2013.09.05: Francis Weller w/ Michael Lerner - Beauty, Imagination, & the Life of the Soul

Francis Weller Beauty, Imagination, and the Life of the Soul Join Michael Lerner in a second conversation with author and soul activist Francis Weller about his work with people living with grief, and his studies and experience with the grief rituals and ceremonies of indigenous cultures. Carried privately, sorrow lingers in the soul, slowly pulling us below the surface of life and into the terrain of death. Learning to hold sorrow and loss close to our hearts is a deep spiritual practice, a fierce and unflinching acknowledgement of the way of the world. This spiritual practice is a tempering of the soul, a gradual deepening that moves us closer to the earth, into an intimacy with our surroundings where we lean into those we love. In his recent book, Entering the Healing Ground, Francis reveals the hidden vitality in grief, uncovered when the heart welcomes the sorrows of our life and those of the world. Francis Weller, MFT Francis is a psychotherapist, writer and soul activist who has developed a style he calls soul-centered psychotherapy, synthesizing diverse streams of thought from psychology, anthropology, mythology, alchemy, indigenous cultures and poetic traditions. His book Entering the Healing Ground: Grief, Ritual and the Soul of the World discusses creating pathways to reclaiming our indigenous soul, what psychologist Carl Jung called the “unforgotten wisdom” that resides in the heart of the psyche. Recognizing the lack of existing dialogue and the profound need for sacred ritual and grief work in his community and beyond, Weller founded WisdomBridge in Northern CA, an organization that offers educational programs that integrate the wisdom from traditional cultures with the insights and knowledge gathered from western cultures. He is currently completing his second book, A Trail on the Ground: Tracking the Ways of Our Indigenous Soul. Find out more about The New School at tns.commonweal.org.