more on lemons and lemonade

I wrote in an earlier post about lemons (the difficult things that happen in life, large or small) and about my desire to sometimes NOT turn them into lemonade. To just be with the bitterness.

But today I had a conversation with some women in which lemons were shared, and it got me thinking...

In sharing our lemons, in witnessing another person's lemons, in allowing ourselves to grieve...maybe we get a different sort of lemonade?

It reminds me of a poem I love:

The Well of Grief
​- David Whyte
​

Those who will not slip beneath
the still surface on the well of grief,

turning down through its black water
to the place we cannot breathe,

will never know the source from which we drink,
the secret water, cold and clear,

nor find in the darkness glimmering,

the small round coins,
thrown by those who wished for something else.

So, what is the recipe for this different sort of lemonade?

Courage to go beneath the still water,

Trust that in the darkness there may be clarity and sustenance,

Acknowledgement of the glimmering coins,

Gratitude to yourself for all of it.