Aiden had a baby the same year he did the training, and so it took him a little while to integrate all that and put it into action. Actually, he didn’t really take the training necessarily thinking he would offer grief ritual work in his community. As a community builder and someone who is constantly facilitating and organizing, he took it more to be held in the community that the cohort offered him.

But who knows where these things will lead us…and this is the story of what happened 3 years later!

Aiden is a queer, neurodivergent transman, a dad, a nonprofit leader, circus artist, labour doula, and grief ritual facilitator, among many other titles — endlessly curious about life and the intricacies of the human experience.He completed the grief ritual facilitators program in its very first cohort (2023), and has carried those tender moments and lessons into all of his varied work since.He’s also the founder of Elevate Acro Association, a nonprofit AcroYoga festival, and Rainbow Threads Gathering, a 2SLGBTQ+ family-friendly retreat. He’s currently studying nonprofit leadership at Carleton University. Outside of all that, you’ll find him crafting, gardening, hunting, chasing down an energetic toddler, and taking on far more projects than any one person probably should.

Dark Woods of Grief is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Dark Woods Level 1 Grief Tending & Ritual Facilitation Training is our 4-month professional online training.

We begin Sept 15th and applications are OPEN NOW ✨(and spots filling FAST!!)

This is the prerequisite to our Level 2 Grief Tending & Ritual Facilitation Training which takes place as a combo of in-person retreat & online work from March – June ‘27

For $3,397usd | payment plans available | solidarity pricing for Black, Indigenous & People of Colour) – you will step into an initiatory journey that will grow your capacity to:

✦ Stay present when grief intensifies — with somatic skills and unshakeable confidence

✦ Differentiate between grief and trauma — and know exactly how to meet each in the moment

✦ Tend your own ancestral and personal grief so it doesnt’ get in the way of your work

✦ Hold the full spectrum of human emotion — rage, despair, terror, ecstasy — without needing to fix or manage it

✦ Serve from overflow rather than depletion

✦ Be part of a growing network restoring grief tending skills for this and future generations

Learn more and APPLY HERE NOW

If you’re deep in grief and seeking support, you might find our Grief Support Group or our Return from the Underworld course more right for you at this time.

That’s all for today!

Grá mór, (big Love)

Josea & the Dark Woods Team

Selina Stanford’s spiritual life began before she can even remember it — steeped in the Black church, in her parents’ devotion, in a lineage of prayer and praise. But her journey didn’t stop there. When her father died the same year she would begin college, she was stopped in her tracks and began to ask herself, what is really important to me? When she met her husband, she was welcomed into Ifá, the traditional Yoruba spiritual system of West Africa, and something in her found what felt like her true spiritual home.

Now Selina carries a vision: bringing West African–style healing rituals into the heart of inner-city Philadelphia – into a Black community carrying real weight – daily violence and very real grief – as a path toward collective healing.

This conversation moves through ancestry, faith, and the sacred work of building ritual containers for communities that need them most. And by the way, don’t listen to this if you are offended by laughter because we could not stop. Selina is funny af and this might be the most I’ve laughed on this podcast, ever.

If you’ve ever wondered what it looks like to hold multiple spiritual lineages at once, or you’re curious about Ifá, or you just want to hear two people talk about the holy and the hilarious in the same breath – this one’s for you.

About Selina:

Selina is a grief tender and trained death doula who has been walking alongside individuals and communities in grief work for over five years. Her approach is rooted in a traditional African understanding of grief as a communal experience—one that calls us into relationship, witnessing, and collective care rather than isolation.

She holds grief as a sacred portal—an opening into deeper self-awareness, connection, and alignment with our life’s purpose and work. Her practice centers on creating spaces where grief can be expressed fully and authentically, whether through wailing circles, communal grief rituals, or somatic practices that honor the body as a vessel for healing.

She is here to hold space for others with compassion and presence, supporting the unfolding of grief as both a personal and collective journey. Through this work, I aim to nurture environments where people feel seen, held, and empowered to move with their grief in ways that are meaningful and transformative.

To connect with Selina, send her a message via carrier pigeon or email her at: linastanford64@gmail.com

Dark Woods of Grief is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Dark Woods Level 1 Grief Tending & Ritual Facilitation Training is our 4-month professional online training.

We begin Sept 15th and applications are OPEN NOW ✨(and spots filling FAST!!)

