Podcast Summary: Embodiment Matters – “In the Absence of the Ordinary: A Conversation With Francis Weller”

Hosts: Carl Rabke & Erin Gieseman Rabke
Guest: Francis Weller
Date: June 11, 2020
Francis Weller’s work
Episode Focus:
A profound and soulful exploration of grief, initiation, the importance of communal and personal rituals, and how embracing the “absence of the ordinary” during times of uncertainty (specifically, the pandemic) can deepen our participation in both suffering and beauty. The dialogue draws from psychotherapy, mythology, indigenous wisdom, alchemy, and more, inviting listeners to reimagine what it means to be deeply embodied and connected in a fractured world.

Main Theme & Purpose

This episode centers on the transformative, initiatory potential of crisis—especially in uncertain times like the COVID-19 pandemic. Francis Weller shares his insights on grief as a communal practice, elders as carriers of collective medicine, and the soul’s journey through the “dark waters.” The conversation is rich with practices for cultivating self-compassion, patience, beauty, and depth through darkness, offering a soulful approach to collective and personal hardship.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Opening Reflections & Pandemic Solitude

• Francis shares how the pandemic has felt like a return to the ancient contemplative rhythm of the “Book of Hours,” observing the distinct qualities in each part of the day as a soulful practice.
  • Quote: "As an introvert, it's actually turned into a very rich, soulful time of reflection and imagination and kind of an intimate conversation with the mood of the world, which is quite heavy and dense and anxious right now, but it's also been quite rich." (03:27)

2. Initiation: Consequences and Meaning

• Traditional initiation involves radical severance from the known, a shift in identity, and the realization you can never return to who you were.
  (05:14)
• Initiation is for the community and the whole—not merely for individual growth.
• Trauma, as “rough initiation,” can isolate rather than integrate, causing a felt sense of isolation and a rupture in belonging.
• Healing is “suturing tears in our code of belonging.” (09:48)
• Initiation is not optional, but you can miss its gifts if you try to return to “normal.” (11:13)
  • Quote: “Initiation means to begin something, not to finish it… Our Western psychology is so self oriented, all about me. But what if the larger arc of our life was not meant to simply be about my personal growth, but about my gradually increasing circumference of participation with the whole engaged world?” (06:25)

3. On Becoming an Elder: Metabolizing Sorrow

• True elders have metabolized pain and trauma into medicine for their communities.
• Elders carry “gravity”—focused less on themselves, more on holding and serving the community. (13:35)
• Our culture is trouble-avoidant and pain-averse, but pain is inevitable.
• Spaciousness, not solutions, is the invitation of soul work.
  • Quote: “James Hillman once said… the issues we are confronted by are not meant so much for resolution as they are for spaciousness. How big can we become? How much can we hold as human beings?” (15:26)

4. The Practice of Apprenticeship With Sorrow

• Right relationship with sorrow: Neither avoiding nor drowning, but apprenticing—walking alongside grief with companionship and courage. (16:50)
• Not a quick fix: “This is not a short term thing. It’s not a weekend workshop. It is a prolonged vigil that we're asked to hold with some of the most difficult material.”

5. Four Essential Practices for Overwhelm (18:24–25:35)

• Self-Compassion: Radical acceptance of all parts, especially weakness, failure, and inadequacy.
  • “When I teach weekends on self compassion, I often begin… this is a weekend and non self improvement.” (20:50)
• Turning Toward Feelings: Courageously facing difficult emotions as guests at the door.
• Astonishment by Beauty: Find ballast and nourishment in beauty, even amid suffering.
  • “Without beauty, life would be unbearable.” (John O’Donohue quotation, 23:00)
• Patience: Letting things unfold in their own time; learning through long fidelity, referencing Jane Goodall’s years-long work with chimps.
  • “In your patience is your soul... Not so much in your accomplishments… but what if patience became a soul value that we really honored?” (24:45)

6. Restraint & Emptiness (27:38–30:01)

• Restraint—knowing how to hold back for something larger to emerge—is a rarely celebrated virtue.
• The pandemic imposed collective restraint, confronting us with emptiness.
• True emptiness is not personal failure but the missing ground where ritual, community, or nature should dwell.

7. Paul Shepard’s “Beautiful and Strange Otherness” (31:12–34:42)

• Real grief is an emptiness where connection to the “beautiful and strange otherness” of the world has broken down.
• “Our suffering is mutually entangled, one with the other, as is our healing.” (33:59)
• Therapy’s subtle goal: to help us reinhabit our own “beautiful and strange otherness.”

8. Gifts and Service as the Culmination of Healing

• The journey through suffering isn’t for us alone: what is gathered is meant to be given away.
  • “What the world needs more than anything else… are attentive and present adult human beings who are willing to wade into the mess and say, ‘I'm here and I have gifts’.” (36:55)
• Depression and sadness arise when we’re not asked to share our gifts.

