By Martina Breen CSL
“A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms, and atmospheres. To enter a threshold is to cross into a new world.”
—from To Bless the Space Between Us
There comes a time in life, and particularly with age, when grief is no longer an occasional visitor — it becomes a regular companion, shaping how we see, how we feel, and how we love. In the second half of life, grief is not only about death; it is about the countless endings that we have experienced, the losses that deepen us and refine us.
In the western culture, grief is often treated as something to fix or to move through quickly. But what I have learned is, that those of us walking the path of conscious ageing know that grief is not a problem to solve — it is a sacred visitor to be welcomed.
Nature teaches us this again and again. At this turning of the year, there is a particular stillness in the land — the leaves have fallen, the air sharpens, and the earth has begun her slow long exhale into rest. In Celtic imagination, every ending is a threshold — a caol áit, a thin place where worlds touch. These thresholds are not limited to one season; they echo through every chapter of a life — especially in times of loss, endings, and the quiet unravelling’s of ‘what once was’.
When something ends — a relationship, a vocation, a phase of life — we stand between stories; one has ended and we have not yet grown into the new one. In elderhood, when so much is being surrendered — identities, roles, relationships, physical capacities — it is tempting to rush toward the next beginning, to fill the space. Yet the work of elderhood calls us to linger in the in-between, to honour what has been and to wait with patience and trust for what is emerging.
As Elders, we are called to meet these winter thresholds consciously. Each time we say yes to something new, we must say no to something else — and that no is a little death: Elderhood invites us to honor these little deaths, not rush past them.
Loss has been a lifelong companion for me— arriving first when I was too young to understand its language, and returning again and again through the seasons of my life. My first experience of death occurred when I was 13, when my grandfather passed. Then, at 21, my first child, Jonathan, lived only a short time after birth — a tiny life that reshaped mine forever. One week later, my father died; and later, my mother left this Earth when I was 42, just nine months before the birth of my youngest son.
Some year later, my childhood friend and the father of three of my sons passed— only four weeks after his 50th birthday. Whilst we were separated a number of years; the soul connection you have with your first love never dies. In these past few years: I have said goodbye to two of my precious sisters and then my brother and sister-in-law, who passed within 6 days of each other. Such losses run deep and leave their mark.
And yet, as Francis Weller, in The Wild Edge of Sorrow, writes; “grief and gratitude are two sides of the same coin.” They may feel like opposites, but they arise from the same source: “LOVE”. When we allow ourselves to grieve fully, we allow ourselves to affirm how deeply we have loved.
To age consciously is to live with a heightened awareness of impermanence. The roles that once defined us — parent, partner, professional, caregiver — they all evolve or fall away. Our bodies, once obedient to our will, begin to speak a new language and change. Loved ones die. Dreams we once held dear fade away into memory. These are the visible losses. But beneath these losses are more subtle ones: letting go of old definitions of ourselves, loosening our hold on how things ‘should’ be, and gradually outgrowing the version of ourselves we once thought we’d be forever!
I have come to trust that grief is not something you ‘get over’, nor does it ‘leave us’; it reshapes us. It is not a darkness we enter and exit; it becomes part of landscape of our Soul — shaping us into vessels of compassion. The task is not to overcome grief, but to let it open your heart wider. For as the elders and mystics have long taught, when we learn to die before we die, we discover that every ending — whether a relationship, a role, or a breath — is practice for surrendering into life itself. This is not poetic language; it is lived truth. Because the more intimately we walk with death, the more vividly we experience life. We learn to appreciate the ordinary moments, we forgive with greater ease, we release what no longer serves more easily, we learn to let go — not as a punishment, but as a way to free ourselves from suffering.
I often say in my workshops that we practice dying many times before the body’s final death. Each ending, if met with awareness, becomes rehearsal for the great letting-go that awaits us all. To live close to this truth is not morbid; it is clarifying. It calls us to presence. It teaches us gratitude. It invites in us the humility to trust life’s larger unfolding.
Irish author, Michael Kearney, is a medical doctor who has worked for over 40 years in hospice and palliative care in Ireland and US and Canada. In his book, Mortally Wounded, he argues that people can “learn to die well,” even when cure is no longer possible. By tending to “soul pain” (fear, shame, isolation, unresolved loss), not just physical suffering, dying can become a process of healing, depth, and inner transformation. Then, grief becomes not something to endure, but something that shapes us into wise elders — spacious, compassionate, and awake to the preciousness of every breath.
Ways to allow grief become your inner teacher
• Make space for grief – don’t rush it. “Grief is a slow conversation that unfolds over time” (F. Weller)
• Tend to the Soul Pain – not only emotional pain. “Grief becomes our teacher when we allow it to reveal our deeper fears and unfinished business” (M. Kearney)
• Grief needs witnessing – bring it into the community. Grief becomes medicine when held within ritual or community or Anam Cara companionship. (J. O’Donohue)
• Let grief teach you how to die. Grief prepares the Soul for morality.6 (S. Levine)
If these reflections speak to something stirring within you, I will be guiding a year-long journey, A Sacred Invitation – A Year to Live, starting in January 2026.
You are welcome to explore more on my website.
Martina Breen — Gestalt Psychotherapist, Spiritual Companion, and Facilitator of “A Sacred Invitation: A Year to Live.”
“Grief is the one companion who walks with us, not only to show us the way home, but also to make us pay attention to the way we have travelled.”
—from David Whyte; Consolations
References:
- Weller, Francis. The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief. North Atlantic Books, 2015.
- Kearney, Michael. Mortally Wounded: Stories of Soul Pain, Death, and Healing. Scribner, 1996.
- O’Donohue, John. Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom. HarperCollins Publishers, 1997
- Levine, Stephen. A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as If It Were Your Last
- Whyte, David. Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Meaning of Everyday Words. Many Rivers Press, 20
