Surviving Year Two: Week 47

Everything Ends & Everything Begins Again

This is Week 47 of my Surviving Year Two Grief Project. Details about all my Grief Projects, as well as Grief Resources can be found here.

I have really been going through it this month. This last lunation (May 25, 2017 to June 24, 2017) seemed to knock a lot of us around. The Summer Solstice jumped in there as well for extra, energetic turbulence.

The Moon and I go way back. Being a lonely, little girl, the Moon was always there for me. When I was small, I thought she followed me around and I would always look for her when I needed a friend. The first time I saw the Moon in the daytime, I thought she came out just for me.

As I grew up and connected to my nature-based spirituality, I learned about the cycles of the Moon and how connected they are to the menstrual cycle, the tides, and the seasons. When social media started getting popular, I infused my posts with wisdom about the moon blending the new world with the old. I still do. When it is the start of the New Moon, I remind everyone that everything ends and everything begins again. When it is a Full Moon, I remind everyone about the many names each particular lunation has had around the world.

In some of my darkest hours this month, the phrase "everything ends and everything begins again" has saved me. I clung to that truth, white-knuckling my way through the darkness, the suicidal feelings and the despair.

"Wholeness does not mean perfection: it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life. Knowing this gives me hope that human wholeness — mine, yours, ours — need not be a utopian dream, if we can use devastation as a seedbed for new life." ~ Parker J. Palmer

Ritual Seed Sprouts: Week 7

Today, I feel like I have survived a ship wreck. I am bloodied and battered. I have crawled to shore and friends have come and soothed my burns with handmade balms and put me to bed to sleep and heal. I don't feel very good, but I don't feel lost at sea today. I know that more rough waters lie ahead and more and more I think the key to survival is knowing how to navigate those ship wrecked moments. Trying to live a life of no ship wrecks is impossible.

So as a hopeful help to you, my sweet reader, and a reminder to my future, scared, ship-wrecked self, here are some things that help me get through the darkness (and see an almost identical list in my Surviving Year Two: Week 15 post!):

• drinking water
• taking my vitamins
• eating a banana
• calling a friend who is NOT AFRAID of my darkness and can be loving and present with it
• watching a movie I love
• listening to good music and moving my body
• burying my face in a furry kitty belly
• going outside and walking barefoot
• taking a shower or a bath
• reading a good book

I think a lot about the wise words of 88-year-old Bodhi Hanna Kistner, who felt that she didn't truly understand or feel happiness until her 60's:

"I think it's the skill of living in the present that I have mastered in the last 25 years. It is the key to enjoying your life in full. Enjoying life doesn't mean being unreasonably excited all the time. On the contrary, as I became older I realized that the first step towards finding the joy of life was to accept reality openly and sincerely, accept everything as it is. Reality is not perfect. But it is important to face the truth. This attitude works wonders."

Again and again, I try to return to the NOW. When I am lost in the dark place, it is always because I am grief-stricken about the past, or frightened and anxious about the future. When I can drop into the NOW, I realize that I am alive and breathing and living in my open human human heart and there is tremendous healing and vitality in that space. It can be SO HARD to find that wisdom when I feel like I am hanging on for dear life, as I am tossed and pummeled by the sea of my emotions, but I must remember to hang on and hold on. It will get better. And then it will get worse. And then it will get better again. I must learn to ride the tides like the good Moon Witch I know myself to be.

Thank you for witnessing me. See you next week.

Surviving Year Two: Week 44

Full Moon Growing Pains

This is Week 44 of my Surviving Year Two Grief Project. Details about all my Grief Projects, as well as Grief Resources can be found here.

This has been a rough week. I was expecting a bit of "postpartum" after my Healing Grief - Flowering Ritual, but not to this caliber. I think there are a lot of factors at play, including the fact that my 45th birthday is almost here, which also means that the two year anniversary of my husband's death will follow two weeks later.

45 feels like one of those "big" numbers. I am solidly middle-aged and alone. The grey continues to show up in my hair. The wrinkles crinkle around my eyes. My hands are beginning to look like the hands of an old lady, and not my own. I am facing the life of a spinster widow.

As I continue to put one foot in front of the other and try to live this current life of mine, I can't stop thinking about how much my husband helped me to see myself. He knew me so well and when my life seemed to fly off the rails and I lost connection to myself, he was always there to point out what he knew about me, what he knew I was capable of and what he knew I was good at. We walked forward in out life together, hand-in-hand, making choices and decisions that were best for the two of us as a partnered team. I don't have my partner and ally anymore and I feel more lost at sea than ever.

