By Sharon Callahan

There is no right or wrong way to grieve. Often when we have lost a beloved animal we are overcome with feelings of inadequacy feeling that we didn't do enough or that we didn't love enough. To compound these feeling we might read of a series of steps that we are told encompass the grieving process and if our process is unfolding differently, feel that we aren't even doing that right. But there is no one who can say how we should feel or how we should grieve. It is better for each of us to honor our own process, to proceed at whatever pace and in whatever manner that our feelings might unfold.

With the beauty of your individual way of being in mind, I offer you inspirations from the works of Elise Nivens Morgan. Allow her words to touch your heart and soul. Your own beautifully unique grieving process will unfold in the sacred rightness of her inspired words.

Face Your Grief
Keep open, keep Shiningly Sorrowful until Sorrow is redeemed. It has its natural outlet; let sadness heal your Sorrow. Cease pushing it away from you. Only by complete self surrender can you overcome. Be yourself, your little child self. Willing to sit by the well and wait in the twilight until the Light dawns of Its own free will.

Be willing to lay every sunless day before the Holy One. The past rediscovered is embroidered in Shining Colors.

Shine in the hour of sadness, unite your little one to God. Starry streams of Divine Beings carry her Home.

Beloved, let the fires burn. Let the experience come. Give all. Hold no least thread of ownership.

Take whatever comes before you. Let the Light of Love redeem you. Then will your heart remain free from self deception, over sensitiveness.

If you have an aversion to anything, it means fear is in your heart; therefore go straight into life, into every hidden niche and crevice. In the Name of Truth enter everything you would avoid that every shadow, every weakness may be revealed and healed.

You can give what you are working out bit by bit.

There is nothing to fear. The Holy One is present.

Take no thought ahead. Remember you are responsible only for this day. As you live from day to day, hour to hour, healing takes place.

Open. Lay bare the heart and mind and let the Winds of God blow through.

Release All Sense of Guilt
You have nothing to dread, nothing to anticipate; your sins are forgiven.

Hold not to past mistakes; when you receive remittance you are allowed to begin a fresh life, a life in Joy. Joy born in the mantle of Faith makes glad the heavy-hearted.

Forgiveness of self is the Key to the Door of Light. Forgive the past now, this very moment, and know now and forever that I am in you I am you, the Real You the Eternal You, and you are in Me. Reality comes through Divine Forgiveness.

Love and appreciate the soul's integrity. Give to your soul as you would give to another. The soul-self should be reverenced as a child of the Almighty not repudiated, but blest, freed, allowed to expand and live in this day, in this eternal hour.

Take each negative feeling, each weakness, to the Throne to be melted in Divine Grace.

Cultivate a Spiritual Relationship With Your Beloved Animal
Be willing to receive from every sphere, willing to be a center of evolving Life. Allow yourself to let go of everything you would hold, everything you would purposely direct, and let Life's flow fill you with Peace, fill you from day to day, hour to hour.

When you are weary or lonesome, seek not for a quite place, create the quite place within you. In still quiet love open your heart.

The hour of united freedom comes when you are willing to give all to God, Seemingly leaving behind the ones who are most precious; but as you are willing to follow the Indwelling Lover, your way will include the very ones you gave to Him.

Keep Your Poise
Know yourself as one united soul. To exercise control means no thoughtless words, No hasty decisions, no exclamations, no hurried self-condemnation.

Mine own, be gentle, loving not self-condemnatory. Bless your soul, bless God in man. When a restless urge is in your sphere, be steadfast, serene, tempered to the wind and waves alike.

Let no word of caution or despair drift through your mind. Catch it if need be in mid-air and it will dissolve in space.

Darkness is the other side of Light. Raise your eyes and see the Man of Light standing in your soul. You can look within and see without; everything is pictured in the Universe.

Commune With the Animal in Your Consciousness
Be open and receive Love from all God's creatures, and be sensitive to great expanding territory.

Be simple, utterly secure in your faith, and hear the Voice speaking in the heart.

When you include all in the Holy Spirit nothing is left unsaid that is left unspoken.

No one is difficult of approach, no one is separated from you. The very one you feel estranged from is longing and calling to you.

Avoid the Appearance of Sorrow
Praise the closed portals, and something sincere, something hidden will stir in the soul.

When you feel disturbed, confused, begin to shine, begin to sing. Call on the River of Life and let the Loving Waters overflow your entire being.

Your soul asks for life, more life, less fatigue, sorrow, self absorption, less thought expended on other entities, greater freedom of heart and mind, greater service.

A beaming countenance, integrity of body, form, and face is all important and is only won through faith, faith in the fullness of Life.

Ask yourself, "Am I in bondage to my little personal self?"

In silent joy you will find rest.

Waste not your liquid moments on strifling thoughts.

Find Some Avenue to be of Service to Others in Their Grief
The instant you forget yourself as yourself, and give to others through love something is released in your soul and in their souls; and when in the name of Love they go into that which they feared, darkness, susceptibility to disease melt in the Light of His Presence.

*Ouotes taken from the works of Elise Nivens Morgan, The Elisian Guild 1922