This is the prerequisite to our Level 2 Grief Tending & Ritual Facilitation Training which takes place as a combo of in-person retreat & online work from March – June ‘27

For $3,397usd | payment plans available | solidarity pricing for Black, Indigenous & People of Colour) – you will step into an initiatory journey that will grow your capacity to:

✦ Stay present when grief intensifies — with somatic skills and unshakeable confidence

✦ Differentiate between grief and trauma — and know exactly how to meet each in the moment

✦ Tend your own ancestral and personal grief so it doesnt’ get in the way of your work

✦ Hold the full spectrum of human emotion — rage, despair, terror, ecstasy — without needing to fix or manage it

✦ Serve from overflow rather than depletion

✦ Be part of a growing network restoring grief tending skills for this and future generations

Learn more and APPLY HERE NOW

If you’re deep in grief and seeking support, you might find our Grief Support Group or our Return from the Underworld course more right for you at this time.

That’s all for today!

Grá mór, (big Love)

Josea & the Dark Woods Team

Go to https://darkwoodsofgrief.com to learn more about our programs & trainings or

Click here to learn more about our Grief Tending & Ritual Facilitation Training

If you have ever said that you ‘don’t have time’ for the self care you know you need, this episode is for you.

If you’ve ever wondered how your nervous system will navigate holding the bigger energy of group work or the intensity of ritual, this episode is for you.

If you’d love a perspective shift on how you view time-space & reality, this episode is for you!

Because it’s critical with this work that we are Serving from a place of wholeness rather than depletion & burn out.

I’d love to know what you think - leave a comment below!

Join us on Tuesday March 3rd for A Wake for Our Collective Sorrows ~ a Community Grief & Praise Session

In the Irish tradition, a wake (faire) is a gathering after death to honour life –with tears and laughter, stories and songs, and wild humor (craic) being integral parts.

It’s a grief ritual – but not somber mourning – instead, it’s a celebration that feeds life itself.

This event is by donation to our scholarship fund. Learn more & REGISTER HERE

2026✨ Roots of Ritual Grief Tending Foundations Training 🌀 begins MARCH 24th ✨

This program is our 4 month professional level 1 training designed to support you to grow your capacity to tend grief & trauma with confidence in both 1:1 and group settings.

For $3000 usd (payment plans available) gets you weekly live discussion calls, pre-recorded learning material, small groups for somatic practice & discussion. Solidarity pricing available for Black, Indigenous & People of Colour.

Learn more and apply at https://darkwoodsofgrief.com/roots-of-ritual/

…You came to this path because you were called.

Because you walked through your own dark woods and you know in your bones what it means to have someone hold a lantern for you.

The idea of turning that into marketing can feel…yucky.

And marketing CAN be gross. We’ve all seen and felt it - the sleazy door-to-door vacuum salesman vibe ….and that has very much translated into the online world in the last 15 years.

But here’s what I want to offer you today: there is a way to build a sustainable livelihood as a grief tender that doesn’t require you to betray the work or sell your soul. In fact, done with integrity, your marketing becomes an extension of the work itself.

Listen to the full episode for the how.

ALSO…

Join us on Tuesday March 3rd for A Wake for Our Collective Sorrows ~ a Community Grief & Praise Session

In the Irish tradition, a wake (faire) is a gathering after death to honour life – with tears and laughter, stories and songs, and wild humor (craic) being integral parts.

It’s a grief ritual – but not somber mourning – instead, it’s a celebration that feeds life itself.

This event is by donation to our scholarship fund. Learn more & REGISTER HERE

2026✨ Roots of Ritual Grief Tending Foundations Training 🌀 begins MARCH 24th ✨

This program is our 4 month professional level 1 training designed to support you to grow your capacity to tend grief & trauma with confidence in both 1:1 and group settings.

For $3000 usd (payment plans available) gets you weekly live discussion calls, pre-recorded learning material, small groups for somatic practice & discussion. Solidarity pricing available for Black, Indigenous & People of Colour.

Learn more and apply at https://darkwoodsofgrief.com/roots-of-ritual/

I love to hear from you…please let me know what you thought of this episode by leaving a comment!

Dark Woods of Grief is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Thanks for reading Dark Woods of Grief! This post is public so feel free to share it.

I’ve been in bed with the flu most of this past 8 days.

It’s been one of those weird ones where you think your getting better and then it moves to a different area of your body.

Without to many graphic details, the word for the last 3 days has been gastrointestinal.

Not fun, but I’m also not complaining as I feel so grateful to have a warm cozy place to rest and work as I recover.

