The Unwept Tears: A Journey Toward Home
There comes a time in every life when the weight of unwept tears becomes unbearable. These tears, long held back, seem to rise from the depths of the soul, piercing through the fabric of our days with a force that both frightens and beckons. The journey of these tears is not a simple one, nor is it one we choose. It arrives unbidden, like a tide that knows no mercy. In the quiet spaces of our weariness, restlessness, and solitude, these tears appear not as enemies, but as messengers of a profound and patient healing. The cracks that form in the dam of our distractions reveal something far more ancient than our busy, hurried lives: they reveal a longing to return to the ground of our own being, to that quiet, steady place beneath the layers of what we think we must do or be.
This theme, though universal in its reach, has been explored across the ages, in the writings of poets, philosophers, and artists. The ancient Greeks, in their wisdom, held the view that tears were not mere signs of weakness or suffering, but rather a means by which the soul found release. Plato, in his Phaedo, speaks of the soul’s purification through the acceptance of grief and loss. He tells us that the soul, in its journey toward understanding, must undergo trials, moments of shedding and renewal, much like a vessel that empties itself before being filled again with something of greater value.
In much the same way, we find ourselves in moments of emotional upheaval, when the flow of unwept tears seems to cleanse the soul of its burdens. We are like the rivers and oceans that carry the weight of the earth’s sorrows, shaping and reshaping themselves in response to the forces that shape the world. As the poet and philosopher Kahlil Gibran beautifully put it, "The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain." There is wisdom, then, in allowing the tears to come, for they create space within us for joy to return. This is not the joy of distraction, nor the fleeting joy that we too often pursue, but a deeper, more abiding joy that arises from the soil of grief itself.
One cannot ignore the echoes of these thoughts in the writings of John O'Donohue, whose words are suffused with a profound understanding of the human soul’s need for both solitude and expression. In his Anam Cara, O'Donohue speaks of the soul’s yearning for wholeness, of the necessity of facing the shadows within us in order to return to the light. He writes, “The soul is like a hidden garden; you must cultivate it with care and patience.” O'Donohue’s gentle understanding invites us to honor the soul’s quiet call, the longing that emerges when we have ignored the deeper dimensions of our lives in favor of superficial goals and hollow achievements.
Indeed, in our relentless pursuit of success, productivity, and external validation, we often build barriers around our inner lives. These barriers, however, do not protect us; they merely leave our souls parched, their thirst unacknowledged. The soul, like a forgotten well, calls us to return, to nourish it with presence, to listen to the silent and deep flow of tears that carry the wisdom of our own becoming.
Tears, we must remember, are not an indication of our fragility, but a reclaiming of our strength. They are, in a sense, a ritual of return—a returning to ourselves, a recognition of the parts of us that have been neglected, hidden, or denied. The great naturalist John Muir, in his reverence for the earth’s cycles, once wrote, “In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks.” There is something healing, then, in allowing ourselves to weep, for it is through the acceptance of our tears that we begin to connect with something larger than ourselves—the great cycle of life, death, and rebirth that permeates the natural world.
The artist is no stranger to this process of emotional release. The writer and poet Rainer Maria Rilke, in his Letters to a Young Poet, speaks of the necessity of facing suffering as a means of growth: “The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.” This defeat, however, is not a sign of weakness but a signal of the soul’s deep engagement with life. It is through the facing of sorrow that we find ourselves transformed, our brokenness woven into the larger tapestry of existence.
When we allow ourselves to slow down, when we step off the false ground of endless striving, we find ourselves returning to that quiet, unshakable earth beneath us. The ground that holds us in our pain, in our sorrow, and in our joy is not something we construct through action or ambition. It is, as the poet Mary Oliver so beautifully writes, “the world that has always been waiting for us,” a world that does not ask us to do, but to be. In her poem “Wild Geese,” Oliver reminds us that we do not have to be perfect to belong: “You do not have to be good. / You do not have to walk on your knees / for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. / You only have to let the soft animal of your body / love what it loves.”
And yet, as we return to this place of stillness, we find that there is a quiet wisdom emerging from the depths of our sorrow. It is not a wisdom that erases pain, but one that integrates it into the story of our lives. The grief we feared to face becomes a teacher, a guide leading us to greater clarity and compassion. The sorrow softens, and in its place, we find the roots of something new—something tender, something true.
The philosopher Martin Heidegger spoke of the necessity of “being-toward-death,” not in a morbid sense, but in a way that invites us to live fully and deeply in the face of impermanence. “Death is not the opposite of life,” he wrote, “but a part of it.” It is this understanding that allows us to face our grief, to surrender to the flow of tears, and to emerge from it not diminished, but more whole, more alive, and more present to the beauty of the world around us.
To let the tears come is to return to ourselves. It is a journey, not of escape, but of becoming—of becoming more fully who we are, in all our brokenness and beauty. As the great poet W. B. Yeats once said, “There are no strangers here; / Only friends you haven’t yet met.” In the same way, there are no tears that are wasted; each one is a friend, a companion on the journey toward home.
The tears that rise from the deepest places of the soul do not drown us; they carry us back to the shore of our own truth. They invite us to slow down, to listen, to be present, and to allow the full flow of life—its sorrows and its joys—to sweep us toward a new beginning. The call of these tears is not one of cruelty, but of mercy, guiding us back to the sacred ground where our true selves reside. In the stillness that follows, we find the clarity to see the world anew, to savor the beauty that has always been waiting for us, and to embrace the journey of becoming that is still unfolding.
All my Love and Light,
An
