Thank you for trusting me as a guide in your journey with grief.
Below I have provided some valuable information to consider while preparing to take my self-study course: Let Loss Make You Warm:
a story time meditation & companion for your grief.
For more info on this course, including detailed description, full course outline, and payment info, click here.
Once you are ready, please read everything once on this page before you begin!
WHAT TO EXPECT
💫 what is new paradigm teaching and learning? 💫
Otherworldly Giants is a new paradigm school. That means my courses are not your typical environment where the teacher knows more than you, or where you have deadlines and assignments that I evaluate. A new paradigm school hinges on our shared freedom: my freedom to share my knowledge through a vessel that alchemizes my personal genius and unique magic; your freedom to receive the offering according to your most preferred and fruitful alchemy.
Let Loss Make You Warm is a book that you can listen to or read, and also a set of teachings on grief, and also an ancestral ritual. It spans across genres similar to how grief travels across time, space and dimension. It’s a memoir, ted talk, meditation, work book, energetic exchange and medicine jar.
I am not the expert on your experiences with grief, I’m an expert on mine. I share my personal storytelling with you because I believe that telling & listening to stories is one of the most powerful ways we learn, integrate information, shift our consciousness, grow and heal.
💫 what do you mean when you say story time meditation and medicine jar? 💫
My storytelling is expertly, intentionally and intricately designed as a medicine jar. Many of us understand how herbal remedies like flower essence tinctures work. The herbalist builds a relationship and co-creates with a plant, they brew ingredients with intention and prayer, they work with specific timing and create a medicine jar. You receive the tincture, take a few drops in your water, tea or straight in your mouth and allow the medicine to bring balance and healing to specific areas. Your body-mind-spirit works with the medicine and you see results over time.
This is how my course is designed, only the vessel through which I deliver the medicine is via my voice and the written word. When you interact with my story, we share an energetic exchange. The frequency of my story is designed to activate, call forward, and balance energetic codes in your holistic body.
Specifically, we are engaging the parts of you/us that already remember an empowering, loving and supportive relationship with grief. We are calling forth codes of liberation, deeper connection, inner truth, balance and integration.
You may experience the activation very subtly, or you may notice a release of mental, creative, emotional, spiritual and/or physical energy.
I have built consent, boundaries and limitation into the foundation of our energetic exchange. That means the medicine will not activate anything you are not ready or willing to receive. The doors that open will do so with the consent of your highest self/holistic self, your benevolent guides and ancestors, and your best possible outcome.
💫 self-study as sovereign learning 💫
My self-study courses are opportunities for us to strengthen and deepen our sovereignty as self-healers and self-learners. Throughout the course, I will not and cannot speak to your exact experiences with grief. I speak to the specificity of my experiences and create a space for you to put yourself in the center of your own story, like the way I have.
I leave space for you to know things that I don’t know or directly speak to. I leave space for you to have different or conflicting spiritual/political perspectives, beliefs and opinions. I leave space for things to be true to you that aren’t true for me and vice versa. I respect and honour your experiences with grief that may vary widely from mine. I share my story, and many transformative lessons I’ve learned along the way, as inspiration and catalyst for you to dive deeper into your own experiences and knowledge.
💫 “we do not and cannot grieve alone” 💫
The above quote is a foundational principle offered to me by my beloved spiritual teacher Dr. G. Love and my Soulshifting community. This course is not meant to be a replacement for regular support systems that are specific to your ongoing healing and grieving, but rather as an additional companion and complimentary force of love and guidance.
As you embark on this course, I recommend you designate one (or more) relationship(s) or space(s) to help you process the journey.
When we engage in live group learning environments, we have others to share the experience with, bounce ideas off of, pose questions to and so on. We also often have to deal with annoying classmates (there’s always one of those!) or teachers we butt heads with, or a group vibe where we feel we don’t belong.
As a practise of sovereignty, a self-study course is an opportunity for you to engage what is available to you in your environment and claim the power of curating a learning environment that is specifically made to delight you. (Shout out to Lani from Chipperish Media for popularizing this phrase!)
I encourage the importance of setting up a space at the beginning where you know you can go to process and integrate whatever unfolds for you. Some options include:
- Ask a friend to be your “grief date” buddy – you can make plans to meet over tea and talk throughout the journey
- Create an altar space dedicated to your grief; you can call upon the support of a specific deity or ancestor(s) if that resonates with you
- Get a few friends together and take the course like a book club
- Choose a favourite place in your neighborhood/in nature that you can visit as you move through the material
- Take what you need to process to your therapy sessions, communal ceremonies, grief group, or work 1-1 with a mentor
- Create a private or public blog or share your reflections on social media
- Work with WATER! Water is a major element and ancestor that I’ve worked with to create this course and thus is a powerful ally. Some ideas: keep a bowl or glass of water next to you when you listen/read a section, then offer the water to a tree when you’re done. Take an intention or prayer into the shower/bath after engaging with course material to cleanse, release and renew. Visit/immerse yourself in a natural body of water if available.