Needless to say, I was delighted to get outside for a short walk (in the sun, on the beach, with the dogs) yesterday, and then to prop myself up in bed enough to make you this - 5th episode of Rooted in Thriving ~ Grief Tending for Collective Liberation podcast series.

If you’ve ever worried about what will happen if your clients/participants go “too fast” or “too deep” into their grief - this episode is for you.

If you or your clients are struggling to cope with the intensity of the collective grief moving through our world right now - this episode is for you.

In this episode, I talk about the most important skill you need for grief tending work.

It’s absolutely foundational - so don’t miss it!

Episode #5 ~ Grief Tending Foundations ~ the most important skill you need to facilitate soulful spaces while living within colonial systems & structures that are falling.

Find it on Youtube HERE or on Spotify HEREor

I hope you enjoy it and I’d love to hear what you think. :)

Join us on Tuesday March 3rd for A Wake for Our Collective Sorrows ~ a Community Grief & Praise Session

In the Irish tradition, a wake (faire) is a gathering after death to honour life – with tears and laughter, stories and songs, and wild humor (craic) being integral parts.

It’s a grief ritual – but not somber mourning – instead, it’s a celebration that feeds life itself.

This event is by donation to our scholarship fund. Learn more & REGISTER HERE

2026✨ Roots of Ritual Grief Tending Foundations Training 🌀 begins MARCH 24th ✨

This program is our 4 month professional level 1 training designed to support you to grow your capacity to tend grief & trauma with confidence in both 1:1 and group settings.

For $3000 usd (payment plans available) gets you weekly live discussion calls, pre-recorded learning material, small groups for somatic practice & discussion. Solidarity pricing available for Black, Indigenous & People of Colour.

Learn more and apply at https://darkwoodsofgrief.com/roots-of-ritual/

Thanks for reading Dark Woods of Grief! This post is public so feel free to share it.

Dark Woods of Grief is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

In the Irish tradition, a wake (faire) is a gathering after death to honour life – with tears and laughter, stories and songs, and wild humor (craic) being integral parts.

It’s a grief ritual – but not somber mourning – instead, it’s a celebration that feeds life itself.

This event is by donation to our scholarship fund. Learn more & REGISTER HERE

Adeline is a wild woman and lover of nature and big adventures. She came to Canada in 2018 to complete the Wisdom of the Earth Wilderness School Immersion program. Through this training she became a mentor for children in deep nature connection and discovered that grieving is necessarily a part of healing and coming into deeper connection with nature, each other and ourselves.

Upon returning to her home in France, she lost her dear mother. The depth of this grief led her return to the path of grief work and to Canada to complete the 2024 Dark Woods Grief Tending & Ritual Facilitation Training. She has held grief circles both online and in person, and is currently home living in France.

In this episode, we talk about all of this, plus we go deep into the horse-back riding accident she had as a teen that left her physically disabled and how this has impacted her view of human vulnerability and the realities of disenfranchised grief.

She is a facilitator on our Dark Woods Grief Support Group team and you can also find her in France at lefebvre.adeline14@gmail.com

2026✨ Roots of Ritual Grief Tending Foundations Training 🌀 begins MARCH 24th ✨

This program is our 4 month professional level 1 training designed to support you to grow your capacity to tend grief & trauma with confidence in both 1:1 and group settings.

For $3000 usd (payment plans available) gets you weekly live discussion calls, pre-recorded learning material, small groups for somatic practice & discussion. Solidarity pricing available for Black, Indigenous & People of Colour.

Learn more and apply at https://darkwoodsofgrief.com/roots-of-ritual/

In the Irish tradition, a wake (faire) is a gathering after death to honour life – with tears and laughter, stories and songs, and wild humor (craic) being integral parts.

It’s a grief ritual – but not somber mourning – instead, it’s a celebration that feeds the life itself.

This event is by donation to our scholarship fund. Learn more & REGISTER HERE

In today’s episode, I’m talking to Susan Adamson ~ graduate of our 2025 Advanced Grief Tending & Ritual Facilitation Training. Susan brings a unique depth to grief work, drawing from decades as a Registered Nurse specializing in newborn intensive care and lactation, combined with advanced training in pre and perinatal somatic psychology, energy medicine, and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy.

