Transformed by Grief with Ellie Thomas

Tea Ceremony, Slowing Down to Connect with Grief, and the Importance of Sacred and Ceremonial Spaces for Healing After Loss with Melina Charis

• Ellie Thomas • Episode 28

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Join me in this episode as I chat with my dear friend Melina Charis, as we share our personal stories of losing our mothers and the profound impact it has had on our lives. Together, we created Sacred Ground, a virtual community event featuring a guided tea ceremony and embodied movement practice, designed to provide a sacred space for reflection, healing, and connection.

Grief isn't a neatly organized series of steps; it is a deeply personal, non-linear experience. In our conversation, we challenge societal misconceptions about grief and explore its unpredictable nature. By sharing our own experiences, we highlight the importance of allowing emotions to flow naturally, embracing the full spectrum of feelings from joy to sadness. Through rituals like tea ceremonies, we can create intentional spaces to honor these emotions, providing a sanctuary for self-awareness and growth. Listen as we discuss how these sacred spaces can guide us toward a richer understanding of life and help us stay connected to our true selves.

In this heartfelt episode, we invite you to explore the depth of your own grief journey, recognizing it as a sacred part of life. Through personal anecdotes and insightful discussions, we emphasize the transformative power of being truly present with your emotions. Whether through Sacred Ground or other supportive environments, we encourage you to find the courage to embrace the sacred space of grief, honoring its role in your life and allowing it to guide you toward healing and new beginnings.

Sign Up for Sacred Grief: A Ceremony for Grief + Growth happening on November 17th. $33 to join. 

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Music credit:
Embrace by Sappheiros | https://soundcloud.com/sappheirosmusic
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Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/


Ellie:

Welcome to Transformed by Grief. My name is Ellie Thomas and I am here to guide you on your transformational grief journey From feeling lost, raw and brokenhearted, questioning everything in you and around you, to reconnecting to the truth of who you are and the beauty, fulfillment and vibrancy of life that is still available in you and through you. On this podcast, we explore the depths of what it means to say yes to life again after you've been broken open by pain and grief. We will explore what it means to create a deep, loving and reverent relationship to yourself, to grief and to life in a way that allows you to begin to rebuild from the inside out and to create a powerful foundation for a joy-filled, alive feeling and fulfilling life you love. Welcome back to Transformed by Grief. I'm happy to bring you an interview slash more like a conversation, I guess, but an interview conversation with one of my best friends, melina.

Ellie:

Charis and Melina and I are coming together. We're bringing our beautiful, powerful work and containers together to bring a new community grief event to life, and this event is called Sacred Ground and it's happening on November 17th and you can sign up now. I'll leave the link in the show notes for everything. And so we wanted to have a conversation about bringing kind of our journeys together. Bringing kind of our journeys together and I interview her about what transformed by grief means to her right now. She shares some of her story and then we really get into talking about the power and the importance of different aspects of finding presence and coming into the body and exploring and connecting with grief beyond words, beyond mental and intellectual exploration, and we talk about the event a little bit more at the end.

Ellie:

But I want to give you some details here. Sacred Ground is a ceremony for grief and growth and the beginning portion of it will be a guided tea ceremony. It's all virtual, so you'll be doing this from your home. Melina will be guiding us on zoom for the tea ceremony and then I'll lead us in a longer invitation of connecting to what's present emotionally and with our grief, and into a embodied, intuitive movement practice that will help you process and feel and begin to tap into greater nuggets of wisdom or greater release really whatever is there for you and then we'll close with space where you can ask questions or we'll have a circle to really witness each other and offer you space to share what your experience was and receive anything that you would like to receive, and I just wrote a really powerful newsletter a couple days ago about how incredibly powerful and life-changing the openings are when we come together to let our grief be shared in community and when we allow ourselves to be seen and witnessed in our grief fully. This opens the doors to the tremendous medicine of being actually truly seen and known for, potentially the first time in our lives, I know the first time I was witnessed in my grief by people that got it, by people that knew how to hold space for it. It totally transformed my life and my work really and gave me access to this feeling that all of me can be present here and I am loved and seen and respected and held in my highest, and my wounds can be here too. There is no pity that's alive here. It's just a total process of revering and honoring everything that we've walked through to get here and being held up in the truth and potential of your heart and the greater parts of you, beyond just your pain or just the world's understanding of who you are.

Ellie:

So we would love to have you join us for Sacred Ground on November 17th at 1 pm Eastern, 10 am Pacific. All you need to have with you is some tea or herbs. It's all on the registration part A safe space to move, to be. Still, we're going to play some music, so you might want headphones. You're going to want comfy clothes. This is going to be like a one and a half hour retreat that you get to kind of check into and move into a space of softness, move into a space of slowing down, move into a space of silence and really honor and allow whatever is there to come up. So we can't wait and we hope to see you there.