The Grief Veil from my Healing Ritual

Now that I am close to finishing my second year as a widow, I have noticed a few things. Year One was a fog of to-do lists, grief, anxiety and being held in love and support by my friends. Year Two has been about survival — holding down a full-time job, keeping myself fed, keeping my car running, etc. It is starting to seem like Year Three is going to be about figuring out who the fuck I am now. I am not partnered. I am not a wife. I am alone, beholden to no one. This is immense freedom, but how do I make choices about my life when I don't know who I am now?

Am I an itinerant preacher, who can travel America in a van? Am I a cosmic painter who can live in a yurt in exchange for gardening? Am I a creative leader who can run a non-profit arts organization? Am I an author who can support herself by independently run book tours, relying on the kindness of new friends I haven't met yet? Am I a hands-on healer, who sees clients in a cabin in the woods? Am I a Mythologist, working in academia while writing articles on the side? Am I a Ritualist, designing personal rituals for those who need them? Am I a Witchy Radio DJ, sharing wisdom over the airwaves and being supported by my spiritual patrons?

I am all of these people and yet none of them.

Add to that, the work I am doing with my Open Human Heart, which asks me to move past my "beliefs, self-images, assumptions, blind spots, embarrassments and shadows" to find my most authentic self in Love. It's quite an intense process that feels like sitting in an alchemical alembic that is disintegrating me. I am questioning everything I have ever believed in, thought and done. It makes me question who I am, constantly and that is not a comfortable feeling. It hurts. It is bewildering. It is frightening.

Last night was the Full Moon. This month's moon has been called: the Moon of Integration, the Rose Moon, the Lotus Moon, the Green Corn Moon, the Windy Moon, the Moon When Berries are Ripe, the Moon of Horses, the Dyan Moon, the Planting Moon, the Moon When Ponies Shed Their Shaggy Hair, the Full Leaf Moon, the Turtle Moon & the Strawberry Moon (for the relatively short season for harvesting strawberries).

I am feeling the fullness of this particular lunation. I do think that this hard emotional week is part of my integration. Sometimes new growth is painful, as my delicate little sprouts reach for the sun, hoping to flower some day.

Thank you for witnessing me. See you next week.

Surviving Year Two: Week 43

Inside the Flowering

This is Week 43 of my Surviving Year Two Grief Project. Details about all my Grief Projects, as well as Grief Resources can be found here. 

It's been three weeks since my Healing Grief - Flowering Ritual. In many ways, it feels like much more time has passed. I have solidly returned to my "every day life" — back to the day-to-day of work, weightlifting, grocery shopping, laundry, etc. And yet, the ritual is staying with me. I am surprised by the subtle but important ways it is shifting me.

Thanks to the recommendation of a friend, I was introduced to Open Human Heart work. It's been a very powerful practice to be grounded and present in my deepest, most authentic feelings. This has helped me a lot with "being okay" with my grief and rage around the loss of my husband, while also giving me re-access to my deepest joy. Being led to this work and really embracing it, feels like part of my flowering — welcoming in new blooms in myself.

Week 3 of the Ritual Seeds Planted

It's as if I have stepped sideways back into my life. It's still my life, but I have a slightly new perspective. I have still felt extremely deep grief since my ritual. I've woken up crying and afraid in the night. But, my vessel feels stronger. Through my ritual work and now this new modality with the Open Human Heart work, I feel more at home in my feelings. There is a vibrancy and solidity to my heart and mind and body. I feel more hopeful about the future. In many ways I am living more deeply in the unknown. I am understanding that I truly have no control over what is happening or going to happen in my life and in the world. What I DO have is the ability to be as completely present as I possibly can in any situation, and stay as open as possible to the wisdom of my heart and my feelings.

It's interesting how many times I have been told that I am "brave and strong" for being so open about my feelings on my grief journey. I don't doubt that I am brave and strong, but I am also doing the most natural thing for a human to do. Our culture has trained us to not be "weak" and show our dark side to the world, when in the deeper truth of the matter, our feelings in the most vulnerable of places can be the source of immense power and vitality. 

I remember when I was ordained as an Interfaith Minister, our ordination group co-wrote our vows together and one of my contributions was "power in vulnerability." Some members of the group really resisted including that vow, and yet for me, it is one of the most powerful, truthful vows we committed to.

Thanks for witnessing me. See you next week.

Surviving Year Two: Week 42

The Flowering Continues

This is Week 42 of my Surviving Year Two Grief Project. Details about all my Grief Projects, as well as Grief Resources can be found here. 