Her own grief journey began in 2023 with the dissolution of her 33-year marriage, followed six months later by the sudden death of her ex-husband from long-term alcohol abuse. Navigating this complex terrain of loss, Susan discovered The Dark Woods of Grief, where weekly somatic support groups offered her the tools and witnessing she desperately needed. After attending the 2025 winter Grief Retreat, she knew she wanted better tools to help others find their way through grief.

Susan’s work sits at a powerful intersection: she understands that how we navigate grief is deeply rooted in our earliest experiences. For years, she has helped new mothers and babies heal from challenging births and medical interventions, using somatic tools to create safety for overwhelmed nervous systems. When babies are given space to tell their birth stories—to express frustration, rage, or sadness—they develop resilient coping mechanisms that shape how they’ll process trauma and loss throughout their lives.

This foundational understanding informs Susan’s grief facilitation work. She knows that when we experience traumatic loss later in life, those early imprinted patterns resurface. Just as newborns need safe, attuned holding to process their birth trauma, grieving adults need safety and security in their holding and witnessing. Susan creates that compassionate container where grief stories can be shared, emotions can move through the body, and the whole self can be honored through the pain of sorrow.

Susan is passionate about bringing her somatic expertise to those walking the often lonely and misunderstood path of grief, offering the same deep presence and nervous system attunement she has long provided to the newest and most vulnerable among us.

She is a facilitator on our Dark Woods Grief Support Group team and you can also find her at https://mothertrees.com

2026✨ Roots of Ritual Grief Tending Foundations Training 🌀 begins MARCH 24th ✨

This program is our 4 month professional level 1 training designed to support you to grow your capacity to tend grief & trauma with confidence in both 1:1 and group settings.

For $3000 usd or 6 payments of $500 usd you get weekly live discussion calls, pre-recorded learning material, small groups for somatic practice & discussion. Solidarity pricing available for Black, Indigenous & People of Colour

Learn more and apply at https://darkwoodsofgrief.com/roots-of-ritual/

In today’s episode, I’m talking to our community elder, Jane Spielman. Jane worked as an educator for 50 years, supporting transformative, inquiry-based literacy for children from birth through teenagers to undergraduate and graduate teacher candidates. She helped build trauma and healing informed school programs all over New York City that got to the root of what was in the way of student’s learning. When her wife of over 3 decades fell ill, she began her study of caregiving and grief. Jane believes that learning how to grieve and face trauma in safe-enough spaces is essential to physical, emotional and spiritual life; and is absolutely essential in the process of discovering the gifts we have to offer the world.

Jane has studied with Zen and Tibetan Buddhist masters, hospice providers and is a graduating student in the Dark Woods Grief Tending & Ritual Facilitation Training. Her work is grounded in these lineages as well as Somatic tools, Internal Family Systems work & Reiki.

Jane is a Jewish anti-Zionist who believes we were born for these times, and a lifelong activist, with a focus on allyship in anti-colonist struggles. She is also a proud lesbian who has always represented and collaborated with other LGBTQ2S folx.

Jane has built her own active practice in Sow the Seeds of Healing to support individuals as well as groups in somatic grief and trauma work and can be found on her Substack - Choiceless Choices

Listen. The world is on fire right now. 

Most people are walking around carrying generations of unmetabolized pain, and wondering why everything feels so HEAVY.

If you're someone who holds space for others and you know there's a deeper medicine needed right now... you’re in the right place. 

Have you felt the call to grief tending & grief ritual work, but not known where to start?

Would you love to build a thriving Grief Tending practice that sustains you deeply, serves your community & supports collective liberation? 

I believe that community grief tending & ritual work is not just a critical way that we heal ourselves personally, but that this work is also at the 💛 HEART 💛of our COLLECTIVE LIBERATION. 

In this series, I will be interviewing graduates of our Grief Tending & Ritual Facilitation Training programs. You’ll get to hear about their initiations into grief, the call to serving others came to them and what they are up to now as graduates from our programs. 

 Then, on the week of March 2nd, we will be releasing 3 special episodes ~  REAL TALK STRAIGHT FROM YOURS TRULY - as  a long-time grief tender, facilitator and teacher of this work. 

We’re going to get deep into what it takes to step into this work as your Soul calling.

Because when you are clearly called, then it becomes just a matter of ...HOW?

In these three final episodes we’ll be diving into:

1. Grief Tending Skills & Structures  ~ how to offer work that holds its depth and power while living within colonial systems & structures that are falling

2. Business Models for Liberation ~ the realities of making a living in this sacred work ~ is it possible to do what you love and thrive?? The answer is YES, and we’re going to talk about HOW. 

