Beannacht / Blessing

On the day when

the weight deadens

on your shoulders

and you stumble,

may the clay dance

to balance you.

And when your eyes

freeze behind

the grey window

and the ghost of loss

gets into you,

may a flock of colours,

indigo, red, green

and azure blue,

come to awaken in you

a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays

in the currach of thought

and a stain of ocean

blackens beneath you,

may there come across the waters

a path of yellow moonlight

to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,

may the clarity of light be yours,

may the fluency of the ocean be yours,

may the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow

wind work these words

of love around you,

an invisible cloak

to mind your life.

by John O'Donohue, from Anam Cara: A Book Of Celtic Wisdom (Transworld Publishing, 1999)



Healing Justice Lineages: Dreaming at the Crossroads of Liberation, Collective Care, and Safety by Cara Page and Erica Woodland

This focus on root causes is also fundamental in the field of healing justice. In the foreword to Healing Justice Lineages, Aurora Levins Morales writes:

"Healing justice, born from rich Southern roots, began as an investigation into how we can hold the traumas of deep and painful injustices and heal from them as we fight to end them. We hold them because traumatic history is reclaimed memory in the face of denial and an archive of ways through the dark. We try to heal them as we go, because if we are to transform human life on Earth, we need to be as whole as we can and because healing is our birthright as living organisms. We fight to end them, because in the only world in which the future is bearable, the conditions for wholeness must be universal and permanent."

This framework looks at whole system change, with an emphasis on collective care, safety, and collective creation of structures that support true liberation.

Priya Parker, author of The Art of Gathering and Carla Fernandez, author of Renegade Grief: A Guide to the Wild Ride of Life After Loss, came together to discuss how to create a gathering or ritual to process grief together. Here's their result, taken from Priya's newsletter.

6 ways to shape a collective grief ritual:

1. Name the ache.

Connecting your grief to others can start by simply naming aloud what it is you are missing, and getting as specific as possible. Sometimes categories like “climate grief, refugees, civic discontent,” even if accurate, can keep us in the intellectual. Instead of “I miss my home country,” try “I miss the smell of cumin and onions hitting oil that filled my grandmother’s home.” Instead of “I’m mourning climate loss,” try What It Feels Like to Lose Your Favorite Season. Make it personal. “I think there's something about getting out of the intellectual generalizations and into the personal, vulnerable, ‘I’ statement of it all that allows people to enter into a different type of conversation, rather than treat their grief like an article that they've read about in the New Yorker,” Carla explains.

2. Use location as character.

Many people are mourning a loss of place, whether we have been forced from homes by fire or offices by government regimes. Connecting the dots between the ache and the place can help, Carla suggests. After the Eagle Creek Fire scorched the Columbia River Gorge in 2018, she put a day together for a friend who’d grown up going to the park and was grieving the devastation. They invited others who also loved the gorge to gather. They hiked a particular path – his path – and ended at the very spot that had always been his precious respite. The group sat together in the charred forest and talked about what losing their ecological home and sense of sanctuary felt like. It allowed them to “look into the face of the destruction and see how terrible the burn was, but also honor what had been and witness the new ways life was starting to grow,” Carla told me.

3. Don’t be afraid to scream it out.

During the early days of the pandemic, a group of young mothers in Boston – worn out by the constant stress and caretaking of the pandemic – called for a Primal Scream. They gathered at midnight on the 50-yard line of their local high school football field to scream together. “It was so nice to feel out of control for the first time,” one mother said after. “It’s just amazing how light you can feel after you do that,” said another. “I slept better.” They’d figured out a release for the unspoken in community.

4. Invite symbols.

One morning in June 2020, the artist April Banks invited her predominantly Black community to a historically Black beach in Santa Monica. They came at dawn, barefoot, dressed in white clothes and face masks, bearing flowers. They were there to mourn, together: the people they’d lost to Covid, and the others lost to police brutality. The crowd sat in the damp sand and meditated, and then walked into the waves to throw the flowers they’d brought back to the ocean. “What was cool to me about it was that most of the people that were there then went to march in the Black Lives Matter protests that day,” Carla told me. “But it was about creating the moment in the midst of a time of civic action to draw back the bow and tend to the sadness and inherent despair so that they could show up more fully for action.”

5. Misery loves (particular) company.

“Get really specific about who this is for and who this is not for,” Carla says. (Amen!) When you mix people mourning something personally with the merely curious, you create distance. “Screen for participants who lean in and really say ‘me too’ about the feeling of grief and needing to be cared for,” Carla says. “Screen out those who are like, ‘Oh, this sounds like a cool thing to do on a Saturday afternoon that I want to Instagram about.’”

​

Similarly, try not to have any “onlies” as you gather. “Hosting The Dinner Party, we have learned over time that it's never good for someone to be the only person of a certain experience around the table,” Carla says. “Whether it's the only man, the only person of color, the only person who's lost someone to suicide. That that can leave them arriving into this community support experience thinking that they're gonna be filled with a warm hug, and actually feel like, ‘Oh, I'm sort of Other.’”

6. Make a plan for overcoming people’s squeamishness about grief.

Getting people to talk about grief and to feel like the group can be trusted to hold them when they do takes intention. Some tips from Carla: let people help, whether it’s assembling salads or bringing flowers. It’ll make them feel a part of the gathering from the beginning. Start with your own personal experience. Consider an opening reading – there’s a reason why they’re a part of so many funeral rites. They can help center us in the bigger experience, connect us to one another, and give guests a script to begin to talk about themselves.

Access to nature can improve mental health, but what to do when you're stuck in front of a computer? Nature live feeds can help bring the outdoors to your workspace and give you access to wildlife in ways you wouldn't reach, even if you trek to the Earth's remote places. Here are some of our favorites.

Join the thousands following Jackie and Shadow's progress raising two chicks in Big Bear Valley.

In Sweden's version of Must-See TV, follow the live feed following the great moose migration (available for the next two weeks).

For more variety and the option to choose your favorite, check out the Explore.org library of live cams.

Workforce Wellness:

Cultivating Wellness Through Creative Expression

Wednesday, May 7

10:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.

This 1.5-hour session explores how arts-based practices—such as drawing, movement, and storytelling—can support emotional well-being, reduce stress, and build resilience in the workforce. Designed for professionals across sectors, the session invites participants to reconnect with their creativity as a powerful tool for healing, reflection, and sustaining joy in their work. We will engage with materials generally found at your desk including pens or markers, blank copy paper (any size), scissors, and tape. Hosted by Ingrid Anderson, Ed.D.

Click the link below to view the training calendar and register.

Free Mental Health Webinars

Whether we are healing ourselves our others, we can all use some help.

Mindspring Mental Health Alliance offers free webinars on many mental health topics like hoarding, managing anxiety, grief, trauma and more.

What resource has worked best for you to heal?

Assertive Engagement certification is now available to contracted community partners via our Blended Learning Video Series

https://www.multco.us/assertive-engagement