CW: suicide loss, grief, trauma responses No one told me grief would begin to live in my body or that it would impact my nervous system for the foreseeable future. Once I was able to accept what had happened, I expected the sadness. I expected the crying, the fog, the heaviness that makes getting out of bed feel like an athletic event. What I didn't expect was the way my body would change — the way it would start responding to the world differently, like it had been reprogram

CW: suicide loss, grief For a long time after my dad died, I was a detective. I replayed conversations. I analyzed text messages. I interrogated my own memories like a witness who couldn't keep her story straight. What did he say that Tuesday? Did his voice sound different? Was that comment a clue I missed? I wasn't just grieving. I was investigating. I thought if I could just figure out why, something would click into place. The chaos would organize itself into a narrative t

The cat I live with (who I sometimes mess up and call “my cat”) is named Chiron. If you know your Greek mythology, you already see where this is going. Chiron was the original wounded healer. He was an immortal centaur, the greatest teacher and healer in the ancient world, who suffered a wound that couldn't be healed. He spent his life tending to others even as he carried his own unrelenting pain. The story eventually ends with him surrendering his immortality to be released

Content Warning: Suicide loss, grief, death You probably know someone who has lost a loved one to suicide. Actually, let me say that differently. More than 42% of American adults know someone who has died by suicide. That's nearly half of us. Over 48,000 Americans die by suicide every year. That means approximately 135 people today. And by some estimates, each suicide loss profoundly affects at least 135 other people. ( American Foundation for Suicide Prevention ) Photo: Aaro

Choosing a Healer Who Gets It Photo: Vanessa Owen & Gavin Stewart You know what nobody tells you when you're looking for a reiki healer? The best ones usually don't have it all figured out. Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying they are huge messes. It would be hard to start and operate a reiki practice in that case. They're human. They're still learning. They're navigating life while also holding space for others. But what they do have is devotion to their own healing and a cal

(Part 2 of 2) In Part 1, we looked at how grief—both personal and collective—carries sacred information about what we're losing and what matters most. We looked at how our culture struggles to hold space for even tangible losses, let alone the perceived, energetic, and collective grief we're all carrying. We named the grief of late-stage capitalism and how the system that creates our grief also denies us time to feel it. Now, the question becomes: what (tf) do we do with all

(Part 1 of 2) This two-part series explo res grief as sacred information rather than something to simply "get through." In Part 1, we'll look at what our personal and collective losses are trying to tell us. In Part 2, we'll explore how to work with grief as a teacher and guide toward healing. What if grief isn't something to get through, but something to listen to and to be guided by? Photo by Anthony Lim / Unsplash What can I say? We live in a culture that treats grief l

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Content Warning: suicide loss Fourteen years ago, my world cracked open when my father died by suicide. I had just turned 27, and I...

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May we mourn at any time we need without resistance or judgment. May our grief refresh and grow our rooted resilience. May our tears...