3. Deep Self Care for Grief Tenders ~ because it’s critical with this work that we are Serving from a place of wholeness rather than depletion & burn out. 

If you’d like to sign up for our email list and receive every episode of this series in your inbox, go to darkwoodsofgrief.com/rooted-in-thriving

APPLICATIONS ARE OPEN now for our 2026✨ Roots of Ritual Grief Tending Foundations Training 🌀  begins MARCH 24th ✨

This program is our 4 month professional level 1 training designed to support you to grow your capacity to tend grief & trauma with confidence in both 1:1 and group settings. 

For $3000 usd or 6 payments of $500 usd you get weekly live discussion calls, pre-recorded learning material, small groups for somatic practice & discussion. Solidarity pricing available for Black, Indigenous & People of ColourLearn more and apply at https://darkwoodsofgrief.com/roots-of-ritual/

Roots of Ritual Grief Tending Foundations Training https://darkwoodsofgrief.com/roots-of-ritual/

Grief Support Group https://darkwoodsofgrief.com/dark-woods/

About Tisha Washington :

"I come to this work with an open heart, honoring the many ways people navigate grief, transition, and change. Born on the bayou, I have been shaped by listening closely--to people, to nature, and to what unfolds when words are lost. My own life has been marked by love and loss, and through those experiences I’ve discovered a deep well of inner resource—a refuge of calm and steadiness that I return to again and again.

For the past fifteen years, I have shared deep companionship with animals in my role as a professional dog walker. It was through years of walking—in every season and all kinds of weather—that this path began to form. Observing the natural shifts in nature taught me to recognize and accept the natural changes within myself—meeting them with an open heart rather than judgment. My support is grounded in practical tools that help you remain steady as things shift—both within you and around you—always guided by mindfulness and compassion.

I hold a Master of Social Work from the University of Maryland, Baltimore. Since graduating, my path has unfolded through a rich blend of training and lived experience. This includes case management and support group facilitation for people living with HIV/AIDS at Whitman-Walker Clinic in Northern Virginia, completing a Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield, and, most recently, training as a Grief Tender with Josea Tamira Crossley through her Roots of Ritual - Foundations of Grief Tending Program.

I believe grief wants us to listen deeply.  Alone, this can feel too heavy a burden to carry. In community, the load is shared and something begins to soften. Little by little, shifts occur and space opens for light to come in.

I am available for walking and in-person sessions in the state of Maryland. For more information, you can contact me at sweetboholife@gmail.com

This is for you if:

🌀 You know your business/project is a sacred expression of your soul's purpose

🌀 You're averse to hustle-based, performance and "strategic" plans that ignore the deeper intelligence of your work & life

🌀 You desire to feel held, guided and supported by something greater than your own willpower

🌀 You're ready to transform your relationship with money from one of scarcity or stress into devotion, reverence and right relationship

Program Details

🌀 Three 90-Minute Live Calls on Zoom (will be recorded also) + Recordings of teachings, Guided Meditations & Notes of the Core Foundational Practices of Deva Alchemy.

Live call times are:

Tuesday, January 13th at 10am PT / 1pm ET

Tuesday, January 27th at 10am PT / 1pm ET

Tuesday, February 10th at 4pm PT / 1pm ET

*** we may add one additional call at 4pm PT if there is demand.

Each call includes:

🌀 45 minutes of teaching and guided practice 45 minutes of Q&A with Ellie & Josea to support your integration 

All live calls will be recorded and available for you to revisit anytime, or in case you are unable to make the call times live. Even if you cannot make ANY of the live calls, you will still receive a TON of value from this course.

To learn more about the Roots of Ritual Grief Tending Foundations Training go to https://darkwoodsofgrief.com/roots-of-ritual/

To learn more about Ellie Seilern & the Sacred Business Academy go to https://www.ellieseilern.com/

Tecca’s Upcoming Soft Return Retreat for Black Women https://the-soft-return-xwy3jo5.gamma.site/

Tecca can be found at https://substack.com/@therestedblackwoman or email her at tecca.thompson@gmail.com

Roots of Ritual: Grief Tending Foundations (Online Training)

🗓 March 24 –June 16, 2026

🌍 Online, from wherever you call home

This training may be calling to you if:

• You've witnessed how unacknowledged grief creates dis-ease in body, mind, spirit, and community
• You're already holding space for others but would love to deepen your skills and support
• You sense that ritual and grief tending are missing medicines in our fractured world
• You yearn to create spaces where people can reconnect with their emotional wholeness
• You feel a longing to bring these healing ways to your community, organization, or clients
• You recognize grief tending as essential to decolonization and cultural healing work
• You envision being part of a network of grief tenders seeding these practices worldwide

Are you feeling it? Applications open now for 2026 - limited space, early bird pricing ends November 1st, 2025.

