Breathing Wind

“As a death midwife, one of the things many of us do is work on legacy projects with people who are dying and their loved ones, and yet sometimes I think it's really not up to us to know what our legacy is. I can hope it will be this particular thing, but at the end of the day, the people we leave behind are the ones really making the meaning and interpreting our lives for us.” ~Naila Francis Welcome to our celebratory 100th episode of the Breathing Wind Podcast, where we reflect on some of the recurring themes around grief that have shaped the podcast since it began. We revisit key moments in conversations with a handful of guests that touch on navigating life transitions with openness, the intersection of grief and joy and what it means to leave behind a legacy. As we share from our own grief journeys, we note how challenging it can be to embody emotional self-awareness, the surprising parts of ourselves that show up in the midst of profound change, and whether it’s truly possible to know the impact we leave behind. We do know, however, that this podcast has created a virtual community, and we remain grateful for you, listeners, as well as the growth we’ve experienced, and the future of our shared journey. To find out more about this episode, listen to the episodes referenced, and subscribe to the newsletter, visit the show notes.

“I think some of the clearest decisions I've ever made have come in the aftermath of grief.” ~Naila Francis In this episode, we look back on our enchanting and insightful conversation with Mara June, an educator, facilitator, community weaver, writer, caregiver, death doula and community herbalist. Reflecting on her deep belief in the creative energy inherent in grieving, we discuss grief’s transformative power in our lives and some of the ways we’ve been creatively called to change how we show up in the world. For Sarah, that included re-evaluating her career and the work she was doing, and for Naila, transformation came in waves affecting many areas of her life. As we’ve done across several episodes, we circle back to the presence of joy as part of grief and in particular how grief opens us up to feel more alive by giving us access to the full range of our emotions. We also acknowledge, with gratitude to Mara for naming this, numbness as part of grieving, and explore the idea of bringing tenderness and beauty to death, even in challenging circumstances, as Naila was able to do at her dad’s deathbed, and as Sarah has continued to do by nurturing a connection that was meaningful to her own father. We hope this conversation invites you to make a little more room for your grief and to be gentle with all the changes your journey may be calling you to. As always, we’d love to hear what moved or resonated with you, and we thank you for allowing us to be companions on your journey. To find out more about this episode, listen to the episodes referenced, and subscribe to the newsletter, visit the show notes.

"In allowing ourselves to feel our grief, or to feel present with whatever is coming up for us — not excluding our joy —  that's actually helping us to feel more deeply in all of these areas in our life. And I think that is part of the enchantment piece for me...When we feel more deeply, then we can also feel enchantment and wonder and awe and all of these other things as well." ~ Mara June In this episode, death doula, community herbalist, educator and writer Mara June invites us to consider the ways grief calls us to change who we are and how we move in the world. Framing this “undoing” as liberating, they share grief’s potential to make us magicians, opening us up to mystery and wonder and bringing us more alive. We also talk about their own journey with grief and loss, how they came to community death care, and how we can bring moments of beauty and tenderness to the end of life. Noting that we have never grieved alone, Mara speaks to the wise and nourishing role of plants in tending our grief, introducing us to some of their favorites. (Hint: if you’re not into chamomile, you will be after listening!). And of course, we couldn’t leave this conversation without talking about their spells and their deeply affirming memes and social media posts, which you’ll definitely want to check out for yourself. We learned so much in this conversation and also shared some sweet moments with Mara when they turned the mic on us. May it inspire you, too, on your shapeshifting journey through grief.  To find out more about this episode, listen to the episodes referenced, and subscribe to the newsletter, visit the show notes.

In this episode, inspired by our powerful conversation with communal grief tender and song circle leader, Alexandra “Ahlay” Blakeley, we discuss our own experiences with song circles and how they impacted us — as well our thoughts on community grief spaces in general, and how grief support is so much broader than the stereotypical basement circle for story sharing that people are used to. We share our “safe” places to cry and reflect on the varied responses we receive to working in the grief space — Naila with her workshops and classes and Sarah when she tells people she co-hosts a podcast about grief. Our dads also make an appearance when we start talking about what our beloveds leave behind, and what we do with their “stuff.” And there’s that prophetic dream thread that we just couldn’t ignore after Ahlay shared two incredibly vivid dreams with us in our conversation with her. Have you ever had a dream that’s informed your path? We’d love to hear it or anything else that strikes a resonant note with you from our time together. To find out more about this episode, listen to the episodes referenced, and subscribe to the newsletter, visit the show notes.

