Yesterday was National Grief Awareness Day in the U.S. It’s goal–to encourage open communication on loss and bereavement, and better inform the public on the facts of grief. As a grief advocate, I am always on the lookout for art tools that help us understand grief more deeply and grieve our losses more effectively. I especially get excited when scientists and artists get together to demonstrate something that our intuition tells us is right, and that scientific processes can help explain to us how and why the tool works. A day or so before finding this new resource, a former social work colleague, Colleen Shannon, came to my mind. Colleen had been a biofeedback expert, and we had worked closely together, collaborating on publications before I left the university in the late 80s. One of our collaborations was an article titled, “The Body-Mind Connection: What Social Workers Need to Know.” For years afterwards, Colleen and I met monthly over lunch taking turns picking up the check so we would always have a reason to meet again. She died of ovarian cancer in the late 90s, so I wondered what made me think of her. Then, almost immediately I came across an article about poetry and biofeedback. “Pay attention here Sheila,” Colleen seemed to be telling me. The June 27, 2022, article by Marissa Grunes with videos by Steven Allardi, was titled, “Feeling Stressed? Read a Poem.”
The article sprung from the experience of two literary scholars, Jonathan Bate and Paula Byrne, who, while waiting in a hospital while their 5-year-old daughter was in surgery, found nothing of interest to read. Since they were committed to the notion that literature can heal, they decided to put together a book of poems, “Stressed, Unstressed: Classic Poems to Ease the Mind.” Before publication they connected with biofeedback researcher, Inna Khazan to see if she could help them demonstrate that reciting poetry can affect heart rate variability and synchronize a person’s breathing to lessen the stress response. For the study, the researchers selected Robert Frost’s poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” which the poet himself reported composing in what he called a “flow state.” This concept now confirmed by positive psychology identifies a mental state where a person is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus and enjoyment. When the research subject was reading the poem, measurements on the biofeedback machine confirmed that the person reading the poem had entered the relaxed flow state as well.
When I think of a poem that has taught me much about grief, I think about working with a group of nuns to help them celebrate the 150th anniversary of their community’s time in America. It became clear as we reviewed their history that their successes were made possible by the way they confronted tough challenges and grieved multiple losses throughout the generations. We looked for a way to express the gifts their grief had brought them when one sister suggested the poem, “Well of Grief,” by David Whyte. Since members of my InterPlay troupe and I were proposing to dance to the poem, another sister volunteered a couple of bolts of sheer blue and turquoise fabric that she happened to have in her storage closet. Here’s the poem and some of what we dancers discovered.
As we moved with the fabric and the recitation of the poem’s varied phrases and pauses, we began to embody its message more fully. The first lines call attention to the people who are unwilling to grieve, who avoid going deeply into the pain of their grief.
The Well of Grief
Those who will not slip beneath
the still surface on the well of grief
turning downward through its black water
to the place we cannot breathe
The next lines reveal the reward of going there:
Will never know the source
from which we drink
the secret water, cold and clear,
nor find in the darkness glimmering,
the small round coins
thrown by those who wished for
something else.
All grievers have wished for something else, but in taking that dive into the underwater darkness, unexpected treasures are illuminated, and our courage is rewarded.
Dancing to this poem, and observing others dance to it, took me into the watery underworld of the well, where we hold our breath. We connect to source and emerge wiser, relieved, refreshed, even joyful. In this, my first experience interacting with a poem that expresses the daring assertion that grief can be a positive and enlightening experience, I felt reassured in my belief that grief is a gift to those willing to mourn.