Go here for more info https://darkwoodsofgrief.com/roots-of-ritual/

Her work began at age 22 with her first dying patient, a 3-year-old, and has since included over a thousand children and adults at end-of-life. Martha Jo blends clinical training, personal loss, and deep presence to support people from all walks of life through the end-of-life journey.

She founded the Children’s Bereavement Center of South Texas after the sudden death of her brother, Jim, and later served as executive director of Abode Contemplative Care for the Dying, where she witnessed powerful, conscious dying experiences. These encounters deepened her inquiry into how trauma is held in the body and led to her to becoming a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner.

In her private practice and through Dying School, Martha Jo helps clients talk openly about dying - whether after a diagnosis, during active end-of-life, or in preparation for what’s to come. Through Soul Story Films, she records end-of-life stories (with permission) to teach others about dying with love, intention, and presence.

Martha Jo’s TEDx talk, “More To Dying Than Meets The Eye" has over 2 millions views on YouTube.

She holds a B.A. from Southwestern University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Texas at San Antonio. She's also MBTI® certified.

Martha Jo lives in Texas with her boxer, Gertie, and a stash of Dr. Pepper. She understands that dying can be hard - and also beautiful, creative, and life-affirming.

August 5th 2025 Dreams & Visions on the Dying Bed Workshop (FREE!) https://tinyurl.com/EOLDreamsandVisions

Dying School Death Doula Training https://marthajoatkins.com/dschool

Social Links

https://www.facebook.com/MarthaJoAtkins

https://www.facebook.com/Dr.MarthaJoAtkins/
https://www.instagram.com/marthajoatkins/

Our 2025 Grief Tending & Ritual Facilitation Training and our inaugural Roots of Ritual: Foundations of Grief Tending (online only - Level 1) has a few more spots left still. For more info go to https://darkwoodsofgrief.com/facilitation-training/ and https://darkwoodsofgrief.com/roots-of-ritual/ 

____________________________________________________________

If you’d like to learn more about the Dark Woods Grief Tending & Ritual Facilitation Training, check out ⁠⁠https://darkwoodsofgrief.com/facilitation-training/⁠⁠ email us at ⁠⁠info@darkwoodsofgrief.com⁠⁠ or message us on any of our social channels. There are 3 spots left!

For Roots of Ritual: Grief Tending Foundations Level 1, please go to our website https://darkwoodsofgrief.com/roots-of-ritual/

Professionally, she has a diverse background that complements her role as a grief facilitator. She is a product manager with degrees in electrical and biomedical engineering, and management. She has mentored young professionals and volunteered for a suicide helpline, both of which have strengthened her ability to support people during difficult times. Her passion for storytelling has helped her connect with people on a deeper level and understand the power of shared experiences in healing.

As a facilitator, she strives to create a compassionate and supportive space for others, grounded in empathy and enriched by professional and cultural insights.

She teaches yoga and meditation and is a graduate of the 2024 Dark Woods Grief Tending & Ritual Facilitation Training. She also currently serves as a peer grief facilitator in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario.

If you’d like to learn more about the Dark Woods Grief Tending & Ritual Facilitation Training, check out ⁠https://darkwoodsofgrief.com/facilitation-training/⁠ email us at ⁠info@darkwoodsofgrief.com⁠ or message us on any of our social channels. There are 3 spots left!

For Roots of Ritual: Grief Tending Foundations Level 1, please reach out via email as this training is so new, it isn’t even on our website yet! 

To find out more about her work, go to https://www.natashaedmunds.com/home

If you’d like to learn more about the Dark Woods Grief Tending & Ritual Facilitation Training, check out https://darkwoodsofgrief.com/facilitation-training/ email us at info@darkwoodsofgrief.com or message us on any of our social channels.

For Roots of Ritual: Grief Tending Foundations Level 1, please reach out via email as this training is so new, it isn’t even on our website yet! 

It keeps our eyes open to the love and beauty of the world.
In this live session we aim to acknowledge and make space for real conversations around grief. 

