Grief Care
(with help from the land and all that surround us)
If you’re grieving, you may be seeking support, care, healing, understanding, or just a listening ear.
In partnership with plants, fungi, and other-than-human kin, I offer care for you and your grief.
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.
Grief can be slippery, huge, confusing, scary, spiky, isolating, feel like relief, infuriating…
grief can be any emotion or experience - and it can be held.
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.
This is mycelial grief care - a care that is deeply interconnected.
Care that encounters, connects, transforms, and creates new possibilities.
How we’ll work together
I offer two options for Grief Care:
Meeting together over five sessions, we create and nurture a supportive container for your grief. In these sessions, we will engage in gentle, somatic and sense-based practices. We’ll turn to plants and the land for care, support, and guidance. We’ll also work with art, journaling, oracle cards, conversation, and other technologies and tools to better understand and support your grief. If you choose, our 5th session will take place in the forest. Click here to schedule.
I also offer one-time sessions that incorporate many of the above elements. You can schedule your appointment here.
For every session, I’ll offer a custom-crafted tea blend for sipping while we’re together, and to take home with you. You are welcome to return for additional sessions as needed.
I also offer free, 15 minute consultations over zoom, to help you decide if working together is right for you. You can schedule that here.
We’ll meet together 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.
The orange room
Another view of the cozy orange room
How I think about and work with grief ~
We are often told (out loud or silently) that our grief is too much. We’re told we should be over it - we 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 circle of family, friends, and community. People around us are scared, they’re unsure, they’re uncomfortable. They don’t know what to do, so they just want us to be “better.”
I don’t think grief is (or at least is not always) something to be healed, or made “better.” Often, instead, it’s an experience that can become integrated into our lives, and it’s possible for that integration to feel supportive and meaningful.
In my years of working with grief, and being a grieving person, I’ven often returned to a metaphor someone shared with me once: that time doesn’t (necessarily) heal or do away with our grief. Instead, grief can be like a backpack full of big, heavy rocks with sharp edges. Over time, we might become more accustomed to that backpack. We learn ways to carry it that are maybe 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 impact is just as present as it ever was.
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. The presence and care of another person who is not afraid of your grief can, in itself, help to lessen or better balance the weight.
But I believe that it’s in turning to our living and dying and living world, our 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 that are our kin - these are the ones to which we can turn. We can ask for help, support, love, and guidance. I am here to both be that person that is not afraid, and to help you forge and reweave that connection. To help you figure out how to 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 mattter what you are 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 will have an air purifier operating in the room anytime we’re inside together. 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.