The Program
The Spirit Altars program consists of bringing together items for a memorial artwork. The selection of these items is based on prompts that I give each session. During our sessions, whether in private or within a group, we unpack what has emerged since our last meeting and its prompt. The program is interspersed with special actions that correspond with the process. We meet live weekly for 8 sessions using Zoom. At the start of the program we have a phone call to understand your circumstances. And we complete with a goodbye call. During our time I am there alongside you, offering solace, support, encouragement, and perhaps insight.
Cost:
There are 3 options.
1) Working privately with me for 8 sessions once a week plus an initial and follow-up call: $500
There are 3 options.
1) Working privately with me for 8 sessions once a week plus an initial and follow-up call: $500
2) Joining a group, also 8 sessions with pre and post program calls: $250
A drawback with the group is needing to wait until enough people have come together for one.
A drawback with the group is needing to wait until enough people have come together for one.
3) A 4-session, self-directed, email-guided program: Free/by donation.
You are here because you have lost someone close to you. I am truly sorry for your loss.
We are here in this existence all too briefly, some of us even more briefly. Loss is a part of being alive...and yet this is cold comfort when we are faced personally with this aspect of our human experience..
I wish I could wave your pain away. But even if I could it would not bring your friend or parent or sibling or child back. The loss can never be fully healed- because they are no longer here and never will be again. The loss is a hole in our lives that can never be truly filled.
Memorials generally come in 2 forms. One is a gathering where survivors pay tribute. It occurs somewhat close in time to the loss and is a several hour affair of words, stories and hugs. Coming together in this way is a definite healing act- being in the presence of those who mourn the one we lost offers connection and comfort- both extremely important.
The other type of memorial is grounded in physicality- items meant to preserve the memory of a moment, place, or person. For a lost one this type of memorial might consist of photos, important items, and other things that bring awareness to their life. Memorials tend to focus on surface level and positive aspects of a person. This might mean their significant accomplishments, the things they appreciated, stories that impacted the attendees.
The drawback to these forms of memorializing are that the short format and ‘skimming’ quality of representative items and stories may avoid the things that feel negative or disparaging. While it is important to bring in the positive, truly being able to come to internal resolution includes engaging all aspects of our lost one- the aspects that we felt were ‘good’ as well as the aspects that we felt were, perhaps, difficult or even unpleasant.
To truly honor another is to see them in their wholeness (to the extent that that is possible). In this program I approach your loved one as multifaceted, with elements that you found wonderful, as well as elements that you may have found problematic. In creating a memorial from this place, your own complicated entanglements, which perhaps hold unresolved moments, can be engaged and released as well.
The Spirit Altars program is about helping you to move forward with your loss in a way that honors the fullness and complexity of your lost one while also honoring your own fullness and complexity. The person in your life that you have lost is gone forever from this material realm. What comes next is not about them, it is about you, and about those who are left behind to continue living. The Spirit Altars program is intended to assist you in coming to internal peace- not a ‘letting go’ or a ‘moving on’, but rather helping you move towards resolution and integration so that your own spirit’s force can be directed with clarity and power back towards your own life. Ideally this program can help you keep the spirit of your lost one alive within you in the ways that best serve who you are and who you strive to become. The sadness may never go away, but my desire is that with the sadness also comes a smile, a smile for the spirit that impacted and continues to impact you.
The goal of the Spirit Altars program is to help you create a holistic tribute to your lost one while supporting you in dealing with the intensity of grief and other complicated emotions, enabling you to move forward in your life while keeping your heart open and connected to your beloved.