "chesed" (which means loving-kindness) with grace. Shapiro's perspective is that God is "be-ing" itself, the verb, like God IS grace-in-action. Grace as the inherent, unconditional, and all-inclusive love of creation. Grace, like sunlight, is not selectively given but rather an undiscriminating warmth and source of life for all that exists.

To live with grace, according to Rabbi Shapiro, is to accept life’s chaotic reality, embracing both joy and sorrow.

Part of this process involved acknowledging our darker sides and recognizing our need for forgiveness. Forgiveness allows us to experience the grace that is already present and return to our true nature as carriers of light and vehicles of grace.

Maybe you’ve been lucky enough to find yourself in the company of people whose hearts are captured by grace. Living a grace-filled life is a daily practice, and it’s not always easy. What’s easy is to feel indignant, hurt, self-righteous, or offended by the people we share this planet with. Operating with compassionate assumptions and forgiveness is unexpected.

As poet Mary Oliver writes, “put yourself in the way of grace.” This means being open to the unexpected moments of kindness and beauty that life offers. We do not have to be good to receive grace; it is a gift that “meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us,” as Anne Lamott so poignantly puts it.

Thankfully, this year, I got in the way of grace. I don’t know if I put myself there so much as stumbled over it, but in some unavoidable way or another, I got drenched in it.

This year was a hard one for me. I also isolated myself when I most needed to lean into this community.

Grace found me through the generous love and support of my rabbi and my family doctor. They were grace in action. Love as a verb.

My rabbi stayed by my side through breakdowns, guiding me to breakthroughs. My family doctor (thank you Dr. Noelle O’Riordan), in a province where doctors’ time is scarce, offered generous care and a compassionate presence beyond the limits of the system.

Today, I can confidently say I do know what grace looks like. It looks like a stylish, intelligent, and big-hearted Irish doctor who looks you in the eye and prescribes connection and community over a pill, and who does not let a broken health care system dictate how she shows up. Grace looks like a highly compassionate, deep-thinking justice-driven rabbi who encourages you to wait patiently for joy, knowing it will always return.

These two grace-filled humans remind me of who I want to be in the world: a person who creates enough room for others to be fully themselves, without trying to change, fix, or rush them. I want to give generously without wanting or needing to receive, seeing interactions not as transactions. I want to be the kind of person who allows grace to permeate deep into my being and shape how I move through the world.

The best part is that this foundation of grace and community eventually stretches further. The doctor and rabbi helped me, and I impact my students and fellow staff, who then go out into the world carrying the same torch. This is why we’re talking about grace today. It’s with the intention of creating whirlpools of change in our local ecosystems and eventually the world beyond them.

We all need grace. Grace is where the light fills the cracks, cracks shaped like our deepest wounds and vulnerabilities. It is undiscriminating and contagious, and it often comes from unsuspecting places. Grace is active, not passive, and it serves the transformation of a hurting world into a healing world. Allow yourself to be permeable to grace and extend that grace to those around you.

Grace changes us. It softens our hearts, opens our minds, and heals our wounds. It reminds us of our inherent worth and the divine love that surrounds us. As we continue this journey of mending and being mended, let us hold onto the transformative power of grace, allowing it to guide our actions and shape our world. And as you light your menorah this Chanukah, may the flickering candles remind you of grace—its quiet, persistent glow that inspires us to be vessels of light in a world that longs for it.

 

Since this is my first column as JFSC’s new Community Chaplain, I will take this opportunity to express how this role has filled me with a deep sense of purpose and gratitude. As our community navigates vulnerable experiences and complex emotions, it is a great privilege to be present throughout blessing, adversity, and everything else in between. Over the years, I've supported individuals from infancy to their final moments, and I'm honoured to journey with our community through every stage of life.

I hold a graduate degree in education and have over a decade of experience teaching both teens and adults. My ethical sensitivity and attention to persons has been shaped through experiences accompanying the dying and their loved ones. Volunteering with the Alberta Children’s hospital and being a part of NODA (No One Dies Alone) program inspired me to train as a palliative care chaplain and to pursue certification in thanatology (the study of death from physical, ethical, spiritual, medical, sociological, and psychological perspectives) so that I can better accompany those contending with end of life. I am also participating in graduate interfaith courses, as I am passionate about interreligious and intercultural dialogue, exchange, and cooperation. I can often be found exploring end-of-life rituals from the standpoint of Canada’s many distinct communities.

Though I have many titles, I am committed to moving slowly and occupying each seat with presence of mind and heart.

Amid the fast pace of today’s world, attention is often compounded by distractions and fragmentation. The simple act of being present—truly present—is profound. Presence is not just about the proximity of physical closeness; it’s about being emotionally and spiritually available. Being available to sharing space and quiet moments with others opens the possibility of deeper connections, attuned listening, and the privilege of being imperfectly human together.

I am eager to make a positive impact on our Jewish kehillah through a range of meaningful initiatives, particularly by leveraging the humanities and the arts to nurture people’s lives and wellbeing. I plan to organize volunteer sessions where youth engage with seniors in art-based activities at various care homes in Calgary. Additionally, I will facilitate a monthly book club for adults, focusing on works by Jewish authors, beginning with Leon Wieseltier's Kaddish. I will also coordinate a hospital visitation program and represent Jewish interests on Calgary's Spiritual Care Advisory Committee to ensure comprehensive support for Jewish patients. Furthermore, I will provide grief resources for a range of loss experiences, from the death of a family pet to the passing of loved ones.

In reflecting on how best to introduce myself, I have considered the value I place on presence and my deep belief in the sacred nature of grief and death. Communities benefit from open discussions on these often-taboo topics. Avoiding these universal truths denies us the gifts and wisdom they offer. Addressing grief, difficulties, and death directly helps prevent unresolved emotions, anxiety, and isolation. By encouraging open communication, we foster greater connection and support.

So that is a bit about me…though I’d love to know more about you!

Each month to close this column, I’ll share a resource to explore—a book, film, poem, or painting. This month, I’m highlighting Hasidic poet Yehoshua November, whose work captures the complexities and paradoxes of life and death. One of my favourites is his poem titled: Upstairs the Eulogy, Downstairs the Rummage Sale. It is brief yet impactful.

Upstairs the Eulogy, Downstairs the Rummage Sale
By Yehoshua November

The beloved Yiddish professor
passed away on the same day
as the synagogue’s rummage sale,

and because they could not bear
the coffin up the many steps
that led to the sanctuary,
they left it in the hallway downstairs, 

and because I was not one of his students,
and it didn’t matter if I heard the eulogy,
they told me to stay downstairs,
to watch over the body and recite Psalms.

And I thought,
this is how it is in the life and death of a righteous man:
upstairs, in the sanctuary,
they speak of you in glowing terms,
while down below your body rests beside
old kitchen appliances.

And I recited the Psalms as intently
as I could over a man I had only met once,
and because I knew where he was headed,
and you and I were to wed in a few months,
I asked that he bring with him a prayer for a good marriage.

And this is how it is in the life and death of a righteous man:
strangers pray over the sum of your days,
and strangers ask you to haul their heavy requests
where you cannot even take your body.

Thank you for welcoming me into this sacred work. I look forward to walking with you.

Please contact me with any questions or ideas, if you would like to get involved, or if you or someone you know would like a hospital, hospice, or continuing care home visit. I’m always up for a tea, so feel free to reach out if you’d like to chat over a cuppa!