Ellie:

Let me just read Melina's bio so you have some background on her before I share our conversation. Melina Cheris is a mother, ceremonialist and guide for those walking in the intense initiations and transitions of life. She is a giver, a void walker, a space holder, a bridge. She is fiercely devoted to the wisdom of her body and the initiatory path of grief, death and sacred creation. She has 10 plus years of experience with transformative embodiment practices and she's here to hold you deeply and fully through your own initiations, to guide you through your dark nights of the soul as you remember, and find the light within. You can visit her website at wwwmelianacheriscom and connect with her on Instagram at Melina Cheris. Here is our beautiful conversation on grief and being transformed by grief. Thank you. Nobody knows this probably, but you gifted me the name of this podcast, so it feels very appropriate to welcome you here, thank you, thank you, such a gift such a gift to be here.

Melina:

Yeah, I got. Yeah, I got so excited when you said the name. It feels so. You and, as I said to you, I gifted you the name, but I really thought you had already come up with it. My energy had, and you read it back to me exactly so so it's so beautiful to be a part of the yeah, the new evolution of your beautiful work and magic and sharing your voice thank you.

Ellie:

So melina and I have been friends for four and a half years. We've been very good friends for about progressively, for the last four years and in these past four years both of our moms have died and we've sat with them in their last breaths, have died and we've sat with them in their last breaths and, as the people that listen here know, mom died almost four years ago, a little less three, yeah, almost it'll be four in February, which is wild yeah and your mom died this past June.

Ellie:

yep, um, and you also had a baby in the past year, and two years ago mom was diagnosed with cancer, and that's when, well, you had really accompanied me in all parts of my grief journey, truly, but, and we deepened our friendship in that.

Ellie:

I think our friendship went to a whole nother level when you experienced your mom's illness for the first time yeah and we've been able to just turn toward each other over and over and over again with more and more depths for the past many years. And now we walk with the tremendous gift of sharing our grief together and welcoming others into spaces where the raw aliveness of their grief lives and allowing that to like I'm almost seeing like literally the rawness of a beating heart, like connect, that place where grief pulses right along with our heart, and allowing ourselves and others to to tend that and to experience that and to be transformed by it. So I think I'd like to start with just what, when you sit with the energy of, transformed by grief for you, what that looks like and feels like right now. Now, hmm, you.

Melina:

Yeah, I think it's so devastating to me that in our we've largely lost the art of being with our grief and a very unfortunate part of that process is that a lot of people don't know what to say. A lot of people drop off, a lot of people say weird things. People just don't know. Don't know, they were not taught or shown most people, how to be with their own grief, how to be with someone who is grieving, and that is another layer of grief. When you are in that, whatever your grief is, but specifically with the illness of a loved one, the death of a loved one, there's another layer that the griever has to be with, of other people, not in our society as a whole, expecting grief to be linear, you know, as time goes on, expecting you to just like really actually glorifying, quickly going back to work, quickly quote unquote being moving on Moving forward.

Melina:

Yeah, like moving on, as if we could ever do that Um. So to really tend to our grief in a way, an ongoing way for the rest of our lives, and to be willing to tend to all of our grief, um is an art. It is a lost art and it is one that for the aliveness, for the to really feel the full spectrum of life, to really feel our full joy, our full aliveness, we have to be able to meet the depths of our grief regularly. You know, you and I have talked about this, but it's often these cataclysmic events that I just wrote a piece on how I was.

Melina:

As you mentioned, my mom was diagnosed with cancer two years ago and it ripped me open in so many ways and a lot of people. It was like stage two, you know, stage one, and nobody could really understand in my life why it ripped me open. So, except you, like you understood, and that's why you were a safe place for me, because everyone else, literally almost everyone else in my life was like everyone else, literally almost everyone else in my life was like she's going to be fine, it's cool, it's all good, like you know, like why is this affecting you so much? And in that moment my life completely changed, obviously with her death as well, but that was really the moment of receiving that text from her that they found cancer, which in my body and heart I already knew the truth of and I think somewhere I also knew the truth of her life was going to be connected with my tears in this way. You have really walked this before and shown me along with other people, but really you're such a beautiful begin to me of like just and, and everyone who I really admire is able to just feel their tears in this way and to like, when the tears come, we don't apologize, we we let them go.

Melina:

And this was not always how I was. I would push them away, I would apologize. I was not this open, I would apologize. I would. I was not this open, I was not this connected to my sadness, to my grief, to my aliveness. Ultimately, and I'm like anytime I feel the tears this way and I allow them to be here, I'm so grateful to to be moved by life and be like really fully in touch with what I'm saying.

Melina:

I'm talking about the death of my mother, I'm talking about this intense journey that I walk and as I, you know, just wrote this piece for a long time. I thought, oh, two years ago, when my mom was diagnosed, that was my first experience of grief. And no, I realized no, no, no, no. We all walk with grief through all of our lives Grief of leaving childhood, grief of the parents we didn't get, grief of dreams not followed or relationships that needed to end. But you know just so much, there's grief, we all walk with it. And just because we pretend it's not there doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Melina:

And so that moment was not my first experience of grief, but it was the first moment I could no longer look away from my grief. It was in my face and it's like, yeah, she was diagnosed, she had surgery. And it was like, yeah, she was diagnosed, she had surgery. And it was like, okay, she's okay. And so much of me just wanted to go back, like, just take me back before I. You know, this was in my face, the fragility of life, cause it's so hard, it's so painful, it's so much, it's like it's so painful, it's so much, it's like oh. And then, in the early days of raw grief, after just receiving a diagnosis or just a death or a breakup or you know, whatever it is that those early days of raw grief are just so fucking hard, so hard, and of course it's like I don't want to go back to that place. Um, and then when she was re-diagnosed last year, I was like here it is again.