Whether you want more of a private or interactive experience, it is a good idea to have a space that will be there for you, hold you and support you. Think about what kind of set up would be most compatible and desirable for your present moment.
HOW TO TAKE THIS COURSE
It’s completely up to you! Here are some things to consider:
💫 engagement 💫
There are a spectrum of ways to engage with course material, ranging from more gentle to more rigorous. Here are some options:
- Read it/listen to it like a book and take in the medicine simply through receiving. Similar to receiving a reiki treatment or taking a herbal remedy – make sure you rest after listening/reading, drink water, eat something and give your body-mind-spirit time to digest. Keep yourself as nourished and hydrated as possible to support your physical body.
- Keep a journal (a pretty one, or one that you love looking at/touching!) dedicated to the course and reflect after engaging with course material. What resonates from your own experience? What diverges? What stories, narratives, and memories are emerging? What are you learning?
- Reflect on the particular teachings on grief throughout the course (ie the Death Portal, anticipatory grief, grief as parenting, etc) and journal about your own relationship to these concepts.
- Engage with the heart work practises, journal prompts, creative exercises and tarot spreads I’ve offered throughout the course and/or create your own! Feel free to pick and choose which exercises you want to work with, modify them and/or integrate into your spiritual practices, self-care routine, etc.
Keep in mind! Choosing a more rigorous engagement can be really fun and satisfying. (Listen, I’m a big intense nerd, so I get it!) But in a capitalist paradigm we over-value this style of learning. We are conditioned to believe we have to push ourselves past our limits, ignore our physical and emotional well-being, pull all nighters, burn ourselves out and be in a perpetual state of stress in order to succeed at school. For this course, challenge the little voice in your head that worries you aren’t “doing enough” if you engage more gently. Do not underestimate the power of how much you can get out of grief work simply by allowing yourself to receive the medicine!
💫 pacing and rhythm 💫
Again, a lot of ways you can take in the course. Some options:
- Binge read/listen all at once (scorpios, I see you!)
- Decide on a schedule and carve out dedicated time (ie decide that every Sunday morning you’ll read/listen 1-2 sections and engage a journalling practise)
- Mix it up, follow your intuition and engage as you are called. Read/listen to as much or as little at a time as you want, take breaks, do it when you feel like it – a great option especially if you’re healing from academic/old paradigm school trauma! How liberating to know you only have to go to school when you feel like it!
Note! This course is a “channeled” offering, and that means I allow my ancestors and cosmic guides to flow through me as I write or talk. My audio performance – ie the rhythm, pacing and flow of my recordings are also ancestrally guided. There are times I speak rather quickly. Some people may not be able to process all the content in one listen. As a medicine bottle, the style of my performance is part of how I’ve created the energetic frequency and exchange. Trust that even if you don’t intellectually process everything the first time, you are still absorbing and integrating the medicine energetically. If you’re someone who likes to digest information more slowly, you have the option of doing multiple listens, or reading along while you listen.
Stay open to how your grief and love leads you. You may decide at the start that you want to rigorously work through every exercise, then find you would rather just relax and listen. Or you may start with just reading and realize you’re inspired with tons of creative energy that you want to engage with more rigorously.
I highly recommend on your first engagement, you read OR listen to everything once IN ORDER! I have written a story that unfolds, so you will miss pieces of the story if you read sections or listen to audio files out of order.
After your first time, you can come back and engage with each section as you like, in any order. You can listen to your favourite audio file during an afternoon walk, or you can choose to read a specific section when you want to attune to a particular teaching, or you can incorporate a section into your morning meditation, and so on.
BEGINNING & ENDING
The course begins with a grounding meditation to set up the entire journey. But you can also add additional practices and rituals if you feel called, such as:
- Set an intention, prayer or desire for the journey. ie to cultivate more peace in daily life, to find more understanding, for self-recovery or reconnection to who/what you lost, etc.
- Plant the seed and let it go; at the end you can revisit your intention and observe how it has unfolded. You may find it has bloomed in surprised or unexpected ways.
- Make an offering to your altar, ancestors, the land you live on, or another kind of meaningful offering.
Consider whether you want to create a “final project.” You may find that as you go through the course something creative wants to emerge: a memoir style essay, a bunch of poems, a collage, a playlist or something specific to you. You may decide beforehand that you want to create something specific, or you can let itself reveal itself to you. It can feel very meaningful and satisfying to create something tangible after a robust journey.
💫 closure ritual 💫
Stay open to how/if you want to commemorate your experience with a closing ritual. Some options include:
- Cook a meal to share with a loved one and tell them about what you learned or what changed (hint: your loved one can be alive or in spirit!)
- Create a space for a solo ritual with your altar
- Organize a “show and tell” night with your friends and share the art you created, or some of your journalling reflections and invite your people to celebrate your journey
- Visit a favourite meaningful place in nature and make an offering
Remember, none of these suggestions are mandatory! The path that is most supportive and compatible for your personal journey will reveal itself to you.