Why Joy is a Part of Grieving: Body of Wisdom, Pink Moon
A couple of weeks ago, I had the honor of helping to bury a very loved person at Morris Orchard Natural Burial. While sitting here thinking of it, I feel a dropping in my belly, a sensation of deep grounding and of time stretching so wide that it doesn't really exist.
To me, this is the feeling of a very sacred portal. This is a portal of loss, a portal of death. And, it's a place where I really enjoy spending time.
Here, under quiet 60+ year old chestnut trees, witness to the pain, complexity, and beauty of loss, in circle with a small group of people completely present to this portal, I thank god for this realness.
I drive into town after the service, seeing trees and cars go by and people walking dogs, and I think - holy shit, I am alive! I'm still here, I get to be here! I get to be alive.
I was there that day because I recently asked if I could be more involved at the Orchard. I go way back with the good souls who own it, and I'm grateful to see how we will gradually weave together.
This is the kind of everyday moment that grieving opens capacity for me to experience as expansive gratitude and joy
One way we'll be weaving is with an upcoming offering - Earth's Embrace: Eco-Somatic Container for Grief & Joy. This will be a 2-month June-July small group container for leaning into two of the greatest layers of support for grief work: Community and Earth.
We will explore together what could it look and feel like to trust the river of grief? The flow of this great river that connects this world with the next? The river between us and our ancestors, between us and our never-fulfilled dreams, between us and the unloved parts of ourselves?
These are all losses that when grieved, actually amplify our connection, wholeness, and aliveness. THAT is why joy is a part of grieving. Grieving re-alives us. Grieving lets what has died pass over into the world of spirit, so we may return with fullness to the world of life. Be alive while we are here.
Earth's Embrace will include 2 in-person retreats - one at the Morris Orchard, and another at a different beautiful local location in nature - plus practices to prepare and integrate each retreat day, and community check-ins between.
This container could be intended for any kind of grief - whether you wish to tend to grief around loss of a loved one, grief around violence and loss happening at an ecosystem or global level, a life transition such as divorce or career change, grief around an illness, grieving young parts whose needs were not met...
At the heart of this offering is an intention to develop more trust in our relationship with grief, that it is a portal for transformation and a pathway to greater connection, love, joy, and aliveness.
When tending to our grief, ritual matters. During Earth's Embrace we will create rituals together with the land for moving the energy of this grief. These will be rituals that you can take home with you, for yourself, your family, your community.
An altar Amanda and I built in the forest as part of an intimate grief ritual
One of the biggest take-aways for me from the service I helped with at Morris Orchard was around burying the body. During every funeral I have been to in the past, we depart from the cemetery with the body in a casket still outside of the ground. Later when everyone has left, I assume they lower the casket in the ground then use a machine to fill it in. I say assume because I've never stayed to witness it. From what I have learned around grief ritual, this leaves a lot energetically incomplete.
I felt a huge difference when we by hand lowered the shrouded body into the ground. And when the family was ready, we again by hand, shovel by shovel, filled the hole back in. This took quite a while. The physical effort of shoveling, the careful placing of the soil to be gentle to the body. The medicine was in the slowness, the time to take it in. For me as someone shoveling, it was also in the physicality, in letting my body have a part. We were literally grounding the energy, with actual earth. One shovel full at a time.
About halfway through, the air felt clearer. For me by the end, a real sense of completion was present in the space.
Some epic Turkey Tail mushrooms we found in the woods recently - beauty and new life arising out of death and decay
Last week when facilitating our first circle for Refuge, I shared this quote by Malidoma Somé, an elder of the Dagara tribe of Burkina Faso in West Africa, a great contributor to the realm of grief work.
“Grief is technologically advanced. When we grieve together it highlights the human gifts where the sacred is at work. Inside the sacred there’s a different chemistry, it elevates and expands you. It creates a field and breaks a paradigm.”
He also said "Grief is course correction.”
And so I wonder, what might be possible if we turned more of our energy to grief work in these critical times?
What paradigms might be broken? What human gifts brought to life? What courses corrected?
I can't help but think this sounds like just what we need.
With Love,
Nicole
PS. I encourage you to check out Morris Orchard Natural Burial this is hands-down where I plan to be buried when my time comes.
Invitations into Offerings
Here are some opportunities for our paths to cross:
Group Experiences:
Refuge: A Monthly Online Community Practice for Grief & Joy
3/3 Sacred Kin Circle: Community Dreamweaving
3/17 Sacred Kin Circle: Spring Equinox Celebration
7/26 Eco-Somatic Retreat weaving Eco-Somatics and Song - more info coming soon
2026 Grief & Joy Eco-Somatic Retreats - more info coming soon
1:1 Experiences:
1:1 Somatic Coaching - Building safety, trust, & resilience in relationship with body wisdom
1:1 Somatic CranioSacral Therapy - Attuned touch for regulation, release, & early developmental repair
1:1 Eco-Somatic Retreats - individualized experiences designed to connect you with the healing power of nature, and nature within
Self-Led:
Somatic Journey Toolkit - Me in your pocket for self-paced embodied learning and healing