9. Bridging Polarization With Depth (37:27–41:10)

• Outrage (as love-aligned) is distinct from reactive rage.
• The challenge: maintain relationship across difference; stay connected even in conflict.
• “Conflict done well to an initiated human being leads to breakthrough and to intimacy.” (39:24)

10. Duende: The Fierce, Soulful Energy of the Dark (41:10–44:08)

• “Duende” is an Andalusian term for the wild, deep, untameable energy that erupts from the depths, fueling authentic art and living.
  • Passion and discipline are needed to court duende; chaos otherwise results.
• Duende is an animating, gritty, moving presence—not to be domesticated, but courted.

11. The Sacredness of Darkness (44:18–49:26)

• Darkness, often maligned in Western culture, is a holy, generative space.
• Quoting Rilke: “My God is dark and like a webbing made of a hundred roots that drink in silence.” (46:46)
• “Whoever is touched by duende is baptized by dark waters” — opening to confidence and blessing that comes from the dark.

12. Disciplines of the Dark & Collective Descent (49:44–54:00)

• The pandemic is a time for “descent:” letting go, listening, rooting.
• “Fear does not disqualify the entry point. It just means that we're walking beyond what is familiar.” (49:44)
• Robinson Jeffers: “We must uncenter the human a little,” inviting us into a multi-centered cosmos, delighted by multiplicity and otherness.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Cultivating Spaciousness:
  “The issues that we are confronted by are not meant so much for resolution as they are for spaciousness.” —Francis Weller (15:26)

• Beauty as Survival:
  “Life without the experience of the beautiful would be unbearable.” —John O’Donohue, shared by Francis Weller (23:00)
  “We're not going to change what's going on in our culture or on our planet by moralistic imperatives. We will do it out of love. And love is first quickened through beauty.” —Francis Weller (23:40)

• Elders and the Community:
  “An elder is someone who really has taken themselves less and less seriously and their role in the community more and more gravely.” —Francis Weller (13:35)

• Patience as Soul Value:
  “In your patience is your soul… what are you willing to sit with day after day, hour after hour, for the long vigil?” (24:45)

• Service Beyond Personal Healing:
  “What we learn, what we gather on any kind of long walk with suffering is meant to be a giveaway at some point.” (36:55)

• Walking into the Unknown:
  “Fear does not disqualify the entry point. It just means that we're walking beyond what is familiar. And can we in this moment, rather than trying to scramble back to everything that we know, can we live in that unknown place, can we engage it and let it inform us?” (49:44)

• Language as Earth, as Presence: (Francis’ reading from his essay, 53:34)

  “I want to see our words jump off the ground, erupt from a central earth, musty, humid, gritty. I want to taste words like honey, sweet and dripping with eternity…”

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 03:27 – Francis on pandemic solitude and returning to the “Book of Hours”
• 06:25 – Initiation as severance, identity shift, and no return to old life
• 13:35 – On elders metabolizing grief into medicine
• 15:26 – Spaciousness vs. resolution, the bigness of soul
• 16:50 – Apprenticeship with sorrow: neither escape nor drowning
• 18:24 – Four practices for overwhelm: self-compassion, turning toward, beauty, patience
• 24:45 – Patience and presence, Jane Goodall discussion
• 27:38 – Restraint: a forgotten virtue, meeting emptiness
• 31:12 – Paul Shepard’s “beautiful and strange otherness”
• 33:59 – Erin reads Francis’ writing: uniting in sorrow, shared presence
• 36:55 – Gifts, healing, and service to the collective
• 39:24 – Bridging polarization with relational, “initiated” presence
• 41:10 – Duende: wild, soulful force and its requirements
• 44:18 – The sacredness and generativity of darkness (Rilke quote)
• 49:44 – Disciplines of the dark, collective descent, uncentering the human
• 53:34 – Francis reads his evocative, earthy passage on language and belonging

Tone and Language

Throughout, the conversation alternates between poetic, earnest, and gently provocative. Both Francis and the hosts embody a slow, reflective pace—inviting listeners not to rush, but to marinate in the questions and subtle insights. There’s a tangible presence of reverence, tenderness, and encouragement to turn toward sorrow, beauty, and the mystery of being alive in troubled times.

Summary

This episode is a rich, contemplative journey into the heart of what truly “matters” in embodied living—especially when the ordinary has fallen away. Francis Weller offers both philosophical frameworks and lived, practical wisdom for walking with sorrow, cultivating depth, and embracing both the dark and beautiful gifts of our current shared ordeal. The hosts skillfully draw out not just information, but also invitation: to pause, witness, and remember our own roots of belonging and soulfulness, for the sake of ourselves and the wider world.