"Facilitation is triage now" -NB

What does it mean to lead group spaces in a world that feels increasingly raw, volatile, and grief-saturated?

Melissa and Narinder sit down as artists, death workers and teachers to talk about how the role of the facilitator is changing, and why many space-holders are feeling exhausted and under impossible pressure.

We talk:

• the collapse of the Spiritual Teacher archetype
• the rise of grief-literate communities
• entitlement dynamics in healing spaces
• discernment vs hypervigilance
• boundaries for facilitators
• the difference between authority and domination
• how facilitators can survive this era without burning out
• grief as a portal to joy
• why artistic practice is a potent container for grief

This episode is for anyone who holds space for others: teachers, grief workers, artists, coaches, therapists, facilitors and community organizers and leaders.

✨ Magic Links:

🪞 Narinder Bazen’s Nine Keys School of Death Arts

🌷 Flowers on a Table (Narinder’s upcoming course)

🫧 Join Devotion Mode — Melissa’s monthly snail-mail art club:

Each month, readers receive art in the mail: postcard prints, drawings, and writing that’s cooked up in the studio that month. A tactile antidote to the algorithm. Go slow, touch paper.

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• Follow Melissa’s Instagram for hot art memes
• Join Melissa’s weeklyish newsletter for creative musings and studio news

Big thanks to Ben Coleman for composing our theme music, and Gavin Bernard for vocals