Category: grief

Honouring Joanna Macy

I was first inspired by Joanna about 20 years ago, at a Work that Reconnects workshop led by her in London. I had come across her work during my therapy training. The Work That Reconnects was one of the two really powerful elements of that course. The other was Family Constellations. Both look at the collective healing of pain, as a symptom of systemic rather than individual problems.

I feel blessed to have met Joanna on several further occasions when I was working for the Transition Towns movement, creating community scale responses to the multiple crises of our time. My role was to anchor practices which brought depth, emotional understanding, curiosity about shadow and unconscious dynamics and more into a movement that could often be focused on material issues. Joanna’s clear and powerful teachings were a key part of what I shared with groups around the world.

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Climbing mountains is easy

…and somehow very related to tending grief..mountain path

When I was younger I wanted to run a workshop called “Climbing Mountains Is Easy”. I had realised that if I push myself up a mountain, trying to get to the top or wanting to go faster, I would get exhausted. If I walk in the way that suits the most tired, injured or aching part of my body, walking becomes effortless and enjoyable. Listening to the most weakness in my body transformed walking up hills from a struggle to a joy. I could end a day of walking for hours still feeling energised. There was an obvious parallel to how I was living my life and why I was sometimes close to burnout or breakdown. And how those around me were living theirs. I wanted to share this practice with others who might be overriding the voice of vulnerability, driven by themselves or the culture around them. And to share the wild beauty of mountain landscapes with people who might believe them to be out of reach.

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Tending Grief, in a room with other people

I felt trepidation as well as relief as a group gathered for the first in person Grief tending indoors since before COVID dramatically changed how we meet, more than a year ago.

In the correspondence before the workshop I felt a new part of my role, to help figure out how to meet possibly different needs about COVID precautions, behaviours, proximity and contact in a grief tending space.

Grief is not a tidy and controlled process by its nature. Involving body liquids, loud noises, and often, the longing for touch.

Kind touch is one of the few ways we generate oxytocin – as well as singing together, giving birth and breastfeeding. Oxytocin helps us to feel a sense of bonding with others, of deep connection

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April Grief Tending Update

spring blossom laced with dew

Spring arrives in the northern hemisphere.. Take some time to remember, grieve, honour and share with others anything you’re with from your year of pandemic, lockdowns, upheaval and change. Book now for the April 16th Grief tending workshop where we will hold a space for COVID remembrance, as well as welcoming all grief.

See the full update and news here

Newsflash – for those interested in the grief traditions of these lands, there is a Grief ceremony with Phyllida Anam-Aire on Sunday 18th April, 6 – 9PM, on Zoom. For more details and to book click here

Journeying into the Heart of Grief
Come and allow the rivers of grief to pour healing waters over your heart.
Phyllida, and a group of compassionate friends working in the fields of bereavement, will guide you into this sacred ceremony.
There will be lots of singing and Celtic Grief Mantras, or Gutha, encouraging openness of the heart of grief in us.
Phyllida worked extensively with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in the eighties and nineties and as a ritual of gratitude to Life Itself, offers this ceremony to the community.
It will be her last communal gathering working with grief and loss.