Misha of Hafez Death Care, my guest for today's episode, has a really beautiful podcast I hope you will check out too - it's called Halva for the Heart and I was honoured to be on episode 14. In this conversation for Grief Magic, we went both deep and wide into some really meaningful topics that I hope you'll enjoy too:

• Dying and grieving in diaspora
• Small and big rituals that help us navigate losses
• Listening to our bodies in the face of death
• Continuing connections with people we have lost

Misha (she/he/they) is an Iranian-American death doula and grief tender whose work honors the sacredness of death and the political power of mourning. Their path into this calling began at the tender age of twenty, when they were blessed with the gift of witnessing their mother’s death. Today, through Hafez Death Care, Misha offers culturally-rooted, anti-imperialist support for dying people and their loved ones before, during, and after the dying process.

They also provide grief tending for personal, collective, and ancestral grief, teaching that grief is both an emotional process and an act of resistance. They facilitate community grief events, offer one-on-one death midwifery and grief support, and host Halva for the Heart, a podcast exploring death and grief through a diasporic lens. Misha’s work is grounded in the belief that by caring for our Dying and tending to our grief in community, we strengthen our movements for justice and deepen our capacity for collective care.

https://hafezdeathcare.com/

You are invited to join the Winter Magic retreat here: https://glimmerportal.com/tarot-for-grief-winter-solstice-retreat/

Thanks for listening!

Love,

Yarrow

I loved the chance to talk to Alexis Cunningfolk again - we did an interview back in 2019 for episode #82 (in the before times!) and now got to catch up about their new book and expansive, beautiful and inspiring magic. Here is some of what we covered:

• Building a collective library of plants, magic & spells
• Economic justice & supporting access to community education
• Slowing down and setting a place for grief at the table
• Building sustainable and magical creative practices

Alexis J. Cunningfolk is creating plant-led spaces of healing because none of us are meant to do this work alone. Practicing as an intersectional herbalist for over fifteen years and as a witch for nearly three decades, her work has led her around the country, presenting at various magickal, herbal, and academic conferences, as well as facilitating rituals for groups ranging from a handful of folks to hundreds. Alexis focuses on evidence-based and embodied plant healing while drawing on her experiences as a lesbian, a woman of mixed ancestry, and a third culture kid to create practices that help folks re-enchant their world and call themselves back home to their bodies. In addition to working with plants, she has been reading tarot since she was twelve, teaching since she was nineteen, and sneaking off to places in-between since she could walk. Alexis offers much of her work for free or low-cost, wild seeding wisdom as an act of gratitude and a spell of collective liberation.

Find her work at www.wortsandcunning.com.

Join my virtual winter solstice tarot retreat over here: https://glimmerportal.com/tarot-for-grief-winter-solstice-retreat/

Thank you for listening!

Love,

Yarrow

I am so honoured to share a beautiful conversation with Gabriela de Golia, who was also on episode #158. This time, we had a chance to go deeper and check back in on how the last few years have shaped us. Here is some of what we talked about:

• Discerning our unique relationship with the divine
• Grief and mortality as a gateway to understanding the mystery
• The politics of spiritual care
• Ritual practice for tending, resilience and resistance

Gabriela De Golia is the amalgamation of many beings, experiences, and possibilities. Weaving from a wide range of ancestral, spiritual, intellectual, political, and creative lineages, she serves as a spiritual care provider, ritualist, artist, writer, and a devotee of the mystery from which all things emerge and to which all things return. They support people in accessing the holy depths within and beyond us, to help co-create a world where all beings can be truly and deeply free.

https://gabrieladegolia.com/

Join us for weekly sessions here: https://glimmerportal.com/blessings/

Receive a grief blessings tarot reading: https://glimmerportal.com/grief-blessings/

Thank you so much for listening!