Border walking

As a border walker, I walk the liminal line between the spaces of the seen and unseen, which fosters a space that allows visibility to the invisible. 

In healing, we do this through weaving story. By taking perceptions of the world at large, or from relational or expressive gestures, then rooting them into how our bodies metabolize and process. We make these symbols explicit, and by doing so we create a medicine story around our relationships with movement and rest, detoxification and fortification, supports and obstacles. We begin a process of healing though understanding and relying upon the consistency of these cues and being able to interpret them with honesty, clarity and fidelity. 

Lately, we have been finding ourselves at the doorstep of a quickly evolving time where truth and the path forward isn't so clear, and where we’re more divided than ever. Our global perceptions might feel incongruent, confusing or in need of recalibration, or we may need to re-position ourselves altogether. Sometimes it’s difficult to locate ourselves when the whole map is changing. We are tipping into an epoch of rapid change - possibly into a new way of being - which can certainly feel overwhelming and disorienting. (Remember, I help dysregulated bodies find stabilization, resourcing and agency.)

Before we can make way for what’s to come we first must pay homage to what’s behind us, to what we’ve lost, and cannot bypass our grief, as we culturally have a history of doing. I implore us, that prior to action, we first slow down, deliberate; to pause, listen, notice, gather ourselves and to grieve both our personal stories and the one we’ve been collectively woven into. I have been thinking about this time as a transition point, a threshold, that we must honor, protect and metabolize both on communal and individual levels. 

We are entering a time where collective grieving and gathering are necessary.

And perhaps grief is becoming our origin story. 

As a grief tender, and as a griever, I am acutely aware of the moment before [an event] and the moment after, a pivotal place where the you you were prior is not the same you you are after. In some way we are changed overnight. The skills we have earned and the gifts we carry get us through, somehow. 

The pivot, the pause, this exhale is the still point between these two phases, which I have come to identify as dis-memberment and re-membering. The act of grieving is what turns the wheel from the place of dismemberment to being able to call ourselves back towards re-membering ourselves. 

<<< my offering is this >>>

What can we make with that? Can we make something interesting out of it?

Can we remember the ways our bodies want to grieve, the ways our ancestors did, as a gratitude practice? As a contemplation of life and of love?

Can we artfully build a medicine story that contains elements of our culturally shared myth with our personally embodied one?  I think we can. I want to know what skills and gifts you bring to this time of grieving and healing. And I want to re-imagine that kind of healing together. 

I am in the process of creating gathering spaces for group work, to dive into these conversations and contemplations as a community. I am offering a 3-part workshop with The Grief House titled "Build an Altar of Your Grief" starting this spring. You will have the option to join 1, 2 or all 3 sessions to use art, somatic practice and writing to explore your embodied relationship with, and wisdom held within, grief. Learn more and RSVP here.

You are also welcome to schedule a 1:1 visit with me here.

It is my greatest desire to be in conversation and healing space with you.

With high regards, and may the warmth find you today.

Ashlie Hempstead ND, LAc (she/her)
healer, grief tender, death doula