Jane, Josea & special guests - this Wednesday, we will be joined by Adeline Lefevre, graduating student of the 2024 Dark Woods Grief Tending & Ritual Facilitation Training. 

Yet where do we turn in the wake of a culture so broken? 
Sankofa is a Twi word from the Akan tribe in Ghana which means “go back and get it”. The symbol is a mythical bird looking backwards, feet facing forward, head easily turned backwards to reach for an egg in its mouth.

We can, like this mythical bird, reach back through intuitive writing to uncover a connection with our Well Ancestors to ask for their help in navigating the rough waters of our lives.

For many of us, our ancestral lineages are tied to an array of mixed emotions. There may be feelings of love, connection, warmth, and support. There may also be feelings of disconnection, rejection, abandonment, grief and trauma. We may not know the stories behind these feelings, but the latent memory inhabits our bodies. 

This is why building a somatic relationship with our Well Ancestors is so powerful.

When we begin to develop a relationship with our Well Ancestors, we come to recognize that we are not alone.

We welcome a layer of support into our lives, one that has been there, unseen, all along.

“So why bother writing? Some of us will write compulsively because that’s just who we are. Others of us will worry at the edge of writing, thumbing the keyboard, scratching with a pencil from time to time. For many of us written words will feel foreign, like strange bugs crawling over us while we hide from the world. Though it’s counterintuitive, writing can be a lifeline.”

~ Timothy Flynn, author of Wilder Grief
While writing will be our instrument, this is not a course for writers only. 

Writing is a way to access the subconscious and unseen worlds within - to find safety for the parts of ourselves who have been silenced, forgotten or forbidden. 

It is a way for us to begin to feel again, and to apply salve to the places that are wounded.

In the ruins of culture lay stories lost and untold, the bones of people forgotten, but once we find the well of connection, we see it can still flow. 

We can practice together to begin to remember what has been lost.

This course is designed to facilitate healing through writing. 

You will be guided through gentle yet powerful somatic practices and writing prompts with opportunities to share and support each other as a community. 

We hold immense gratitude to the depth of unfathomable resilience of our Ghanian relatives that bring us the wisdom of the traditional stories from Ghana. 

Also, for Tanya Taylor Rubenstein, founder of Somatic Writing, and all the seen and unseen forces guiding us. We aim to decolonize our legacies. We were born for these times.

To learn more and register for the free intro session, go to https://darkwoodsofgrief.com/writing-with-well-ancestors/

To learn more about our work at Dark Woods of Grief in general, go to https://darkwoodsofgrief.com

I think you will find our conversation both mind & heart opening.

Silvia was born and raised in Argentina. She was forced to leave Argentina as a teenager due to the violent political climate, along with her refugee parents and siblings. She lived in Venezuela for 25 years before immigrating to Canada. 

She worked in Canada for 10 years as an employment counsellor and coach for refugees and immigrants. 

She is a Permaculturist, Facilitator & Coordinator and currently works for three different organizations: Gaia Education, The Work That Reconnects Network and the Capra Course (by Fritjof Capra).

They have family currently in Gaza with children.

To find out more about our collective work please go to https://darkwoodsofgrief.com

If you'd like to donate money to Daniela & Caroline's family who are surviving starvation & genocide in Gaza currently, go here => https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=Z22C423FTT2EG&source=qr

She's also a hardcore science nerd who is madly in love with all things mystical. I LOVE HELPing people with their sick animals and I yearn to offer rays of hope when it seems there aren't any.

You can find out more about Rachel at https://www.rachelaugusta.com/

Colleen offers 1:1 coaching and online courses to help parents (who are often sensitive themselves) gain skills for:

• helping their children (and themselves) calm when anger or intense emotions arise,


• helping their children to be less hard on themselves and build confidence and self-esteem.


• Gaining skills to react less and stay calmer with their kids, and


• Reconnecting with a child or teen who’s rebelling or pushing them away.

Her perspective is informed by her experiences and by current research in neuroscience, psychology, spirituality and the 8 shields model.

Find out more:

• Website:  https://colleenadrian.com/


• 5-week course,  How to Help Your Child Calm and Regulate , starts October 24, 2022


• Free parenting tips:
  
  
  
  • Blog:  https://colleenadrian.com/blog/
  
  
  • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/colleen.parentwriter/
  
  
  
  

Culture activist, worker, author ~ Jenkinson teaches internationally and is the creator and principal instructor of the Orphan Wisdom School, co-founded the school with his wife Nathalie Roy in 2010, convening semi-annually in Deacon, Ontario, and in northern Europe.

