Practice: The work
A companion piece for The Work with deepening practices
This is the work:
to allow the leave to molder
and turn to mush,
the grass to brown
and to see the beauty of it still.
To let your tears rain
In the soft fertile places
Of the heart
Seeing death and life
Intertwined—
Your heart composting
Beauty and loss
Welcoming it all.
Most of us are taught, quietly and relentlessly, that beauty is found in what is alive, green, productive, and growing. We learn to tidy away what is decaying: to rake it up, bag it, and remove it as quickly as possible. Grief, exhaustion, disillusionment, and heartbreak are treated the same way. They are something to clean up, and to get past.
But the natural world does not hurry decay. Leaves fall and soften. They collapse into the soil. They become nourishment for what comes next.
This is the work:
to allow the leave to molder
and turn to mush,
the grass to brown
and to see the beauty of it still.
This is the invitation of grief work—not to transcend loss, but to stay with it long enough for it to transform.
To let your tears rain
in the soft fertile places
of the heart.
Tears are not evidence of weakness or failure. They are water. They soften what has hardened. They seep into the places where feeling has been compacted by survival. When we allow tears without rushing to explain or fix them, they do quiet, essential work beneath the surface.
Seeing death and life
intertwined—
Grief teaches us what our culture resists: that death and life are not opposites. They are companions. Every love carries loss inside it. Every ending reshapes the future. To grieve is to tell the truth about loving.
Your heart composting
beauty and loss.
Composting is not clean. It is slow, dark, and often uncomfortable. Things break down. Identities soften. Certainties dissolve. But compost is not destruction. It is transformation. What we cannot carry forward in its original form is not discarded; it is changed.
Welcoming it all.
Allowing life and trusting the patterns that naturally emerge within and around us shouldn’t feel like a radical act, but it often does. You don’t have to like it, but you can begin to soften into the truth of what is. What would it feel like if you accepted that all parts of the cycle belong—growth, decay, rest, and renewal? If you trusted that even now, life is happening beneath your awareness?
Deepening Practices
If they resonate with you, choose one or more of the following practices to deepen your experience with these ideas. Trust your instincts about what will be helpful for you right now. You don’t need to finish all of these, or any of them. Some might be helpful to work through with a therapist or a friend.
1. Letting the Leaves Fall (Reflective Writing)
What in your life is asking to be allowed to “fall” right now?
What are you tempted to clear away too quickly?
What might happen if you let it soften instead of resolving it?
2. Composting the Heart (Somatic Practice)
Sit or lie down comfortably.
Place one hand over your heart and one over your lower belly.
Imagine the center of your chest as rich, dark soil.
Bring to mind one loss, disappointment, or grief you’ve been carrying.
Without revisiting the story, notice the felt sense of it in your body.
Feelings of tension or guarding might indicate that you have been fighting this emotion instead of allowing it to be composted and transformed.
Soften your body and slow your breath while sitting with this emotion.
Notice how the sensation shifts as you extend witnessing and acceptance. You may feel an intensification, a release, internal resistance to allowing, or something else.
Extend the same acceptance to whatever responses arise, allowing them witnessing, warmth, and space for transformation.
Return to this practice regularly, notice the shifts that happen with practice.
3. Tears as Rain (Permission Practice)
If tears come easily, allow them.
If they don’t, that’s okay too.
Ask yourself gently:
Where in my body does grief want to land?
What soft place might receive it?
What would it feel like for me to allow that?
Choose an action that allows softening, even if it is just a degree. That might look like dancing, stretching, singing, or sitting in nature. A couple of resources I love are the work of Paul Denison with Grief Yoga and the mindful movement and drumming at Rhythm Bliss (I don’t get any kind of referral benefit for mentioning them).
4. Life and Death Together (Meaning-Making Reflection)
Complete these sentences in writing or silently:
Something that ended in my life also gave birth to __________.
Something I am mourning has changed how I love by __________.
If I trusted the composting process, I might release __________.
Closing
Grief doesn’t need you to be strong.
It asks you to be honest.
To stay.
To soften.
To trust the unseen work happening beneath the surface.
This is the work—not rushing toward spring, but honoring winter soil.
Not choosing beauty or loss,
but letting the heart hold both.