It's been two weeks since my Healing Grief - Flowering Ritual.  Part of the ritual was planting seeds into a planter box my husband made from scavenged wood. Along with good energy and deep wishes, some of my husband's ashes were also mixed in to the soil. This week, the seeds we planted began doing what seeds do — they have started to sprout!

I love living symbols like these little sprouts. They are a reminder to all of us who were present in the sacred circle that the ritual we created together keeps going, even after we have gone back to our lives. My opening, flowering heart feels a bit like these little sprouts — tender and new, yet fiercely strong and ready to grow.

Thanks for witnessing me. See you next week.

Surviving Year Two: Week 41

The Flowering

This is Week 41 of my Surviving Year Two Grief Project. Details about all my Grief Projects, as well as Grief Resources can be found here.

It's been a week since my amazing Healing Grief - Flowering Ritual. I have since returned to my "regular life." As Jack Kornfield says, "after the ecstasy, the laundry." The work now is to integrate the transformation and healing from my ritual into my day-to-day being. I suppose that just happens  — I don't have to necessarily "do" anything, but I do want to stay aware and connected to the powerful feelings I felt during my ritual.

It's very jarring to return to my work life, which takes so much of my brain power and physical energy. I am grateful that one of my co-workers was also at my ritual. After a department meeting, I returned to my cubicle to find rose petals strewn around my office! It was a wonderful, sweet reminder that the ritual is still working and I'm so grateful for this sweet moment, orchestrated by my ritual cohort and cubicle colleague, Kim!

Sacred Bedroom Blessing

This weekend I plan to lay low, make some art, sleep and let my body and soul rest a bit. I have been gestating and planning this ritual since March, and it is really dazzling to see my thoughts, drawings and ideas come alive and be something even better than I could have ever imagined. It's so empowering to plan something like this and let it bloom. I really do feel like I am flowering.

I'm so grateful, not just to the seven amazing humans who showed up to circle me in ritual and love, but for the many other helpers, who crafted with me, mixed up essential oils, talked to me late into the night as I whispered my fears and hopes, and thought good thoughts for me on the day of. I'm so grateful.

There are only eleven more weeks in this project — eleven more posts and the 2 Year Anniversary of my husband's death will arrive. "What comes next?" seems to always be a question at the back of my mind. Even the day after my amazing ritual, there was a little taskmaster voice that said, "Okay. That's done. What are you going to work on now?" I want to give myself a break. I want to breathe into the accomplishments I have already achieved. I want to rest.

Thanks for witnessing me. See you next week.

Surviving Year Two: Week 40

Healing Grief-Flowering Ritual

This is Week 40 of my Surviving Year Two Grief Project. Details about all my Grief Projects, as well as Grief Resources can be found here.

Yesterday I held my Healing Grief - Flowering Ritual. Seven people came and circled around me and held the space as I went through the three stages of my ritual: honoring the love I shared with my husband, honoring the grief I have survived since he died, and welcoming in the new flowering possibilities of my future. It was profound and deep and powerful and healing. There are truly no words to express how I feel today. My body is reverberating with love and healing and joy and peace.

One of my many "ritual props/accessories" was a crown of Brown Alba Clamshell mushrooms. I chose to wear mushrooms in my hair because it is the perfect symbol for being a widow. We have lived deep in the earth of grief and our bloom is the bloom of decay and death. Mushrooms are amazing in all they can do,  and it felt powerful and important that they had a presence in my ritual.

Today would have been our 12-year Wedding Anniversary. 12 years ago, my husband and I had a ritual of love and commitment to each other. Yesterday, I had a ritual of love and commitment to myself. Thank you to all of you who held me in their hearts yesterday. I felt it and it was powerful.

I am held. I am loved. I am so grateful.

Thanks for witnessing me. See you next week.

Surviving Year Two: Week 39

The Many Lenses of Grief

This is Week 39 of my Surviving Year Two Grief Project. Details about all my Grief Projects, as well as Grief Resources can be found here.


Next weekend is my Flowering Healing Ritual, which I have been planning and creating for months. I've been incredibly anxious and worried about it, and now that I am in the last precious weekend before, I seem to have found a place of calmness. There is still so much to do — too much, in fact. But I find myself in a place of letting things unfold however they will. One of my dear friends is driving up from southern California to stay with me next weekend and one of my priorities was making a nice nest for her in my spare room. This room has been filled with what I have been calling my "Mourning Boxes," ever since my husband died. They are boxes full of things I did not want to look at or deal with.


