Gathering Wisdom in Community

There’s a kind of grief many people carry quietly.

Not just the loss of someone dear…
But the endings that were never fully acknowledged.
The changes that came without closure.
The feelings that never quite found a place to land.

Often, we tell ourselves to just keep going.
And on the surface, we do.

But something in us is still waiting…
to be met, to be witnessed, to be allowed.

🌿

I’m offering a gentle day called *A Time to Honour Grief* on Saturday 28 March in South Fremantle.

This is not therapy.
There’s nothing to fix, and nothing you have to share if you don’t want to.

It’s simply a space to sit with what is here, in the quiet company of others —
to be witnessed, and to witness.

For many people, that alone brings a surprising sense of ease.

If something in you responds to this, you’re very welcome.

You can find the event link in the comments below.

I know that choosing to attend something centered on grief can take a little courage.

Often people feel unsure whether their loss is “big enough,” or whether they will know what to say in a group.

In truth, many people arrive at these spaces feeling exactly that way. The intention of the day is simply to offer a gentle container where grief can be acknowledged and witnessed.

Whether your loss is recent or long ago, clearly defined or hard to name, you are welcome. If something in you feels a quiet pull toward this kind of space, we invite you to listen to that.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1247379290232513

Gathering Wisdom is a space for reflection, conversation, and shared learning. Rooted in lived experience and deep listening, this page invites honest, courageous, and caring ways of growing older.

I’m Ishara de Garis, a priestess and facilitator passionate about accompanying those called into conscious elderhood. Rooted in a deep reverence for the sacred feminine, I hold intimate ritual spaces where people gather the wisdom of their lives.

"But grief doesn’t calmly sit down. It doesn’t create structure. It doesn’t share the goal of “acceptance.” It doesn’t know what a goal is. More beast than human, grief doesn’t know words.

So the true answer to “How are you?” from a grieving person can’t be answered in words, but in a sound: a cry, a wail, a sigh, a howl, a scream, a moan, a whimper."

The sounds of grief I'm wondering how to replace the "Five Stages"

This blessing speaks to the deep human need to feel held by something larger than oneself; earth, ancestors, spirit, and the living web of connection. It reminds the us that belonging isn’t earned but remembered, a truth already woven into our being. Its significance lies in gently guiding our soul back to a felt sense of place, companionship, and rootedness in the greater whole.

Text on Image: “May I remember the ground that holds me. May I feel the unseen ones walking beside me. May I rest into the truth that I belong. May my spirit know its place in the great weaving.”

© DailyShaman/CM 2026

“DailyShaman” reflects a way of living, not a title claimed; walking between worlds to offer an inclusive, modern spiritual experience.

“Grief and love are sisters, woven together from the beginning. Their kinship reminds us that there is no love that does not contain loss and no loss that is not a reminder of the love we carry for what we once held close.” — Francis Weller

How has grief touched your life? I am wanting to hold space for myelf and others who wish to get more comfortable with showing up and learning from our experiences of grief.

I am contemplating hosting a ten week book club to read "The Wild Edge of Sorrow" by Francis Weller. I am thinking of a zoom connection on Wednesday nights starting in the new year.

I am particularly hoping to connect with others in the northern suburbs of Perth who could be interested in gathering in person at the end of this shared reading process.

Please get in touch to express your interest in exploring further.

Blessings, Ishara

I was once asked to be one of tge wailing women at a dear friend's funeral. She was deeply intothe work of Joanna Macey and Deep Ecology. Her funeral was held in a bushland pak. It was a very satisfying, if also ver sad thing to be part of.

“The Keening woman is known by many names in cultures around the world, leading the community through their grief, and guiding the soul home.

Throughout the highlands and islands of Scotland and Ireland, there were the women who stepped into the role of the keening women. Liminal figures, living on the thresholds, pulling their black shawls tight around them they stepped between the worlds and let their voices express the grief of all those gathered.

She held her own grief tight breathing through it and into the words she sang, her voice breaking, cracking, melodies splintering into shards of grief. Those present were invited to join her together in expressing their loss, despair and deep grief.

In her liminal place, between the worlds, behind her stood all the keening woman who had ever lamented, each ancestor who mourned, back thousands of generations. With the power of all that accumulated anger, and despair the keening woman cries, roars and grieves. She keens for all the mothers, fathers and for all injustices and every wrongdoing against women and children, four-leggeds and winged, grasslands, seas, forests and mountains.

We too are invited into the circle, to feel our grief and let our voices speak, for it is only through grief that we can weave ourselves back to life and become truly alive again. It offers a resilience, a rebirth for an uncertain future.

Within the keen, there is a word of magic to keep the soul safe, as it moves from this world to the next. Let us utter the word and keep woman safe, keep deer and otter, salmon, seal and orca safe. Keep mountain, loch and ancient forest safe, keep standing stone and corrie safe. Let us embody the word so that our dancing and lamenting weaves protection.

Gather the keeners, for we need new rituals. We need each other, we need the tears, laughter and love, we need the magic and lamenting as the world unravels.”

-Jude Lally, excerpt from “Death is an Old Woman” – featured in Wounded Feminine: Grieving with Goddess -Girl God Books

Keening doll also by Jude Lally

Vale Joanna Macy. You were an inspiration to so many, including the small community of Deep Ecology minded folk whose circle held me and my partner as we brought our baby into the world in the early 1990s in Perth.
I'm sharing this tribute from Starhawk, another inspirational author whose writings have been a big part of my personal journey.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19RTkjUSH6/

Joanna Macy and her work have inspired me since I first met her, back in the early ‘80s when we were protesting nuclear weapons and she began her teachings about despair and empowerment. A committed Buddhist, Joanna believed above all in presence—the simple power of allowing ourselves to be present with our emotions, even the painful ones, the grief and despair we all felt when we imagined the destruction of the world by fire. She encouraged us not to flee from despair, but to embrace it in the faith that if we let ourselves sink down, we would rise again with more strength, determination and hope. Over time, she broadened what she called The Work That Reconnects, to include deep connection with nature and being present to the pain of witnessing the ravaging of the natural world, imagining ourselves into the consciousness of animals, plants and all beings, and so also opening to the incredible beauty and joy that are still with us.

Joanna inspired many thousands of people over her lifetime. Now she has gone to join the ancestors. She lived for 94 years, and died surrounded by friends and support. Her death is sad, but no tragedy—a fitting, natural part of the cycle of life she embraced.

I deeply regret, now, that I didn’t get to visit with her in these last months. One of my close friends went to see her weekly and has been inviting me for months—but there was always something, someplace to go, some work to be done. It’s a horrible cliché, but nonetheless true, that we always think there’s plenty of time for friendship, for connection, for relationship—until there isn’t. For me, personally, this is Joanna’s last teaching—to treasure and value relationships, and to take the time to nourish them.

My other regret is that Joanna always said she wanted to live to see what she called The Great Turning, the shift in consciousness we so desperately need to make to bring the world back into balance again, and to root our human relations in compassion and justice. She always believed we were on the verge of it. With all the work she did around grief and despair, she was deeply hopeful. I am sorry she didn’t get to see it—that indeed, we seem to be turning in the wrong direction now. Perhaps if we can learn her lessons, if we honor our anger, our hopelessness and our profound sadness at all the losses, we can yet succeed in turning this awful moment around.

May the wind carry her spirit gently, may the fire release her soul, may the water cleanse her, may the earth receive her, may she be wrapped in the arms of spirit and surrounded by the love and gratitude of the many lives she has touched, and in love may she return again.

What is remembered, lives.

(read this on Substack: https://starhawk.substack.com/p/joanna-macy-joins-the-ancestors