“I believe that community singing, which I define as, when a group of folks come together and they sing songs together that are easy enough lyrically and easy enough melodically to be taught in the moment. And then we sing these songs, which I personally call spells or prayers together that are amplified and help put us in some sort of altered state through the process of singing these songs, it's a technology for  belonging. It's a technology for metabolizing grief.” ~ Alexandra Blakely (AKA ahlay) From the moment she dropped into our opening invitation to a deep breath, with an admitted mix of tension in her body and openness in her heart,  artist, singer-songwriter, communal grief tender and community organizer Alexandra "Ahlay" Blakely took us on an unforgettable journey. In this profound and inspiring conversation, we touch on the nuances and complexities of navigating this tumultuous time in the world and how songs can help us move our grief through our bodies in a way the mind can’t and doesn’t have to understand. In reframing communal singing as our inherent birthright, she speaks to the shame many of us have around our singing voices, shares the sense of belonging found in song circles and how songs can be spells casting an impact far beyond immediate time and place. In sharing her journey from backup pop singer to activist to ritual and community song circle facilitator, Ahlay proves a compelling storyteller — you won’t want to miss the dream she shares about whales, among so many other moments in this episode, including when she and Naila discover their profound affinity for whales has more in common than they could have imagined.  To find out more about this episode, listen to the episodes referenced, and subscribe to the newsletter, visit the show notes.

“When I was on the Camino, there was this moment when I was spreading [my dad’s] ashes and just talking to him and I realized that was why I was there,  that he wanted me there. And I felt so connected to him, and at that time I remember thinking, ‘This is so simple. I can turn off everything and go out for a walk in the woods and be connected with my dad.’” ~ Sarah Davis In this episode, recorded during the holiday season, we debrief our Christmases: how we spent them, how our grief showed up and how we coped, or didn’t. Reflecting on our conversation with author and plant ecologist Susan Tweit, who still finds so many beautiful ways to be with her late husband Richard, we recall instances of connection with our own dads — and in a very candid moment, reveal some of the moments along our fathers’ end-of-life journeys, exploring some of our regrets and our denial. Again drawing from Susan’s wisdom and devoted mindfulness practice, we also look at the role of love and compassion in our lives, and Sarah shares an especially helpful technique that helps her to meet her mom from that place when she gets overwhelmed or starts to feel intense emotion around her caregiving. Perhaps not surprising, there’s some meandering, as we also talk about aging, the healthcare system and our wishes for more collective and communal death care. But mostly there’s a lot of heart and tender honesty in this episode. We hope you’ll bring your heart to listening and invite you, as always, to share what resonated or what you’ll be carrying forward into your own grief journey.  To find out more about this episode, listen to the episodes referenced, and subscribe to the newsletter, visit the show notes.

“If we have the intention to live with love and compassion, we can handle anything. We are amazing beings, we humans. We can also really screw up badly, but if we have the intention to live with love and compassion, it changes what we do and how we are.” ~ Susan J. Tweit In her memoir, Bless the Birds: Living with Love in a Time of Dying, Susan J. Tweit, an award-winning writer and plant ecologist, recounts her journey accompanying her husband toward the end of his life, following a diagnosis with brain cancer. We explore what it was like for her to navigate those devastatingly bittersweet last two years of his life, which included a 4,000-mile honeymoon road trip they’d long put off and the death of Susan’s mom to Alzheimer’s. But as Susan shares her experiences of grief and death with us, what shines through is not so much the challenges and pain of her journey — though she is candid about both, especially having been a caregiver — but her insistence on fully living during those years. She and her husband Richard were committed to filling their days with love, compassion, beauty, wonder and gratitude for each other. As she speaks to life after Richard, Susan reflects on how she still carries him with her, what it’s been like to reclaim her independence and what we can all learn from facing death with less fear. To find out more about this episode, listen to the episodes referenced, and subscribe to the newsletter, visit the show notes.

“Our Christmas lights now are all blue since Ron left. I want to honor the day and the spirit of it, but the bright, shining twinkle lights and jingle bells don't speak to my heart. When the blue lights are turned on, the room is bathed with a lovely blue, which creates exactly the right atmosphere to sink into the holy yet joyful season.” ~Marge Sexton In this holiday compilation episode, we offer a glimpse of others’ experiences of the holidays after loss. Sarah shares her journey with grief during the holiday season, including embracing new traditions. Naila shares a poem she wrote about blue Christmas lights and the beauty of grief. Three listeners — Marge Sexton, Righteous Jolly, and Roseanne Corcoran — also share their unique experiences of processing grief over the holidays and their coping mechanisms, including celebrating the memory of loved ones, channeling emotions through art, and connecting with nature. Last, but not least, writer and plant biologist Susan Tweit shares a glimpse of how she processes her grief (and hint, it’s a preview of our upcoming episode :)).  To find out more about this episode, listen to the episodes referenced, and subscribe to the newsletter, visit the show notes. Want more time with us? Join our Patreon.