Today, I started the daunting task of going through these boxes. I've started sorting and filling up boxes to give away to the thrift store. I have cried many times and yet it also feels good to really look at these things and ask myself if I want to keep them in my life. My husband was a scavenger and he prided himself on the prizes he found in his scavenging. I have kept many of his prizes that were not prizes to me, out of an obligation to him. I am letting those things go and I know he is glad of it. The spare room also used to be my painting studio, and it feels exciting to liberate my paints and canvases from behind the boxes — to let them breathe again.


I have not yet been able to pick up a paint brush since my husband died. I was just about to start a brand new, giant canvas when he passed away and every time I have thought of painting again, I start to sob. I'm still not ready, but opening up that space to invite in art and beloved friends feels good. It all feels part of this ritual — that it is already working on me, before it has even happened. I find that ritual often works that way.


Thanks for witnessing me. See you next week. Speaking of which, if you find yourself able to send some love and healing thoughts my way, the afternoon/evening of May 13, 2017, please do so. I will be moving through some powerful energies and I believe in the power of good thoughts and prayers. Every little bit helps. Thank you.

Surviving Year Two: Week 38

Spring Heart

This is Week 37 of my Surviving Year Two Grief Project. Details about all my Grief Projects, as well as Grief Resources can be found here.

Beltane will arrive (here in the Northern Hemisphere) this week. Spring is in full swing and with the New Moon so recently appearing, I have really felt the movement of new growth and new beginnings. This weekend, I was able to work on some important ritual crafting for my upcoming healing ceremony, which is a few weeks away. Some dear friends came over and helped me craft and we all shared stories of our lives as aging ladies in a chaotic and confusing world. The intense power of healing and calm I felt after spending this precious time in this trio is hard to explain in mere words.

As I have mentioned before, I am working with the author Danielle Dulsky in promoting her new book, Woman Most Wild, and in her book, she talks about the "three keys for liberating the witch within." Essentially, those three keys are: aligning with the cycles of nature; understanding the importance of ritual and ceremony; and bonding with like-minded seekers. I really felt like I embodied all three of these keys this weekend. I can feel the power that these acts released, moving in my body — freeing up and liberating energy that I thought was lost to me forever.

Red is MY color of Mourning

I still feel grief and deep heartbreak, AND I also feel like I have a more solid ground to feel my feelings. I have more access to the powerful tools that help me get up off the ground and look towards the future with hope. This hope is like a quiet little flame in my heart, where before there was only darkness. The old ways, blended with my modern life, is my path. It is a constant collaboration with spirit — I take the next step and listen to the response to my call.

As I was crafting the headpiece I am going to wear during my Healing Ritual, I understood new insights as I did this physical act of making. I wasn't sure why I needed to use red fabric until I started cutting and shredding the material and realized that while traditionally the color of mourning is black, my mourning color is red — the color of blood, the color of love, the color of the heart. This was new information to me that I would not have known until I did this ritual act of making and then receiving a response from spirit. It is so powerful to understand what our own, personal archetypes are.

This process of listening and acting is my path. It is a path of questions and answers. What ritual do I need to create? Where am I on my cycle? Where is my circle of women to sit and create with? I re-connect and I re-member. I am healing. I am growing. I am flowering.

Thanks for witnessing me. See you next week.

Surviving Year Two: Week 26

A Widow's Bouquet

This is Week 26 of my Surviving Year Two Grief Project. Details about all my Grief Projects, as well as Grief Resources can be found here. 

I am exactly halfway through this project. My husband has been dead for a year and six months.

I wrote this one year ago:

"The death of a spouse is rated as among the most stressful life event that humans experience (Amster & Krauss, 1974; Holmes & Rahe, 1967)." according to the American Psychological Association. 

Add losing your job suddenly on top of that, and it's no wonder I have trouble keeping it together, right? I've got this Eastern European Ancestral Task Master named Gerta who lives in my head and berates me constantly that I am not working hard enough, not "getting my shit together" fast enough. I've been crying every single fucking day for 6 months straight. How does someone survive that? How is my body still functioning? Let alone my mind? And my heart? I'm so angry and so sad, all the time. Life doesn't make sense anymore and my day-to-day life feels like a craps game, played in a dark alleyway by nervous hustlers who don't give a shit about tomorrow - they are just trying to hustle up enough cash to get through the night.

 Somehow, I make it to the next day, but I don't know why. I don't know why I am alive and he isn't. Nothing means anything anymore. I don't know why I get up in the morning. I feel like I need to strip my skin off and re-start as a brand new human being.

I feel like Widows in their first year should get to go somewhere - like a Land of Widows, where they don't have to work, or take care of other people. They can just do heroin and fuck each other and cry and eat chocolate and swim in the ocean - or whatever it is they need to forget. Whatever it is they need to heal. Whatever it is they need to feel like they are alive again. 

