Grief Care
The dirt, trees, wind, sky, plants and fungi are here to help hold your grief.
They can soak it in, help it move, and support change when needed.
Along with these sturdy allies from the other-than-human realm,
I offer the gentle container of this human ear and heart.
How we’ll work together
With intention and care, we will create and nurture a supportive container for your grief by ~
Engaging in gentle, somatic and sense-based practices.
Building and nurturing your connection to the wider web of being for care, support, and guidance.
Calling on support from practices such as art, journaling, tarot and oracle cards, as well as other technologies and tools to better understand and support your grief.
During and after our time together, I’ll share a custom-crafted herbal tea, made of plant allies who especially offer love and care while grieving (such as Rose, Cedar, Hawthorn, Nettles, Motherwort, Yarrow, and Others).
Grief Care can be scheduled as a five session series (with the option of the final session in the forest), or a one time session.
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You may choose five, 1 hour sessions to explore these practies and relationships deeply. If you choose, our 5th session will take place in the forest.
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One, 1.5 hour long session, incorporating many of the elements above.
I offer free, 15 minute consultations over zoom, to help you decide if working together is right. You can schedule that here.
We’ll meet together in the Orange Room at the Portland Grief House. For any session, please see my scheduling page for discount codes which can be used as a sliding scale. If you prefer to meet virtually, please indicate this when scheduling.
We carry grief in our hearts, minds, bodies, spirits, families, communities - every part of our lives can be touched by grief. Hard to hold and often impossible to put down,
it seeps into the bones, and lights up the nervous system.
How I think about and work with grief ~
Too often I’ve seen grieving people receive the message that their grief is too much. Grievers are told they should be over it - they should be fixed, strong, healed.
Our grief and our grieving selves are seen as a problem to be solved - or turned aside and turned away.
We can feel or be pushed out the circles we hold dear. People are scared, they’re unsure, they’re uncomfortable. They don’t know what to do, so they just want us to be “better.”
I’ve come to believe that “better” is too limited an aspiration.
Instead, I think of grief as an experience that can become integrated into our lives. This integration can be both supportive and deeply meaningful.
We can even, sometimes, find joy, magic, and connection inside of and alongside our grief.
I’ve also learned, over and over again, that our grief is thorougly entangled with who we are and the world we live in. Our experience of grief is our own, and is deeply woven with and informed by our gender; race and ethnicity; sexuality; neurodivergence; mental, emotional, and spiritual health; our relationships with family and ancestors; the body we live in/are; our access to financial resources; and more.
In my work with grieving people (and in all areas of my life and work) I work for liberation and justice. I welcome all of who you are, and never expect you to silo yourself into only working with your grief. I don’t actually think this is possible. Your grief is intimately woven into your life, and it’s all welcome - your anger and rage, despair, confusion, hope and hopelessness, frustration, joy, and any other experiences and emotions you hold.
This also means it’s important to state my identities so you know who you are working with, and how they may impact you. I am a white, cis, queer femme woman. I am Jewish (complicatedly so, as many of us are). I am a joyful animist. I have experienced grief through the death of many beloveds, including my father, other kin, a beloved friend, and animal companions. I’ve grieved the experience of infertility and miscarriages, divorce, and my own stable ground while living with mental and emotional health struggles. I carry over 20 years of professionally working with crisis, trauma, and grief. I carry a lifetime (and beyond) of personally working with my own and others’ grief.
Over the years, I’ve often returned to a metaphor someone once shared with me: that time doesn’t (necessarily) heal or do away with our grief.
Instead, grief can be a backpack full of big, heavy rocks with sharp edges.
Over time, perhaps we become more accustomed to that backpack. Maybe we learn to carry it in ways that are a little less taxing. We adjust it, so the weight is a bit more balanced.
And, still, sometimes even years later, a rock shifts and suddenly the sharp impact is just as present as it ever was.
The presence and care of another person who is not afraid of your grief can, in itself, help to better balance and hold that weight.
Grief can be so very big. It can take up our whole world - an overlay everywhere we look.
And it can be so, so tiny - infusing every cell, and every breath we take.
I believe that it’s in turning to our living-dying-living world, this world which gives us life,
and to which we return in death, that we can truly be held.
This is who I call on and partner with to help us hold your grief.
The trees that give us breath, the soil that gives us life, the beings of air and earth and water, seen and unseen -
they are our family, and they want to support us. We can ask for their help, support, love, and guidance.
I am here to be that person that is not afraid, and to help you forge and reweave and nurture your connection with your more-than-human kin. We’ll help you carry that backpack as you continue ahead.
To learn more, you are welcome to schedule a free 15 minute consultation, or email hello@rosecedarforesttherapy.com.
No matter what you’re grieving for, your grief matters, and you deserve care and support. If you’d like to learn more about me, and my experiences working with grief, please visit my About page. You are also welcome to reach out to hello@rosecedarforesttherapy.com.
Regarding covid/other respiratory disease precautions: I am happy to wear a mask if you’d like (please don’t hesitate to ask). If you are feeling sick at all, please reschedule your appointment (I will do the same). Please reach out with any questions.
The grief support I offer is considered counseling or coaching, not therapy. I do not accept insurance; I do offer a sliding scale.
If you are in urgent need of mental health support and are in Multnomah County, please call the Crisis Line at 503-988-4888 and find other urgent resources here. Click here for national crisis lines, or dial 988.