He has Master’s degrees from Harvard University (Theology) and the University of Toronto (Social Work).

Apprenticed to a master storyteller when a young man, he has worked extensively with dying people and their families, is former programme director in a major Canadian hospital, former assistant professor in a prominent Canadian medical school.

He is also a sculptor, traditional canoe builder whose house won a Governor General’s Award for architecture.

Since co-founding the Nights of Grief and Mystery project with singer/ songwriter Gregory Hoskins in 2015, he has toured this musical/ tent show revival/ storytelling/ ceremony of a show across North America, U.K. and Europe and Australia and New Zealand. They released their Nights of Grief & Mystery album in 2017 and at the end of 2020, they released two new records; Dark Roads and Rough Gods.

He is the author of A Generation’s Worth: Spirit Work While the Crisis Reigns (2021), Come of Age: The Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble (2018), the award-winning Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul (2015), Homecoming: The Haiku Sessions (a live teaching from 2013), How it All Could Be: A workbook for dying people and those who love them (2009), Angel and Executioner: Grief and the Love of Life – (a live teaching from 2009), and Money and The Soul’s Desires: A Meditation (2002). He was a contributing author to Palliative Care – Core Skills and Clinical Competencies (2007).

Stephen Jenkinson is also the subject of the feature length documentary film Griefwalker (National Film Board of Canada, 2008, dir. Tim Wilson), a portrait of his work with dying people, and Lost Nation Road, a shorter documentary on the crafting of the Nights of Grief and Mystery tours (2019, dir. Ian Mackenzie).

His books, recordings and DVDs are available for purchase at the Orphan Wisdom Shop.

To find out more about Jenkinson's work please go to https://orphanwisdom.com/

We discuss his newly published book, "Hello, Goodbye: 75 Rituals for Loss, Celebration & Change, as well as rites of passage & rebuilding culture in general. Like me, Day has a particular affinity, as well as years of experience working with teens in deep nature connection work, and so we get to hear his sage advice on raising and working with kids in a way that is culturally regenerative. 

With nearly 100K followers on social media and sold-out workshops, installations, trainings, and public speaking events worldwide, Day is a thought-leader devoted to healing the culture by teaching people to ritualize the big and small moments of our work and our lives.

Day is the author of the newly released book, Hello, Goodbye: 75 Rituals for Times of Loss, Celebration and Change (Simon Element), hitting #1 on Amazon for two days straight, as well as the author of Morning Altars: A 7-Step Practice to Nourish Your Spirit through Nature, Art and Ritual (Countryman Press).

Day has taught workshops and created installations at Google, The 9/11 Memorial Plaza, The Hammerstein Ballroom, The Andy Warhol Foundation, California Academy of Sciences, Esalen, and many others.

His work has been featured on NBC, CBS, Buzzfeed, Vice, Well+Good, My Modern Met and four times in Spirituality & Health Magazine.

Find out more about Day at morningaltars.com and dayschildkret.com and you can get his book here https://www.amazon.com/Hello-Goodbye-Rituals-Celebration-Change/dp/198217093X

In this episode we discuss adult rites of passage, rough initiation vs. being initiated in the village, and how grief & trauma work connects through the layers of all of it. We talk about the art of building a village around us - not physical houses but through the web of connections - elders, mentors, allies & anchors. 

John Wolfstone is a filmmaker, ritualist, wilderness rites-of-passage guide, emergence facilitator and sacred clown focused on the work of cultural redemption. Over the past 15 years, he has wielded these tools in service to restorative justice, ancestral healing and peace building in conflict zones from rural Guatemalan villages, to Middle Eastern refugee camps and inner cities in the U.S. He has studied intensively the 8 Shields Cultural Regeneration model, been a scholar at the Orphan Wisdom School, trained with Weaving Earth Relational Education, and been a long-term student, and trainee of the Tamera Love School and Healing Biotope Education. He has four times been awarded Moishe House grants to facilitate Jewish community gatherings on Ancestry, Love, and recollecting the Village. In addition, he has been producing new paradigm films and events through his media collaborative, Re/Culture Media. 

You can find out more about the Through the Dark Woods sessions @ www.joseatamiracrossley.com/dark-woods/ 

or sign up for the next free intro session (September 20th 2021) @ www.joseatamiracrossley.com/into-the-ashes