I'm sorry. Thank you. I love you." February 4, 2016

Baby Tristy - 7-years-old

It's so painful to read this, and yet it also helps me see the ways that I have shifted and transformed over this last year. I have a new job, and for all of Gerta's harsh ways, she is the reason I still have that job. She pushes me and forces me to focus and work, even when I am in the depths of despair, and I'm actually really grateful to her for that.

I still cry just about every, single day. This is exhausting, but also cleansing and somehow empowering. Feeling my true feelings as they come up makes me feel like I can face anything, because honestly, if I can survive feeling brutal heartbreak every single day of my life, what can't I face?

Today I hold my fungal widowed bridal bouquet. I have dwelled in the subterranean depths of my sorrow and grief and processed and absorbed the rich, dense earth of grief around me. I have burst up through the depths and bloomed, integrating the death and life into a new organism that I hold close to my heart.

This IMBOLC weekend, I am creating ritual. Some friends will arrive this evening and we will craft collages together. We will light candles. We will eat and drink. We will laugh and cry together. The collage I make tonight will play a role in a much bigger ritual ceremony I am creating, that I plan to have the weekend of BELTANE. It will be a marriage of sorts. A returning to myself. A commitment ceremony to self-love.

My husband loved me in a way that no one ever has. He loved the broken parts of me. He loved the lost, wounded little girl in me. He loved my ugliest, and most frightened places. He "rescued" me. And now he is gone and I have to learn how to love myself, because I have tasted true love and I cannot live without it. I am also beginning to deeply understand that no one is ever going to truly "rescue" me. I have to rescue myself. I am my own heroine. I am my own Knight in Shining Armor.

I love that lost little girl inside me and I want her to have everything she could possibly want. I want her to know that she is loved deeply and unconditionally. I want her to have that solid ground of love and support to face her fears and still do what she wants and needs to do. I can give her that. I am learning how to give her that. I am learning how to give myself that.

Thank you for witnessing me. See you next week.

Surviving Year Two: Week 24 & 25

Witches Grab Back

This is Week 24 & 25 of my Surviving Year Two Grief Project. Details about all my Grief Projects, as well as Grief Resources can be found here. 

The Racist, Rapist Garbage Monster has been the President of these so-called "United" States for exactly one week. A lot has happened, including one of the biggest protests in US history, with an estimated 2.9 million Americans participating. Our President has also enacted more damage than I thought was possible in the span of one week, let alone the very FIRST week of being our President. In response to the awful, fascist executive orders he has made, we're seeing rogue government Twitter feeds, huge protests at major airports, and our Representatives' voice mail boxes overflowing with calls and messages. It is a time of unrest. It is a time of great change. It is a time of awakening. It is a time of fear. It is a time of new hopes.

Meanwhile, I am still on my own personal grief journey. I have found it extremely difficult to write about straddling the "inner" grief of widowhood and the "outer" grief of suddenly having a fascist dictator as our President. And yet, my grief journey has taught me that now more than ever, we have to focus on the here and now and not "future-trip." Terrible things may be coming, but being afraid simply paralyzes us from doing what must be done TODAY.

As I have mentioned before, I am returning to my Witchy Ways to survive the Trumpocalypse. I am crafting ritual. I am honoring the Seasons and Moon Cycles. I am asking for the wisdom of my ancestors to fill my soul and guide me. I'm even talking to my late husband more, asking for his help and guidance as we move through this very scary time. I truly don't know what the future holds for any of us, but my spiritual connection to my energetic and ancestral helpers and the deep, powerful Feminine energy that we all have access to, is helping me navigate and I am so grateful.

Thank you for witnessing me. See you next week.

Surviving Year Two: Week 22

Returning to My Magic

This is Week 22 of my Surviving Year Two Grief Project. Details about all my Grief Projects, as well as Grief Resources can be found here.

We are now solidly in 2017, a new year without my husband in it. While this is still such a brutal fact for me to live with, I am in a much better place than I was at the beginning of 2016. It's not that the pain and grief are gone — it's more that the pain and grief have woven themselves deeply into my soul and is now a solid part of me. Grief has shown me some hidden strengths I had forgotten I had. I have also been returning to my inner witch and spiritual crafter and have been cooking up a new ritual, honoring the transformations grief has brought to me and stepping into a new phase of widowhood.

