The theme for this September 2023 issue, Metabolizing Grief to Nurture the Great Turning, grew out of confronting the many tragedies and injustices we on the editorial team (and everyone we know) are experiencing or witnessing today, and our struggle to honor and work with our grief in response to it all. Our team was inspired by a quote from Martin Prechtel that one of our members brought to us: “Metabolize your losses with grief and feed the resulting beauty to life.” We can metabolize our pain for the world–in other words: process, digest, break down, and convert that pain into energy and wisdom–and thereby nurture the Great Turning.
We received a cornucopia of submissions, more than for any previous issue, with an abundance of poetry. Then we faced the very challenging task of choosing what to include in this issue; we had to consult our submission guidelines again and again in making our decisions. Please know that in addition to the heart-felt poetry and essays you find here, there were many more worthy submissions–some of which we may bring to you in future issues.
