Course curriculum

Weekly gathering themes

    1. Welcome to The Grief Well

    2. Nice to meet you!

    3. Zoom link for Monday night gatherings

    4. Recommended Reading - Grief Stories

    5. Tenents to Be Well Together

    6. The Land We Stand On - Practices for Embodied Living, Experiencing the wisdom of your body by Hilary McBride

    7. Offering outline

    1. Introduction

    2. Weekly passage and prompts

    3. Witnessing Space for Grief

    1. Introduction

    2. Story of the Tides, Jamie Sams

    3. Witnessing Space for Grief

    1. Introduction

    2. Excerpt from The Smell of Rain on Dust, Martin Prechtel & prompts

    3. Witnessing Space for Grief

    1. Introduction

    2. The Cure, Albert Huffstickler

    3. Witnessing Space for Grief

    1. Introduction

    2. Wild Grief, Chris Heeter

    3. Witnessing Space for Grief
  • 32 lessons

Guides

Tracy Chalmers

Tracy Chalmers is grateful and humbled to be living on Coast Salish land known as the North Shore of Vancouver, in British Columbia. Since 2017, she has served as an end-of life doula, co-founded the End-of-Life Doula Association of Canada, founded Endwell, co-founded The Grief Well, served as a hospice volunteer and mentor, trained as a Forest Therapy guide, facilitated various training and community workshops through Endwell, written her first book, The Nature of the Journey, and facilitated the End-of-Life Doula Care program at Douglas College. A friend to grief and death and servant to many, Tracy also considers herself a perpetual student. She is of Norwegian, Swedish, Scottish, and English ancestry, and values her roles as mother, daughter, wife, sister, friend, listener, and lover of the natural world and all of life. The work that Tracy does honours and is supported by countless ancestors.

Willow Meili

Guide

Willow is a co-founder of The Grief Well, an End of Life Doula, and a volunteer with Victoria Hospice in their Bereavement Services department. Willow works with folks in a variety of orientations including 1:1 grief companioning, small group facilitation, and grief literacy education. Willow holds the lived experience of what it is to witness what can happen when we are not given the recognition, witnessing, and permission to grieve. Her early life was shaped by unprocessed grief due to a lineage of profound loss. It is these tender roots that have led Willow down a journey of exploration, continuous healing, and a kinship with grief. Willow lives with her chosen family on the stolen traditional lands and Coast Salish territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋən/Lekwungen (Songhees and Esquimalt) and W̱SÁNEĆ ((SȾÁUTW/ Tsawout, W̱JOȽEȽP/ Tsartlip, BOḰEĆEN/Pauquachin, WSIḴEM/ Tseycum, MÁLEXEȽ/ Malahat) First Nations, in what is now called Victoria B.C.

What to Expect

We will meet every Monday from January 6th - February 24th from 5:30 - 7:00 PT on Zoom for 90 minutes to explore grief together. Additional content will be offered on the Thinkific platform to allow for ongoing connection with others during the week.

  • Come together with others to explore grief in community - to serve as witness and be witnessed

  • Explore the stories that over culture hands us about grief

  • Explore different stories and consider holding stories that feel true to you

  • Nature based grief kinship practices

  • Poetry and passages to help share stories about grief

  • Time for journaling and witnessing if you chose, as well as offering silence to honour what has been shared

  • All is welcome - you can chose to share or serve as witness

  • The Grief Stories Kinship Journal is included with tuition

  • At the end of the 8 weeks you will have access to the Grief Stories Community - a place to connect with other cohorts and receive additional resources, our favourite poems and passages, and new grief kinship practices