Rituals are so important. Weddings, Baptisms and Memorial services are rituals. I think we need more rituals to honor the other huge transformations of life. When my husband and I decided to be child-free after trying to have a baby for a very long time, we had an Un-Baby Shower. That seven-day ritual transformed me in a huge way, and helped me honor deeply what I was letting go as well as helping me honor and welcome what was coming in.

I'm very excited and a little nervous about the ritual I am cooking up (again, with my powerful ritual-crafting friends, Lauren Van Ham & Lila Kihn). I will share with you all as much as feels safe and honorable to share, so stay tuned for more as it all unfolds.

Thank you for witnessing me. See you next week.

Surviving Year Two: Week 18

Witch Wolf Widow

This is Week 18 of my Surviving Year Two Grief Project. Details about all my Grief Projects, as well as Grief Resources can be found here.

In the new Trumpocalypse, women are second-class citizens who must fight for their civil rights every single moment. After my husband died, I did not think I could feel any more grief, and yet this election result and the loss of so much creative life in the Oakland warehouse fire has been taking me into even deeper depths of despair. 

They say when we face the hardest experiences in life, we pull on the spirituality we were raised in and for lack of a better term, I was raised a witch. I have been feeling the call of my witchy ancestors all my life and now that we are facing some of the darkest times of American history, I truly believe that the witches need to come out. Thanks to my job at New World Library, I quite synchronistically am also getting to work on a new book about liberating the witch within by Danielle Dulsky, which I am very excited about (more about that in the Spring!).

Tracking the Moon phases and seasons in my art journal

I am feeling the call for ritual. I am feeling the call for gathering with my fellow women and supporting each other in owning our power and magic. I am always honoring the ebb and flow of the cycles we are always living with. I am a Witch Wolf Widow who is looking for her pack. I live in my grief and witness the grief in others. When I am filled with the deepest fear, I remember that I am a survivor. The hate-fueled, fear-mongering men in power have been burning, raping and beheading the strong women of this earth for centuries and yet HERE WE ARE. They will NEVER kill us all and those of us embodied at this intense time can call on the wisdom, power and strength of our witchy ancestors and keep creating positive change in this dark world.

It is a daunting task and self-care is also very necessary. Take care of yourself and each other.

Thank you for witnessing me. See you next week.

6 Months of Grief Project: Day 50

Rest in Power, Sunny Balzano

This is Day 50 of my #6MonthsOfGrief Project. To learn more about this practice, feel free to visit Day One, where I explain this project in more detail.

Last night I got to hang out in the Forbidden Island, where they have a sea of decorated dollar bills and tiny umbrellas covering the ceiling. When the bartender gave me a tub of pens to decorate my dollar bill, I started giving George Washington a pink wig and for some reason, this made him look a lot like Sunny Balzano, the sweet, creative wizard who passed away recently.

His bar in Red Hook is a very special place, and perhaps a rustier, more lopsided, outlaw cousin to the Forbidden Island. It felt so right to honor Sunny in this tiki wonderland and stick my weird dollar bill to the ceiling. Impromptu creative ritual moments like these make me so happy - when spirit seems to just show up and guide me. I am grateful for these kind of adventures and I want to always stay open to the strange and beautiful ways that spirit moves through my life and my grief. It is all intertwined and it is all important.

_____________________

I am very aware that this project can bring up a lot around yours or other's grief and loss, I will always follow every post with some online grief support resources that have helped me. Please feel free to let me know of online support that you have found healing in your grief, as well:

Art with Grief:

• Photographer [Sarah Treanor] Takes Moving Self-Portraits to Cope with Her Fiance's Death by Jillian Wong
• When the Fall Comes, a film about Grief by Adriana Marchione
• Self-Portraits: Expressing Emotion Through Art on What's Your Grief?
• The Hard Romance of Grief by Mark Liebenow
• The poetry of John O’Donohue

Resources for Widows:

• Camp Widow

• Soaring Spirits International

Living with Grief Resources:

• Modern Loss's excellent resource list
• Grief Bibliography on Grief Healing

• Teresa “TL” Bruce's What to Say When Someone Dies
• They Brought Cookies: For A New Widow, Empathy Eases Death's Pain by Ann Finkbeiner on NPR
• A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit

• Megan Devine’s Refuge in Grief

• The Geography of Sorrow: Francis Weller on Navigating Our Loses, interviewed by Tim McKee in Sun Magazine

• How to Be a Friend in Deed by Bruce Feiler in the New York Times

• 12 Things to Know About the First Year of Grieving Someone You Can’t Live Without by Laurie Costanza in Elephant Magazine

And remember, I am sharing this project on a variety of platforms, including my Instagram, Twitter, & Facebook feeds, as well as my Pinterest page on Grief. I use the hashtag #6MonthsOfGrief, so it can easily be found on any platform. Please share this project with anyone you think might need it.

