A note from Erin 12/4/25
Dear beautiful human,
I’m sending warm Full Moon greetings your way. My heart still marvels at the wonderful fact that wherever in the world you are reading this, we are under the same, luminous Full Moon. How magical.
In the beautiful poem from Mary Oliver, When Death Comes, she writes:
When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
Just over 20 years ago, Carl and I included these lines on our wedding invitations. It’s a beautiful aspiration, isn’t it, to live in such a way? Married to amazement, taking the world in our arms? This poem has been bubbling up in my heartmind again and again this week, because death came for Carl’s mother, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, over the weekend.
The family had gathered at her home on Cape Cod to celebrate both Thanksgiving and her 80th birthday, and she was vibrant and so happy. Less than 24 hours after the kids and grandkids left to return home, we learned that she had died suddenly and painlessly at home. While the family has been in shock and grief at her loss, the devastation is paired with a tender appreciation for this graceful exit. Not the long, slow goodbye we had when Carl’s died of cancer, which too, was full of grace, along with a lot of pain and a lot of time in hospitals. She had a very quick exit after a long, healthy life and after such a wonderful celebration with family. My beloved Carl and his sisters returned on Sunday to her home at the Cape, and they are there now, making the calls to family and friends, cleaning the fridge, finding the documents, and doing what needs to be done. And indeed, his mother Nancy was a bride married to amazement. She took the world into her arms. You can read more in her obituary, linked below.
Many people have asked me how Carl is doing, and I keep replying, he’s doing as well as possible. Truly, he is. There is grief and graciousness and groundedness and humor and loving connection between Carl and his wonderful sisters. I’m so grateful for what my friend Francis called “the rich loam of practice ground” we’ve cultivated underneath us. It’s true. It’s rich. And it’s serving him and us so well right now. He knows how to be with grief. He is welcoming it and letting it move, as it does, in wild waves. He knows how to be grounded and embodied in the midst of these impossible tasks. He knows how to be present, spacious, and full of compassion and kindness for himself and others. What a gift all of this is – in our everyday life – and especially during such a shocking time, after the sudden death of a parent. I have so much love and respect for how he’s embodying his practices and meeting the moment with such grounded grief and grace.
It’s funny, isn’t it, how when something like this sudden loss lands in our laps, everything looks a bit different. The gift it clearly is to see one luminous raindrop hanging from a leafless branch on a gray morning. The miracle it is to hug someone, right here, still alive. The blessing of having yet another day we get to wake up, even with pains and problems, the encroachment of AI and autocracy, the cat vomit (hi, yes, that just happened – thank you, Freya), and the glut of all the sales emails. How precious it is just to be breathing. What a monumental loss it is when the breathing is no longer happening for someone we love.
When I take this lens, polished by sudden loss, and look at the work we’re doing, I see what a privilege it is to be able to do work that we love, and to deeply appreciate how these practices that we love to share can truly ripen authentic adult human beings, as Carl is so clearly demonstrating. And how well such cultivations can resource us to meet the hard times we will inevitably face.
I am honored to extend an invitation to join us in our 13-month depth training, Refugia. We’re looking forward to pouring our hearts into this training. As we like to say, “it’s 100% guaranteed not to improve you.” Refugia is not a self-improvement project, but rather a supportive container for the most essential remembrances that are so easy to forget. While it won’t improve you, you will indeed be different upon completion of these 13 months of journeying together. Ripened and deepened. More embodied. Kinder to yourself and others. More deeply woven into the web of life and the deeply felt experience of belonging. More tuned to what truly matters in a human life.
Refugia offers a unique, multidimensional, sacred curriculum to support you in ripening your embodied wisdom and grounded presence so you can pour forth your unique soul medicine in service to family, community, and the wider world. Rather than burning out during stressful times, Refugia will support you to grow more deeply rooted and more somatically & soulfully resourced. Refugia invites intentional cultivation of potent skills essential for navigating times like these – all while nurturing a fierce, open-hearted compassion for yourself and others. I’m witnessing Carl embody this in such challenging circumstances, and I feel so grateful for the resources we’ve grown, and the resources we’re honored to share with others.
As the saying goes, “You were made for these times.”
This training ensures that the times are also making you into the most authentic, wise, and soulful version of yourself.
More than ever, the world needs such human beings in all our unique and diverse expressions. We’d love to have you join us.
Tonight, at 4 pm Mountain Time, with our dear friends Alyona Kobevka and Alexandre Jodun, we’re gathering a Council for Grief Tenders – a 2.5-hour gathering for people holding or aspiring to hold space for grief. Tuition is offered on a sliding scale. We’ve added 30 minutes to the session because each time so far, when it comes time to end, it feels like we’re just getting our groove on. My beloved will indeed be there, Zooming in from Cape Cod, ready to hold space, perhaps with a poem, or perhaps just being in the authenticity of his grief. We’d love to welcome you to join us in this tender and supportive community container. We meet at 3 pm PT, 6 pm ET. Recordings are provided.
Dear friend, known, or one I’ve yet to meet, here’s a wish for all of us:
When death comes, may it find you fully alive; a beautifully ripened human being, fully embodied and reveling in this temporary gift of being here. May death find your heart full of kindness, generously sharing your unique medicine with the world, and enjoying this one wild and precious life. As Rilke said, “You have not grown old, and it is not too late to dive into your increasing depths where life calmly gives out its own secret.”
We hope you’ll join us in this Council for Grief Tenders tonight, or on a powerful journey of ripening and remembrance in Refugia, which will begin in late January. Let’s dive into those depths together and discover the beautiful secrets that life may reveal. It’s not too late.
Thanks for being here. Thanks for being you in the world. Thanks for making the world a kinder place.
With love and a tender heart,
Erin
p.s. Here is Nancy’s beautiful obituary.
p.p.s. I owe several email replies to lovely people, and I’m behind – especially on the ones I want to pour my heart into responding to. (You know how it is!) Thanks for your patience if I owe you one – it’s coming soon! As I’m sure you can imagine, we’re navigating quite a bit during this time of grief and upheaval.
Finally, here’s the whole poem from Mary:
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle pox;
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
—Mary Oliver
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