A Podcast for Mortals

Where we explore wisdom about how to survive the suffering of profound loss, find meaning in grief, and let that which we love transform us.

In the years that have followed her death I have found deep medicine in my sorrow. I’ve been met by generous teachers who have offered me care in the form of wisdom, community, art, therapeutic tools, ritual, story, herbalism, and much more. These life-giving processes have helped me to make meaning out of the wreckage, bringing transformation and growth. They’ve infused my deepest suffering with a sense of love, mystery, and beauty.

There is a lacuna- a great gap, a void, in our culture. Many people feel it when a loved one dies, the avoidance of grief and death, when what we need most is connection.

Loss will always bring profound suffering, but it does not have to bring suffering alone. Community, culture, wisdom, and mystery are waiting for us, they are here to hold us in our grief.

Come with me, no one should have to walk alone.

I’m your host, Nell

This project has been years in the making. I entered my apprenticeship with grief in the same way most people do, unwillingly. In my early twenties my single mother came down with a case of terminal brain cancer overnight, turning my life upside down. I became her sole caretaker, and a few short months later, a worldwide pandemic was declared.

Death, grief, and heartache consumed my life for years. I had to reckon with the ways that my culture had failed me. I wasn’t prepared at twenty-two years old to become my mother’s caretaker, and no one had taught me how to watch her die. I was ill-equipped emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and logistically for the work I had to do, work that didn’t stop after my mother died.