Thank you, and see you tomorrow.

6 Months of Grief Project: Day 47

Full Moon Altar

This is Day 47 of my #6MonthsOfGrief Project. To learn more about this practice, feel free to visit Day One, where I explain this project in more detail.

Last night was the Full Moon. This moon has been called the Fish Moon, the Sleepy Moon, the Windy Moon, the Big Famine Moon, the Moon When Eyes Are Sore from Bright Snow, the Moon of Winds, the Chaste Moon, the Death Moon, the Full Crow Moon (when the cawing of crows signaled the end of winter), the Full Crust Moon, the Full Sap Moon (marking the time of tapping maple trees), the Lenten Moon (last full Moon of winter), the Moose Hunter Moon, the Catching Fish Moon, the Snow Crust Moon, the Moon When Frost Sparkles in the Sun, the Sore Eye Moon, the Cottonball Moon, the Eagle Moon, Whispering Wind Moon, the Crane Moon & the Worm Moon (from the temperature beginning to warm and the ground beginning to thaw, which brings earthworm casts, heralding the return of the robins).

One of my best friends is staying with me for a week and she has been helping me so much with all the strange widow chores that still need to be done, like re-arranging and organizing the kitchen to a system that I like (instead of how my husband wanted things set up) and figuring out if I really want a worm farm in my life. Last night, she roasted us a chicken and we ate by candlelight. We had bigger plans for a Full Moon ritual, but Widow Management is exhausting and we ended up watching a Girls marathon instead, and that's just fine.

_____________________

I am very aware that this project can bring up a lot around yours or other's grief and loss, I will always follow every post with some online grief support resources that have helped me. Please feel free to let me know of online support that you have found healing in your grief, as well:

Art with Grief:

• Photographer [Sarah Treanor] Takes Moving Self-Portraits to Cope with Her Fiance's Death by Jillian Wong
• When the Fall Comes, a film about Grief by Adriana Marchione
• Self-Portraits: Expressing Emotion Through Art on What's Your Grief?
• The Hard Romance of Grief by Mark Liebenow
• The poetry of John O’Donohue

Resources for Widows:

• Camp Widow

• Soaring Spirits International

Living with Grief Resources:

• Modern Loss's excellent resource list
• Grief Bibliography on Grief Healing

• Teresa “TL” Bruce's What to Say When Someone Dies
• They Brought Cookies: For A New Widow, Empathy Eases Death's Pain by Ann Finkbeiner on NPR
• A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit

• Megan Devine’s Refuge in Grief

• The Geography of Sorrow: Francis Weller on Navigating Our Loses, interviewed by Tim McKee in Sun Magazine

• How to Be a Friend in Deed by Bruce Feiler in the New York Times

• 12 Things to Know About the First Year of Grieving Someone You Can’t Live Without by Laurie Costanza in Elephant Magazine

And remember, I am sharing this project on a variety of platforms, including my Instagram, Twitter, & Facebook feeds, as well as my Pinterest page on Grief. I use the hashtag #6MonthsOfGrief, so it can easily be found on any platform. Please share this project with anyone you think might need it.

Thank you, and see you tomorrow.

6 Months of Grief Project: Day 35

Watching Him Go

This is Day 35 of my #6MonthsOfGrief Project. To learn more about this practice, feel free to visit Day One, where I explain this project in more detail.

Seven months ago today, my husband was cremated. Navigating the how/when/why of the funeral industry was quite a harrowing journey and I'm so thankful I had lots of help and guidance in deciding how to let go of my husband's body. I knew that he wanted to die like a Viking, with a Norse funeral - his body put into a boat and lit on fire by a flaming arrow, but it turns out that's far from legal!

So I was faced with a decision, and a decision I had to make quickly. I knew that my husband did not want to be buried in the ground. He often spoke of how sick that made him feel, to be stuck in one place forever. He was very much a man of action, always trying something new or exploring a new place. He told me he would never want to be stuck in one place forever. So my only other viable option was cremation. 

My husband was a welder, glass blower, iron worker, and industrial sculptor, so I knew he loved fire. On our first date, he showed me a video of him making a huge fire using a leaf blower and an oil drum - not to mention, he loved Burning Man. But it wasn't until I actually attended his cremation and they offered to let me push the button that starts the fire to burn his body, that I realized I had truly made the right choice. There literally was a button I had to push that said "BURN." I could feel him delighting in this as I pressed that Burn Button and witnessed his body be engulfed in flames. Such a final act of goodbye.

