Hello, I’m Melissa.

I was initiated into the wild way of grief when It arrived uninvited with the sudden death of my mother when I was 16. Although I had experienced the loss of grandparents and others prior to this, this profound loss shook and crumbled the very ground on which I walked. I became uprooted; torn away from all the safety and security I had known.

I experienced several subsequent traumatic losses as a young adult, taking me deeper into the turbulent waters of grief. Through navigating these deep waters, something began to emerge. I discovered a surprising strength within myself, a capacity not just to endure grief, but to truly welcome it, to let it reshape me. I became practiced at allowing and preparing my body to be a sort of crucible where the raw emotions of grief could be held and transformed. And in that transformation, I found not just healing, but profound, ecstatic joy, and a sense of abundance, I wouldn’t have known otherwise.

This journey of learning the wild way of grief took decades; countless moments of falling to my knees, being cracked open, and feeling a depth of pain that became so familiar. Grief became a constant companion, a blessed invitation, I believe now, to remember my capacity as a human to move grief through me through practices that my ancient ancestors knew intimately. We have been severed from the wisdom of these practices by the loss of our ancestral ways. I understand that this challenging path was my sacred initiation that illuminated my true gifts to give to the world. I’ve come to believe that a fundamental part of my soul’s purpose is to experience the full spectrum of what grief has to offer, and in doing so, to walk alongside others as they navigate their own passages through loss.

My understanding of grief has deepened immeasurably through my connection with the ancestors of place and lineage. It was through spending time in intimate relationship with the web of animate beings, walking the land slowly, and opening to new/old ways of sensing deep resonant messages, that I began to find solace.

To deepen my innate wisdom ways, I have engaged in intentional visioning journeys with my ancestors, daily and seasonal ritual practices with my animate web of kin, seen and unseen, and reclaiming prayer as sacred and pragmatic. I have participated in formal guidance and training programs with my mentor, Shauna Janz of Sacred Grief, to develop my skills and competence in grief tending, ancestral connection and land-based ritual.

Through my training and practices, I now work with my own council of ancestral elders, to better understand how to bring my gifts to fruition in the community; how to guide others. My greatest passion lies in walking with others as they are invited into their own initiations with grief. I want to provide sanctuary and support to uncover and cultivate the innate wisdom that resides within us all, those ancestral memories etched into our very bones.

We are all contending the severance from our traditional, familial ways of knowing. We are all carrying ancestral pain and trauma that needs to be healed, and reckoned with. I believe that we can reclaim more soulful, deeply-connected lives working together to remember.