In our culture, grief and loss are often ignored, particularly in online nonduality. I became a writer while in the process of losing my husband to a fatal cancer. I, apparently, was the only one going through such an ordeal that was willing to write about it. It was considered poor form by many whose main goal was to rise above all personal identification.

But these days I notice that more and more nonduality proponents are undergoing necessary losses and being more open about it. That is a good thing, for awareness of grief is the same as awareness of not-grief. The witness does its job and the personal self, although essentially unreal, is in the dark night of the soul. Someone needs to notice because the veil has temporarily dropped.

We are all the characters in the greatest story ever told. When we have someone beloved in the valley of the shadow, we are personifying grief and loss. When Jesus goes into the tomb, we are Him as a person. When Mary cries for the loss of her Friend, we are her. And when she sees Him in his new body, we are both Mary and the Christ. It is all a teaching vehicle. But let us never forget that we are learning conscious compassion. It is poor form to say that Mary should have known better.

When I write about my inner life of moving through grief and beyond, sometimes I am amazed that I am still here and in a new place. It no longer feels raw and unbearable. I move through my life in an emptier way, but empty is my new fullness. Every evening as I do my stretching exercises at the foot of my bed, I gesture to the place where my husband used to sleep. I speak a word to him and a word to me, as if both of us were together in that place. I am comforted to know that we actually are. I am not sure what place we left behind, but where we are now is good enough.

I know you are already wondering what place I mean. It is hard to articulate but I will try. It is that place that has lived through the crucifixion and the resurrection of the personal. It is bittersweet and hard-won. It has gone through the valley of the shadow and become the shadow and the light. What it is now is whole and unreachable. Pure and stained with all that has touched the glory. Willing to give up dreams of perfection. Going on because every step was necessary. Every step was leading back home.

Vicki Woodyard