The Norse God Odin was his favorite deity, and I was so grateful to find this quote, after making the decision to cremate his body:

"Thus he (Odin) established by law that all dead men should be burned, and their belongings laid with them upon the pile, and the ashes be cast into the sea or buried in the earth. Thus, said he, every one will come to Valhalla with the riches he had with him upon the pile..."

The inside of the Mourning Packet I made for my husband's cremation.

The "riches" that were burned with him were more symbolic (but no less powerful). I made a small mourning packet, to be burned with his body.  It included a love note of goodbye and release, written on handmade paper, rose petals that lay on his side of the bed after he passed away, sage, sweetgrass, clippings from our garden (including lemongrass, mint, lavender and echinacea), and a lump of charred wood from our bonfire. It felt so powerful and so important to slip that packet in between the straps that held his cardboard coffin together, before his body was rolled into the furnace.

Once the fire was going strong, I went outside and sat down on the grass with my friend Bill and we quietly watched the smokestacks release the smoke and ashes of my beloved husband. Once again, I felt a deep confirmation of making the right choice around how to release his body, as I watched him swirl and fly into the air. He is the wind. He is free.

Because my husband was a Giant Bear, I now have close to 25 lbs of ashes (the most ashes from one person that this particular crematory had ever seen)! And while some may go into the ocean and some may even find their way into the ground, I'm hoping that some of it will go into some handmade pottery. I have some friends working on this project, and I think my husband would love that art was being made with his ashes.

What do you want to happen to your body when you pass away? Do your loved ones know? Make sure they do. It's a difficult conversation but it is so important to have.

_____________________

I am very aware that this project can bring up a lot around yours or other's grief and loss, I will always follow every post with some online grief support resources that have helped me. Please feel free to let me know of online support that you have found healing in your grief, as well:

Art with Grief:

• Photographer [Sarah Treanor] Takes Moving Self-Portraits to Cope with Her Fiance's Death by Jillian Wong
• When the Fall Comes, a film about Grief by Adriana Marchione
• Self-Portraits: Expressing Emotion Through Art on What's Your Grief?
• The Hard Romance of Grief by Mark Liebenow
• The poetry of John O’Donohue

Resources for Widows:

• Camp Widow

• Soaring Spirits International

Living with Grief Resources:

• Grief Bibliography on Grief Healing

• Teresa “TL” Bruce's What to Say When Someone Dies
• They Brought Cookies: For A New Widow, Empathy Eases Death's Pain by Ann Finkbeiner on NPR
• A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit

• Megan Devine’s Refuge in Grief

• The Geography of Sorrow: Francis Weller on Navigating Our Loses, interviewed by Tim McKee in Sun Magazine

• How to Be a Friend in Deed by Bruce Feiler in the New York Times

• 12 Things to Know About the First Year of Grieving Someone You Can’t Live Without by Laurie Costanza in Elephant Magazine

And remember, I am sharing this project on a variety of platforms, including my Instagram, Twitter, & Facebook feeds, as well as my Pinterest page on Grief. I use the hashtag #6MonthsOfGrief, so it can easily be found on any platform. Please share this project with anyone you think might need it.

Thank you, and see you tomorrow.

6 Months of Grief Project: Day 9

Sad Valentine

This is Day 9 of my #6MonthsOfGrief Project. To learn more about this practice, feel free to visit Day One, where I explain this project in more detail.

Today is Valentine's Day and my true love is not here to celebrate with me. Today is brutal. Today is heartbreaking. Today, I am wearing my heart on my chest. I made this lavender-filled heart the last time I was in deep grief, when I had an ectopic pregnancy and had to have emergency surgery. Today I wear it in the hopes that my broken heart will be stitched up, someday.

I am very aware that this project can bring up a lot around yours or other's grief and loss, I will always follow every post some online grief support resources that have helped me. Please feel free to let me know of online support that you have found healing in your grief, as well:

• Self-Portraits: Expressing Emotion Through Art on What's Your Grief?

• Grief Bibliography on Grief Healing

• The Hard Romance of Grief by Mark Liebenow

• A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit

• Megan Devine’s Refuge in Grief

• The Geography of Sorrow: Francis Weller on Navigating Our Loses, interviewed by Tim McKee in Sun Magazine

• The poetry of John O’Donohue

• How to Be a Friend in Deed by Bruce Feiler in the New York Times

• 12 Things to Know About the First Year of Grieving Someone You Can’t Live Without by Laurie Costanza in Elephant Magazine

Thank you, and see you tomorrow.