How Grief Moves

Hello and welcome to a genuinely hospitable place for grief; the complex and natural response to loss. We meet on Wednesday's at Paperbark Deathcare, South Murwillumbah

Paperbark Deathcare and Before & After Life recognise the need for shared places and spaces to be with grief. This collaboration invites you to collectively practice what it means to meet in our shared humanity without fixing, without the check box of "healing" - simply being with what is.

Whether your grief is fresh, long past or currently emerging - come, connect, make, move, listen and share. You are welcome.

FIRST WED OF EACH MONTH // GRIEF SPEAKS - Language for Sorrow
7 May, 4 June, 2 July
The practice of re/imagining and re/claiming grief speak. Together we share and open the apertures of our hearts to let more compassion and love in through the lines, pages and prose, places and people, nurture and nature. 

THIRD WED OF EACH MONTH // GRIEF DANCES - Move with loss
21 May, 18 June, 16 July
Just as dance transitions our bodies through shape and form, grief too moves through a multiplicity of emotional states. We welcome you and your sorrow to a monthly pot luck dinner and dance to move with and through our sorrows.

FOURTH WED OF EACH MONTH // GRIEF MAKES - Creative ways of being with grief
A tangible way to contemplate mortality and metabolise loss. Dropping out of your head and into your hands offers order from chaos, expression without words, presence, comfort, and connection. 

 April 23 // Pocket-Patch PinInspired by Heart of Thistle and Clover, we will stitch a 'pocket-patch pin' to fasten on the inside or outside of your coat pocket.
Stitch a message inside, create a smaller pocket for a special trinket, stone or crystal; add dried herbs or a pressed flower. Stitch something that holds meaning for you. Keep it discretely next to your heart, or wear it externally to let others know you're grieving. 

Basic materials supplied, if you have your own beads/trinkets or special coloured thread you'd like to use, please bring those.

We seek to normalise the depth and breadth of grieving.
Grief can be isolating, discombobulating, overwhelming, quiet and stealth (add your own experience to this list).  It may be readily accessible or perhaps buried in your body and difficult to locate. 

This is place for what grief offers us: shame, tears, guilt and laughter, healthy anger, for friendships old and new, for solidifying bonds. A communal space to contain what we hold - sharing safely, in right relationship with grief. We meet to move our hands, minds, bodies, hearts, in the practice of metabolising what asks to be known.  

Everything we love we will lose, people we love die, we fall in and out of love; we achieve, fall flat and fail to achieve, we feel let down or betrayed by people and ourselves, pets die, the planet suffers, war continues, wild places are plundered, species decline before our eyes... grief is older than we are, it lives where love lives and permeates the landscape of our lives. 

We seek to share and learn together practical tools for being with grief so that in right relationship, we neither push it away, nor draw in it. We share in our collective knowledge, skills and experiences, whilst practicing the fine art of 'not fixing'. We are seasoned and well versed in the ricochet and dissonance death delivers. And, please note these meets are community grief tending - this is not group psychotherapy. We encourage you to seek additional supports in ways that feel right for you if needed. 

For more info: howgriefmoves.com.au
Numbers each week are limited, please book to secure your spot. Paying cash at the door may lead to disappointment.  We look forward to your company.

Co-Facilitator: Halie Halloran [she/her] - Paperbark Deathcare
Halie is the heart, life blood, founder and lead Ceremonialist at Paperbark Deathcare, a holistic and contemporary funeral home restoring deathcare rites to people and community that has served over 300 families since opening in 2020. Her life's work is grounded in mix of anthroposophical, animist & somatic ecology stepped in the rituals of death and ceremony. She has always been drawn to the profound aspects of human existence, finding beauty and meaning in nature, myth, lore, and the inevitable cycle of life and death. Her warm approach is one of deep listening and gentle guidance, preferring to feel and understand rather than ‘direct’ the process or conversation. Halie is a committee member of the Australia Home Funeral Alliance (AHFA), member of the Natural Death Advocacy Network (NDAN), the National Home Funeral Alliance (NHFA) and can be found hiking or trekking with her herd of horses when not advocating and loving people through the mysterious veil.

Co-Facilitator: Emma Beattie [she/her] - Before & After Life
Emma has worked, studied and volunteered in caring and deathing since 2020.  She brings an animistic, post humanist, creative and poetic lens to caring, deathing and grieving. Her death and dying work and studies intersect a long line of lived experienced with personal loss. Her professional origins reside in strategic thinking, storytelling and social impact. She offers practical supports, education and facilitation for people, families, and groups via term courses, workshops, community meets and retreats. Emma is a member of Palliative Care NSW, National Loss & Grief Association (NALAG), the Natural Death Advocacy Network (NDAN), is an advocate for Compassionate Communities Australia and appears of BayFM 99.9 as a regular guest.

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We possess the profound capacity to metabolise sorrow into something medicinal for our soul, and the soul of the community. The skill of grieving well enables us to become current—to live in the present moment and be available to the electricity of life.

- Francis Weller