"If you're willing to open to the journey and if you're willing to really allow yourself to feel your grief and have practices to engage it, it does shape-shift over time. It does become softer. It does become something that you can carry maybe with a little more...lightness and grace." ~Naila Francis In this episode, we delve into varied facets of grief and loss, including the transformative potential that grief holds. Reflecting on our conversation with poet, dream yogi and grief guide, Ning Tendo, from the last episode, we explore our own relationship with dreams and dreaming and some of the images that have both troubled and soothed us in our grief. Given Ning’s intentionality caring for her broken heart after the death of her mom, we share the containers that have helped us make room for our grief, as well as the practices that deepen care and compassion for ourselves. (Jacuzzi time and flower arranging, anyone?) We also touch upon an often-avoided subject in grief — anger —  as we share our unique perceptions, challenges and strategies for navigating all that grief, an ever-unpredictable guest, invites. Sarah vulnerably shares what’s been shifting in her journey both as a caregiver to her mom and a grieving daughter while we both underline the importance of allowing ourselves to experience grief fully in order for healing and transformation to take place. To find out more about this episode, listen to the episodes referenced, and subscribe to the newsletter, visit the show notes. Want more time with us? Join our Patreon.

“Just having that dream visit, even just one visit, can nourish somebody and really give them the courage to go into their grief because it's not enough to have those dreams. It doesn't negate the pain of their physical absence. You still need to do the hard work. You still need to go into your grief and really unwind all of those stories and all of the different things that are present, but being able to connect with them in that way nourishes you. You don't feel so hopeless anymore.”  - Ning Tendo In this week’s episode, we speak with guest Ning Tendo, a published poet, spiritual healer, dream yogi, and grief guide. Ning shares her profound insights into the transformative power of grief and how it can reveal unexplored aspects of ourselves. She discusses her unique approach to navigating grief through exploring dreams, offering practical advice on how to connect with the essence of lost loved ones. Ning also shares her rich cultural background and traditions around grief from Cameroon and contrasts them with her experiences in America. Overall, Ning provides a fresh perspective on embracing grief as a pathway to personal growth, self-awareness, and an expanded understanding of life relationships. To find out more about this episode, listen to the episodes referenced, and subscribe to the newsletter, visit the show notes. Want more time with us? Join our Patreon.

“I think runners, by nature, have this environment of excitement and energy and support just built into a race. It doesn't matter how fast you're running. You're just all together and you're all part of this big happy bubble of energy. It's always a feeling of belonging.” — Sarah Davis In this week’s episode, we reflect on our conversation with hip-hop artist, educator, facilitator and activist Dwight Dunston. His faithfulness in honoring his grief moved us both, as well as his openness to feeling joy, gratitude and reverence for life alongside, and in the midst of, profound sorrow. We were especially inspired by his musings on the beauty of being witnessed in community, which prompted us to share the ways we had recently experienced such a gift in our own lives — Naila at a community grief ritual and Sarah while running a half-marathon. Dwight’s sharing about his dad modeling for him at a young age that it was OK to grieve invited us to consider our own models of grief, while his commitment to ritualizing his grief made us think of how we meet the death anniversaries of our dads — and whether it’s possible to reclaim those milestones in more meaningful ways. With the shift in seasons and the year end drawing close, we also pondered the changes we are being called to in our lives — a question we would love you to consider, as well. As always, we hope you find this conversation nourishing to your own journey and that it maybe helps you hold your grief with more compassion, tenderness and care, especially as we enter the holiday season.  To find out more about this episode, listen to the episodes referenced, and subscribe to the newsletter, visit the show notes. Want more time with us? Join our Patreon.

