Grief-tending is alchemy work

recipes for practice

Everybody’s talking about grief right now. It’s the thickest, hottest buzz word on the internet. Grief is the new trauma. Maybe I’m more aware of it, as a student of grief and facilitator of grief spaces. Maybe we are coming into the collective awakening that tending to our grief, personal and societal, is non-negotiable for the health and wellbeing of a just, thriving society.

Ignoring our grief isn’t working so well anymore, we know.

It comes out sideways if we do, or metastasizes in the body.

We need tools and spaces and approaches that feel—dare I say—G O O D. That feel inviting. That are spit-shined with humor and elegance and possess a strange allure.

Grief-tending shouldn’t feel like bleak and joyless soul homework.

It ought to feel more like going to the beach at night, with people who love you and are rooting for you, and being dipped into inky black water. A kind of baptism. A kind of coming home and reconstitution of the self. Yes, it is pitch black. Maybe there’s moonlight, maybe not. Maybe the waves are rough as hell, and salt water goes up your nose. Maybe you don’t remember the way down to the water, and maybe you need the hands and voices of the people to help you remember.

Grief-tending is alchemy work. It should feel like doing magic, because it is.

It might feel this way if we had more models and precedent for that in our culture.

But we’ve got to build the world we want to live in.

If your grief is calling out to you, and asking for cozy, vibrant ways to love up on it, join me and our dazzling new cohort in Grief Threads

This is the place for people who want to use their hands as the approach to this whole grief business.

In this class, fabric is our jam. Fabric is our doorway into the land of grief. We’re dishing out the wild idea that our meaningful fabrics (old clothes, sheets, linens) hold our stories and memories, and can connect us deeply with what haunts us when we work with this rich and potent medium.

This is your five Tuesdays grief group, art camp, weirdo creative space to tear things up and sew them back together in new ways. Reweaving the past by working the textiles we carry around.

We’ll cut up and repurpose these scraps into beautiful patchwork art you can surround yourself with - I’ll show you how to sew these patches onto clothes you already have, or make a wall hanging, an altar cloth, and a few more permutations. Hello fabric talisman, hello supple amulet, hello soft armor.

Learn more about what we’re making and how we intend to gather a little differently than traditional grief groups. <3

We start next week.

All flavors of grief are welcome.

All levels of sewing experience are invited.

I can’t wait to make something with you.

Please pass this invitation along to someone you know that could use this kind of heart support.

xoMelissa

photo: Jamie Hopper