Grief arrived abruptly in my life in my early twenties. Not as a concept, but as a living, breathing presence. A bereavement that was unexpected, uninvited, and utterly devastating.

 

In those early months and years, I often felt very alone. None of my peers had experienced the kind of loss I was navigating, and there were few places where my grief could be spoken or understood. It left me with a feeling of singularity, as though I was carrying something that was all too much and all too soon.

 

As the years passed, there were more bereavements and the grief came in waves, each one reshaping the contours of who I thought I was. I didn’t choose this path, but somewhere along the way, I began to feel that grief was choosing me, over and over again. It asked me to listen. To slow down. To soften into what hurt. And in doing so, it offered not only sorrow but a kind of alchemy.

 

One of my deepest apprenticeships came with the arrival of chronic ill health. Almost overnight, the life I had known evaporated. I could no longer take long walks in nature, something that had always been my sanctuary. I had lost my earning capacity and the identity I had built around my contribution to society and my independence. I found myself having to lean on others in ways I never had before. There was a loss of autonomy, of certainty, of who I thought I was and who I was going to be.

 

Over time, I came to see just how unequipped we are when it comes to tending to our grief. Our culture offers so few maps, so few spaces where sorrow is allowed to belong. We are taught to be strong, to carry on, to tuck it all away. But grief does not follow tidy timelines. It asks for slowness, for ceremony, for community. It asks to be witnessed.

 

Amid my unraveling, I turned to the earth and found solace. I walked barefoot, letting the ground steady me. I placed my hands in the soil and felt something ancient respond. Over time, I came to understand that grief work is soul work and that through the portal of loss, we are invited into a personal alchemy, a deep reshaping of who we are and how we belong.

 

Grief shatters our hearts open and In that widening, we begin to feel more. Our own pain, yes, but also the pain of the world. The sorrow in our rivers, in our forests, in the broken threads between people and place. Grief tending, I have come to believe, is one of the most powerful medicines of our times.

 

My grief-tending practice weaves ritual, animism, and nature-based remembering with the teachings of Francis Weller and his Six Gates of Grief.   My offering looks at the poetry of life through the lens of grief in all its many forms. 

 

Let us gather together with our hurts, our sorrows, and our regrets and be in community because grief is not meant to be carried alone.