Mythology, Death and Grief

Emphasis will be on J. William Whorton’s Four Tasks of Mourning. We will address how Western mythology influences cultural mythology around death, dying and grief, keeping us from a “good” death and for those left behind, the ability to mourn in a meaningful way. What if all life is about finding meaning, each loss or wounding a way the divine or sacred finds an entry to expose a part of our unseen self. What if all our losses are a way to transition into something more—to be more of an authentic self. Our identity, how we see ourselves, comes from the forming of our ego. When we experience a loss it is part of an investment we have made in determining and knowing who we really are in the world. With the loss, we lose a small or large part of ourselves and how we participate in the world. We must find a way to rebuild how we see ourselves and relate to others. This is how the liminal space provides a container for us to mourn our loss and create a new story.