Lost Rites: News from the Midwinter
If you are getting this email now it is because you attended the Lost Rites: Rituals of Lament Tour in February 2024 and I had you on that mailing list. By far the easiest way, I think, to see if you would still like to follow my work and get newsletters, articles and updates is to send you a missive from my Ghost.io newsletter and you can choose what to do next. If you would be willing to subscribe and support my work that way then you can get regular articles and updates to your inbox - click on this email to view in Browser and click on Subscribe.
If you would rather Unsubscribe then you can do so very easily by clicking on Unsubscribe at the end of this message. And if you can't afford £5 per month but would still like to remain on the list then you can do so and I will send a free email per month with a list of upcoming events and news.
If February was the last time you caught up with my news then let me say 2024 has been by far the biggest, deepest, wildest, saddest and somehow best of my life - all in one! After the book tour in February, there were two Bear Awakens retreats in March where I collaborated with Finnish Lamenter Tuomas Rounakari, South Africa in April to collaborate with Litha Booi on the Walking with the Ancestors retreat and to run the Death Doula course. Then I was off to Albuquerque, New Mexico for a conference. That trip to the USA was the line in the sand that I put in my own diary after which I was not going to travel until after my mother died.
Mum died in July, very peacefully after such a horrible few years with Parkinsons and Lewys Body dementia. I was on my way to her when she took her last breath, missing it by minutes. I washed, her blessed her and sat vigil with her and she had a very beautiful extended funeral where she was brought to my home the night before and my friends gathered to lament by candlelight with me; before the public service the next day. Her ashes were scattered at Uwchmynydd at the furthest tip of the Llyn Peninsula overlooking Ynys Enlli, Bardsey Island, at the same spot we scattered my fathers ashes nearly 30 years ago.
Initially my mourning time was beautiful and ecstatic, filled with dreams of herons and floating on the relieve and release of her death. I took 40 days off to focus on my grief and only really with the Return to society and work in September did I start to feel the struggle, pain and difficulty that so many associate with mourning. In September a film crew descended on my home, a very shocking way to end a period of introspective mourning, along with 5 death doulas in preparation we filmed "Death is our Teacher" documentary - to be launched on the Film Festival circuit in 2025 and for wider distribution end 2025 into 2026.
Two death doula retreats ran without me as the lead facilitator for the first time and the facilitators I prepared over recent years did a wonderful job. So I am no longer the only facilitator for the death doula work and it feels great! Preparing the Journey with Death work for 2025 has been my primary focus of recent months. We have launched new courses - short courses called Caring for Carers and Griefwork in Community running in January, and a more intensive course called Community Death Educators running for 12 weeks through the summer. Plus a death doula retreat in Pembrokeshire end of September and brewing international offerings in Sweden, Italy and Aotearoa (NZ). For all that information see our website www.journeywithdeath.com
In parallel to all that has been the long haul of preparing a Community Share Offer for Earth Hospice (Hafan Ddaear in Welsh) which will be launched at Midwinter to raise the capital to purchase a former Rectory in Llanallgo, Ynys Mon (Anglesey) to turn into the first Earth Hospice, Centre for Community Grassroots Care of the Dying. I will send more details about this in the coming week. Another great reason to follow along.
Outwith the organisations - the social enterprise and community benefit society, Sacred Circle and Earth Hospice - I continue with my own work - for which this newsletter is the main outlet. I have been in the recording studio for a long time, once a week, getting my 3 Lost Rites books recorded as audiobooks available very soon. It has been such an intense labour, reading my own work back to myself through headphones, I have to say despite their imperfections I was moved to weep often by the beauty of the work. So they must be worth it!
I am leaning ever more into the niche that is mine in this lifetime and that is to teach Lament as a healing art. And I will be using this newsletter to document my journey with realising myself as a teacher of Lament; instead of writing another book I am going to write articles and essays on lament in this newsletter - for subscribers to access. So, please do support with your membership!
As I fold into the Midwinter I send this message out into the Ether, with an acknowledgement that it was a long time coming since February, knowing you won't all want to stay subscribed but hoping that those who do want to stay, follow, subscribe, support and stay connected, will. Much LOVE y'all, Merry Midwinter x