“I have never been more practiced in honoring my grief, and I truly have never had more gratitude and joy and reverence for life…When you really feel into grief, my experience is you’re able to love and feel a part of the life force that moves through all living things.”  ~ Dwight Dunston In our season 5 opener, artist, educator and activist Dwight Dunston reflects on his first big love and loss,  the death of his grandmother Mamie Donald, when he was 10. He shares how that grief continues to shape how he shows up in the world — striving always toward open-heartedness and care even as he acknowledges the more natural instinct to be guarded and self-protective. As he reflects on some of the ways he stays connected to his loved ones who have died, especially his dad, Dwight invites us to consider how we might deepen our relationships to those who’ve gone before us. And the tenderness he brings toward his grief, choosing to be soft and kind to himself in his hurt and wounded places, is a graceful reminder of how to make more space for our difficult emotions. Dwight brings a palpable reverence for being alive and the range of experiences and emotions that opens up for us to our conversation. As a multidimensional artist, he also talks about creativity as a path to honoring and telling his truth. We’re so excited for you to dive into this conversation and hope it offers you moments of witnessing and perspective, which, as Dwight so beautifully shares, are among the gifts of grieving in community.  To find out more about this episode, listen to the episodes referenced, and subscribe to the newsletter, visit the show notes. Want more time with us? Join our Patreon.

In this bonus episode, we reflect on our conversation with Dan Fischer of One Last Wave, an amazing project that invites grievers to memorialize their loved ones by having their names etched on a surfboard that Dan takes out to sea. This episode highlights the kind of exclusive content we share on Patreon. It also covers so much ground, as we muse on the vulnerability of men in grief, how time in nature opens us to feel our grief and to more fully inhabit our wildness, and what grief has taught us about self-care. Of course, you also get a peek at the laughter and silliness we often share that don’t make it into our regular episodes. We hope you enjoy this extra dose of warmth, humor and wisdom as we gear up to bring you our new season soon. To find out more about this episode, listen to the episodes referenced, and subscribe to the newsletter, visit the show notes. Want more time with us? Join our Patreon.

“Having an established creative practice helped me in ways I would have never known, and I think it’s the greatest gift my younger self gave me now.” ~ Rosemmery Wahtola Trommer This month, we’re offering you a feed swap. This is the second episode we’re swapping. For the first episode in this swap, check out Episode Swap! Emerging Form Discusses Creativity in Times of Trauma. Emerging Form, co-hosted by poet Rosemmery Wahtola Trommer and journalist Christie Aschwanden, is a podcast about creative process. These two friends cover everything from the business of creativity, to cultivating openness and pleasure, to meeting failure as part of the process. Whether they’re talking between themselves or inviting other creatives to share some of their journey,  their conversations are always encouraging and insightful. This episode, Checking in One Year Later, was recorded one year after Rosemerry and Christie publicly shared their losses on the podcast for the first time. It was shortly after Rosemerry’s son died and after Christie’s father had suffered a stroke. In this episode, they cover the range of emotions one can feel in a tumultuous year– Christie speaks of uncertainty after her father had a stroke, and Rosemerry discusses how having an established writing practice helped her with her grief.  To find out more about this episode, listen to the episodes referenced, and subscribe to the newsletter, visit the show notes. Want more time with us? Join our Patreon.

“Grief cracks you open. It makes us vulnerable… I feel vulnerable.”  ~ Christie Aschwanden “A creative practice prepared me for grief.” ~ Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer This month, we’re offering you a feed swap. Emerging Form, co-hosted by poet Rosemmery Wahtola Trommer and journalist Christie Aschwanden, is a podcast about creative process. These two friends cover everything from the business of creativity, to cultivating openness and pleasure, to meeting failure as part of the process. Whether they’re talking between themselves or inviting other creatives to share some of their journey,  their conversations are always encouraging and insightful. In this episode from Emerging Form that we’re sharing with you, Rosemerry and Christie sit down with each other mere weeks after Rosemerry’s son, Finn, has died and Christie’s father has suffered a stroke. They explore how profound loss has impacted their relationship to creativity, what they’re noticing in their impulses to write or not write and how their tender, cracked open hearts are taking in what each moment has to offer them. To find out more about this episode, listen to the episodes referenced, and subscribe to the newsletter, visit the show notes. Want more time with us? Join our Patreon.

“[Grief] breaks us open, which we may not expect. There's some allowing that has to happen. I'm going to allow this to break me open, to grow a new heart, to connect with people in a more meaningful way, to live a life that's more authentic. I think the breaking open, while it can be hard and scary, speaks to grief as a generative force and the ways it can deepen and enrich your life.” - Naila Francis In this week’s episode, our season finale, we reflect on our conversation with Grammy-nominated jazz vocalist Nnenna Freelon. We look at a moment that landed very differently for each of us during that conversation, sharing our takes on why we thought her candid retelling of her husband’s final days should and shouldn’t have been cut. We have fun recalling some of the signs our dads send us to let us know they’re near, including the songs that bring them closer to us — don’t worry, we spare you the actual singing of them. And appreciating Nnenna’s affirmation of each griever’s unique experience, no matter her own wisdom from walking the path, we talk about what was most helpful to us in the immediate aftermath of our losses. We also unwrap what her phrase “Anger doesn’t store well” means to both of us and the place anger has in the spectrum of grief. And given that this is our season finale, we do look back on the podcast’s evolution and the conversations that have brought greater depth to the season. We hope you agree, and that as usual, you find room for your own story as you listen in. To find out more about this episode, listen to the episodes referenced, and subscribe to the newsletter, visit the show notes. Want more time with us? Join our Patreon.

