Facing the Wave: Ecological Grief as an Act of Reverence with Kirra Swenerton. As an ecologist and healer, Swenerton has been asked to bear witness to the extraordinary loss of biodiversity that defines our moment, while continuing to plant seeds and lay down prayers for an uncertain future. Through stories from the wild world, they'll explore what dreams, gurus, ancestors, butterflies, and plants can teach us about living with loss. Here, ecological grief can become more than an expression of despair, and grow into an act of reverence: a way of honoring what is dying while remaining in relationship with what is still alive.

Mourning Dress: Making Grief Visible with Maria Mangini Grief may be universal, but mourning is cultural. This illustrated lecture traces the visible language of bereavement from the Middle Ages to the present, exploring mourning dress, etiquette, sumptuary laws, textiles, colors, and the elaborate rules that once governed how (and for how long) the bereaved were expected to signal their loss. We'll look at how mourning customs differ across social classes, how they reflect status and aspiration, and why making grief visible can matter to those living through it.

Gliomancy: Acknowledging and Resisting the Proximity of Thanatos with Tom Banger What would you do if you were diagnosed with a "terminal," "incurable" condition? In 2023, Tom Banger was diagnosed with brain cancer and began developing what he calls gliomancy: a syncretic mashup of mysticism, shamanism, Stoicism, Shinto, Zen, pop psychology, and the Kübler-Ross grief model. Drawing on performance art, ritual, humor, and what he calls "medical tourism," Banger has spent three years confronting mortality with dignity, courage, and poise. Part lecture, part spell, part ceremony, this participatory session asks how we might meet unwelcome news — and our own impermanence — without surrendering our sense of agency.

This in-person event will also be live-streamed.

Online

Continuing Beginners

Sundays 11am-12:15pm PST

Caring for Neck & Shoulder pain

Tuesdays 4-5:15pm PST

In-Person

ALL LEVELS

Fridays 8:30-10am PST

Flourish & Flow Mendo

1726 Main St, Willits, CA

New clients Save $75 on the Ancestral Initiation Discount Package

I highly recommend booking a series of three sessions over the course of a month to ignite the healing process and keep it flowing! 

Ancestral lineage healing is a spiritually-grounded, ritual process that empowers you to connect, repair and nurture relationships with your own wise and loving ancestors. This approach is an effective, securely held form of ritual work (unlike conventional therapy) which assists you to directly access the supportive guidance of your own ancestors of blood to transform inherited burdens and reclaim the gifts that are your birthright.

This practical, experiential process combines ritual, guided trance, dreamwork and offering practices. There are no prerequisites, however, prior experience with inner work and relation with spirit guides are both helpful. I am accepting new clients for one-on-one phone and Zoom sessions and can support small ongoing study groups by arrangement. I have trained extensively in this modality as developed by Dr. Daniel Foor of Ancestral Medicine and am a senior practitioner of this method. Learn more about Ancestral Lineage Healing.

When you find yourself at the Edge...

Lean back, take a few deep breaths and relax into the Unknown with this 2 minute poetry meditation.

FIRE AND SHADE: Lessons from Plants on Death and Dying

Honoring death through acts of conservation and advocacy has become an antidote for the despair, self-righteousness and loneliness symptomatic of a human-centric worldview. I’ve learned to try for the sake of trying, not because I believe humans can halt climate change or fight mass extinction, but because trying itself is a love song.

“Beauty is life when life unveils her holy face. But you are life and you are the veil. Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror.”

–Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

THE DARK MIRROR: Reflections on Ancestral Identity through Dreams, Stones, and Mystical Practice

I was between 10 and 11 years old when my body begun to transform and I started bleeding every month. I yearned to become a teenager and do teenage things like wear makeup, but I was in the 5th grade and lipstick was a distant fantasy. In spite of this, I managed to acquire one of those round cosmetic mirrors that plugged in and had its own fluorescent light. The mirror must have been right next to my bed because when I burst out of dream that fateful night, I don’t remember getting up or anything at all about my dream. What I do remember, what has stayed with me all these years, is the moment I flipped on the light and in that state of half-waking looked at my own reflection. I saw something in that mirror. I saw someone gazing back at me. Her eyes were just like mine but she was ancient and withered like Grandma Roupen, my Armenian great-grandmother who had died some years before. But it wasn’t Mariam Roupenian’s face either; it was someone else’s. Maybe it was mine?