My mother-in-law died this week. She was 87 and had lived in a nursing home for a long time. Her death was a passage, not a tragedy. We have a feeling of her life coming full circleand her time on earth being complete.

My wife is still raw with her loss. At the same time, there is a feeling of wholeness, that her mother grew up, raised children, aged as people do until she grew old and eventually died. When seen in the context of a life now ended, it’s easy to imagine every kind of emotion as part of a larger system, rather than as isolated incidents. That’s what the emotional system includes, all the feelings, and all the transitions, over the years.

Yet, in our own lives, the intensity of individual emotions command our attention, and we lose sight of the larger context. If we could see our own emotions in terms of the system rather than individually, how much easier would it be to pass through times of upset and suffering, and get back  on the road to balance and harmony?

Picture the ocean shore. Waves are sometimes ferocious, sometimes so tame as to lap only gently on the sand. Tides come and and go out in perpetual rhythm. In this time of grieving, the similarity between the vast, eternal ocean and the individual feelings that make up our emotional system seems particularly poignant.