Peace Inspired by Grief

Peace is beyond understanding. Peace inspired by Grief looks at this statement, from the perspective of not understanding peace but of knowing peace through the intimate relationship we all have at some point in our lives, with grief. The heart of Peace inspired by Grief was written during a 40 day solitary silent retreat. It is a contemplative, gentle way into the experience of the union of grief, peace and unconditional love. It is a book where the words and ideas of peace move into an experience of peace. Peace inspired by Grief is a collection of poems, short stories and reflections on grief opening the door into peace. Instructions are given for an optional creative process. This simple creative process moves the passive experience of reading into an active movement in the reader’s own body of grief moving into peace. These instructions are offered prior to the section of the book which holds a collection of 40 individual reflections within poems, meditative sayings and short stories. Peace inspired by Grief comes from a place where the intimate experience of grief and peace within you and the universal experience of grief and peace on earth become inseparable. Within Peace inspired by Grief is the clarity of the simplicity of moving into peace through creativity in love. Creativity nourishes peace and grief feeds PTSD. The connection between grief, PTSD, creativity and peace is not in the rational or thinking level of our mind. Rather this connection lives within the deeper, often unknown depths of our being, a place of intuition, healing, mystical knowing, creativity and our connection to unconditional love and compassion. This is the place where Peace inspired by Grief was born. Peace is here. Peace lives within healing, unconditional love and compassion. And what is the way into this peace? My way is faith in love. The action of my faith is through silence, creativity and waiting. This is a way to move grief into peace.

Peace is beyond understanding. Peace inspired by Grief looks at this statement, from the perspective of not understanding peace but of knowing peace through the intimate relationship we all have at some point in our lives, with grief. The heart of Peace inspired by Grief was written during a 40 day solitary silent retreat. It is a contemplative, gentle way into the experience of the union of grief, peace and unconditional love. It is a book where the words and ideas of peace move into an experience of peace. Peace inspired by Grief is a collection of poems, short stories and reflections on grief opening the door into peace. Instructions are given for an optional creative process. This simple creative process moves the passive experience of reading into an active movement in the reader’s own body of grief moving into peace. These instructions are offered prior to the section of the book which holds a collection of 40 individual reflections within poems, meditative sayings and short stories. The poems and short stories are different perspectives of grief moving into peace. They come from the author’s view from within silence of her experiences as a nurse, a daughter dealing with grief of her father’s death, to being immersed in her own town’s pain and suffering from the moment a massive flash flood filled the town to months later in the reality of a community that will never be the same. Peace inspired by Grief comes from a place where the intimate experience of grief and peace within you and the universal experience of grief and peace on earth become inseparable. Within Peace inspired by Grief is the clarity of the simplicity of moving into peace through creativity in love. Creativity nourishes peace and grief feeds PTSD. The connection between grief, PTSD, creativity and peace is not in the rational or thinking level of our mind. Rather this connection lives within the deeper, often unknown depths of our being, a place of intuition, healing, mystical knowing, creativity and our connection to unconditional love and compassion. This is the place where Peace inspired by Grief was born. Peace is here. Peace lives within healing, unconditional love and compassion. And what is the way into this peace? My way is faith in love. The action of my faith is through silence, creativity and waiting. This is a way to move grief into peace.

Kim Andresen is a wife and mother who for years had a career as a Registered Nurse. She lived a fractured, stressed life of trying to keep it all together. There came a point in her hectic life when she was drowning in chaos. She let go. In the silence that came with this surrender she heard the words; her soul was dying. She listened to these words and took an initial step to heal her soul through the visual arts. After graduating from art school she continued her formal education to include poetry writing and a two year Spiritual Direction program at the Vancouver School of Theology. Her steps continue to move deeper into the healing silence of peace and love. Her journey has included: daily meditation and prayer, monthly meetings with her spiritual supervisor, walking the Christian pilgrimage; the Camino de Santiago de Compostela twice, a native vision quest, silent retreats on a Buddhist hermitage for seven summers, body movement retreats focused on the teachings of Gurdjieff which in turn are based on teachings of the Sufi’s, the Muslim mystics. She has gone on two 40 day solitary silent retreats, in the spring of 2011 and in the fall of 2013. In the fall of 2013 she followed a call into deep silence after being immersed for three months in the pain and suffering of her town following a flash flood. During this second 40 day silent, solitary retreat, Peace inspired by Grief was birthed. She lives in High River, Alberta, Canada with her husband John.