“It's healthy, I believe, to touch these places. I don't know how you can touch your love place without touching your grief place. They're both there. They're layered on top of each other and your joy place. They're all there, and when we  shut down, we shut down all the good stuff, too.”  ~Nnenna Freelon In this week’s episode, Grammy-nominated jazz vocalist Nnenna Freelon takes us on a journey through her many realms of grief. As compelling a storyteller as she is a performer, Nnenna candidly reflects on her ongoing evolution as a griever since the deaths of her beloved husband Phil and sister Debbie. She shares how she has turned to creativity, including her music, not only as a grief practice but as a way to stay connected to Phil, why she’s mindful of the words she uses when talking about grief and loss and how embracing grief as a teacher is transforming her dance with this ever-shifting experience. Deeply moving and thought-provoking, this conversation centers grief with so much reverence, wonder and vitality, we hope it inspires you as much as it did us — and invites you to consider what it might mean for you to fall back in love with life while honoring your broken heart. To find out more about this episode, listen to the episodes referenced, and subscribe to the newsletter, visit the show notes. Want more time with us? Join our Patreon.

"Grief, for me, has been about following intuition. It's been about following the feelings. I don’t know what they're saying to me. I wish I knew, but I kind of have given up trying to figure it out. And I'm just letting the grief coexist with me, and that's where we're at.”  ~Sarah Davis In this week’s episode, we explore grief as it’s surfaced — or hasn’t — in the days leading up to Father’s Day and how challenging it can be to make space for the grief over one parent when caring for another. Inspired by our conversation with Dan Fischer of One Last Wave Project, we also talk about the creative energy in grief and how that can inspire us to connect to others in new ways or channel our experience into outlets that end up serving more than our own individual journeys. As we muse on our mutual love of the ocean, we bring our dads into the conversation, too — and learn some things we never knew about each other. And we reflect on the pets we’ve loved, the dogs and cats, and their moments of death and how we coped with our grief over these everyday companions. Join us for this conversation that’s equal parts lively and tender and always honest, and inspired us to also wonder, what would it be like if our dads had a podcast. To find out more about this episode, listen to the episodes referenced, and subscribe to the newsletter, visit the show notes. Want more time with us? Join our Patreon.

"Something that I didn't have any sense of before...was happiness was up here and grief was down here, where it's really not. It's a universal human experience to lose. If we can recognize that we're all going through similar things and be able to share that, I think it's very healing." ~ Dan Fischer In this week’s episode, Dan Fischer reflects on his journey of grieving the deaths of his dad and his dog Rudy, his best friend of 15 years. He recalls how a moment of vulnerability unexpectedly created a community of grievers willing to be vulnerable, too, as they find comfort and healing in connection — and in sharing stories of their loved ones who have died with Fischer, who writes their names on specially shaped surfboards he takes out into the ocean to honor their memories. Fischer’s One Last Wave Project is not only a way for him to celebrate his dad and their love of adventure, it also reminds him of the universality of grief and loss, the beauty of intentionally connecting to our loved ones, even when it hurts, and the power of openly admitting when we’re not OK. To find out more about this episode, listen to the episodes referenced, and subscribe to the newsletter, visit the show notes. Want more time with us? Join our Patreon.

“I think with any person's life, there's a lot of joy. There's a lot of beauty, there's a lot of love and hope, but there's also a lot of grief and tragedy and, and sorrow.”  ~ Christina Vo In this week’s episode, Sarah reflects on many of the conversations she had in Season 1, as well as a few from Seasons 2-3, contributed by guests who reflect on their grief over the death of their moms. As expected with such a significant loss, the grief is layered — touching on identity, memory, connection and the shifting ways we relate to ourselves and our loved one who is no longer with us. Naila and Sarah discuss the nuances in these episodes, as well as the common threads that connect us in our grief and our universal longing for our experiences to be honored and validated.  To find out more about this episode, listen to the episodes referenced, and subscribe to the newsletter, visit the show notes. Want more time with us? Join our Patreon.