I am grateful for The Uses of Sorrow .....

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"Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift."

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I was on a yoga and meditation retreat at Esalen Institute . I was using the above poem by Mary Oliver as part of my practice. And I was really, really struggling.

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It was a very difficult time in my life, and my mind was spinning, my heart was broken, my breath was shallow. I thought I might die!

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I went in for an interview with my teacher and shared with him the above poem I was using and how my experience was going and actually that I was going to have to leave the retreat and get home ASAP.

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This is what he said to me:

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"Tamara, maybe you shouldn't go so deep into the darkness. You aren't ready. Stay around the borders."

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I stayed at the retreat. I backed up a little from the darkness. I held myself, a little more tenderly.

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These years later I see the Uses of Sorrow. I have been on both ends, as a giver of sorrow, and as a receiver of sorrow.  I am human, as are you.

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May we use our sorrow to the betterment of  humanity.