Welcome to The Rules of Engaging Grief - A Path to Healing

This site is eclectic – sharing a wide experience, personal reflection, and abundant curiosity about life that has drawn me and I hope draws you to greater stillness.

Please be sure to visit the Blog to which material is added regularly.

What is This Site About?

Grief, loss, or rejection, is what we experience in a lifetime -- be it in the death of a spouse, divorce, or losing a job – whether or not we are prepared. How willing we are to address these overwhelming challenges determines how soon we return to emotional and spiritual harmony. In time and much work, we may even discover – as I did -- a deeper stillness that manifests a peacefulness and joy that I had not experienced earlier, before my journey was interrupted without warning.

The sudden loss of my spouse of almost forty years prompted me to plumb the depth of this experience. I can remember thinking I must clear the decks to determine what this loss means. Like the opening lines of the Divine Comedy recount, I realized that with the loss of my wife it was as if I had woken in middle age, in a dark wood, and without a path to follow.

My intention with this website is to share that journey and offer resources that sustained me as I made my way out of the dark forest. You will discover that I am grounded in Christianity, much influenced by my education and the Christian mystics that flavor Christianity over the centuries – to name just a few -- Meister Eckhart, the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing, St. John of The Cross, Thomas Merton, and Bede Griffith. I am quick to add that I have also been privileged to experience in my travels the spirituality of Sufism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism. As appropriate I will offer insights from these traditions as well.

In January of 2008, I saw published Rules for Engaging Grief: A Path to Healing which outlines a program for recovering emotional and spiritual harmony after loss -- be that loss of a loved one, the turmoil following divorce, or the disorientation experienced after a career setback. Earlier, two small volumes of my poetry were published: Searching Sand Crabs in the Dark: A Journey Inward and Ice Dance: Beyond the Grief. I am currently preparing for publication: House of Sand, a satiric novel that parodies the excesses and self-absorption that characterizes the oil rich kingdoms of the Middle East, focusing on the inhabitants as well as the Western entrepeneurs who flock there for their own self-interest.

**"Header Photo: "Rope Bridge" Daniel Pupius, 2000".

Read My Biography