Rev. Michelle's Message October 23, 2025

As we approach the end of October, the veil between the spirit world and the material world becomes thinner. At least, this is the belief of those who celebrate Día de los Muertos. You may find that you are reflecting more at this time on your own loved ones who have passed. I know I have been thinking a lot about my beloved Grandma, my kitties Molly and Zoe, and my Uncle Jim.

Loss and grief are human conditions that affect all of us at one point or another in life. Grief is something that we all share. But the way we grieve is just as unique as the individual expressions that each of us are.

The Swiss psychiatrist, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, made a huge contribution toward our understanding of the grieving process when she famously wrote of the various stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Yet she never intended for them to be understood as a linear process or one that we would all go through in the same way.

Mirabai Starr—author, teacher, mystic, and certified bereavement counselor—prefers to call these phases “stations” rather than “stages.” Sometimes she even refers to them as “portals for transformation” because she believes that the grief process—while painful and challenging—can also be truly transformative when we lean into it and allow it to change us at depth.

Each of us moves through grief in our own unique way. There is no prescription for grief except to do our best to allow it. In our grief-averse culture, we are not taught how to grieve and often are not given the time or space we need to grieve in our own way.

With our annual exploration of the themes of death and grief, and our communal celebration of Día de los Muertos, with our beautiful altar containing pictures of all of our loved ones, we are learning together how to grieve. We are learning how to honor our own process and give ourselves all the time we need to grieve in our own individual way.

This is some of what I mean by “Re-Wilding Our Grief”—the title of this Sunday’s lesson. I hope you will join us this Sunday as we continue to explore these important themes together.

Wild Blessings,

Rev. Michelle

#grief #unity #unityofmontereybay #unitymonterey #stagesofgrief