Melina:

I'm a little bit familiar with it, but here it is. And then, when she died, six months later, again here it is. So, to me, being transformed by grief is just allowing yourself to be transformed by grief, to be changed to, to to acknowledge your grief, to tend it, to be with it, to feel it like as it moves, to just to not apologize, to not stop the tears, to not you know. And grief isn't just about sadness, as we both know. It's so much more than that. It's so deep and rich and and it's it's so much, it's so much it's like.

Melina:

The more I learn about and embody and experience grief, the more I'm like I don't really know what it is. It's so big, I can't. I can't put it into words, and I think so many people are like grief equals sadness, grief, and I thought that too. I mean, right after my mom died, I was like why am I not laying in the bed crying? I mean, I also had a three-month-old baby, so that was also a big part of this process learning to be a mother at the same time as losing my mother.

Melina:

But grief wasn't at all what I thought it was going to look like. And I remember, in those intense months of anticipatory grief in the six months before she died, before that, but it really intense in the six months before she died, when we knew her cancer was terminal and she had about six months to live, it was like it could be any moment that you know, I'm pregnant, I'm giving birth, is she going to be here to meet my son? I mean so many layers of it, um, but I remember just being like what is it going to be? Like what is it going to? I don't know what I, what is it going to be? And you were like like what is it going to? I don't know what I, what is it going to be? And you were like I don't know. You were like I have no idea. And it's like I was like I just want somebody to tell me what it's going to be like.

Melina:

You know, and that's also what's so hard about grief is that it is it is such a individual experience and it can feel so, so lonely, and it is lonely and I think that's a part of it and there's so it's so universal at the same time. I mean it's like we're all going, like I said, we're all living with grief of many things, of the planet, of the environment, of, you know, colonization, like so much, so much grief, patriarchy, like they're endless, and it just does us all, it makes us sick, it does us all such a disservice to stuff it and to not have these rituals and ceremonies, and I am not one of those people. So I knew I needed support groups and spaces after my mom died and I joined a few and quickly realized, oh, I need something deeper than this. Like I am a, you know, ceremonialist, I do, you know I do tea ceremony. I am like I work with my body, I like to move and dance and cry and write and channel. And you know I needed, I just needed deeper spaces. Like I love these spaces to talk about our grief are so beautiful and important. And I was like I need something deeper than this. Like I love these spaces to talk about our grief are so beautiful and important. And I was like I need something deeper than this, like I need a space to just feel. And I think that's something that's so beautiful about tea ceremony, which is one of my practices that I have been practicing for almost four years, um, and serving others now for a couple years a year and a half maybe. And one thing people say when they come to tea ceremony with me is wow, I just I just heard this from somebody the other day who came like who is in a deep grief process and she was like the other day who came like who is in a deep grief process and she was like I've been talking about my grief non-stop.

Melina:

I've been talking, talking, talking. I just need a, I just needed a space to feel and cry and that, and I'm so glad for this space and I have needed spaces like that as well. I had, you know, I have a like regular therapist and that's beautiful. And I talked to you and you are so great at also talking and holding deep space and we kind of we weave in and out of that, which is so incredible, like in some of our conversations, as you supported me so beautifully through my grief journey, I mean we weaved between talking to sobbing, to praying, to meditating, to breathing, to silence, to more talking. You know, beautifully, just weaving all of these, because you know that's the other thing is like talking is so beautiful and important and we need crying, we need yelling, we need laughing, we need music, we need dancing, we need you know, all of these things too, and grief is going to tell you what it means if you're open to listen.

Melina:

So I really needed in my grief just a lot of different spaces, and I needed also just spaces to just drop into my body and just feel, and sometimes it was crying, and sometimes it was joy and peace, strangely, and sometimes it was stillness, and sometimes it was just that beautiful sense of like I am being held.

Melina:

I'm, you know, when I was holding so much try tending to a newborn, losing my mom, my, you know, dealing with my marriage, dealing with the family dynamics and every everyone else's grief and everything that shifts when someone you love dies, and, um, I needed, I just needed to be held by somebody who had the capacity to hold that and wasn't going to turn away and wasn't afraid and wasn't going to think I was too much or wasn't going to try to give me platitudes that so many people, which I just heard from a family member who, again, I know, means well, well, but I heard so much and I still hear well, at least your mom got to meet him, at least your mom got to meet your son, wow, and I'm like.

Melina:

I just said this. I had a family gathering and one of my family members said that to me and I said, yes, and it is still very devastating. It was beautiful and she's not here to see the rest of his life. She's not here. She was here for 11 weeks of his life. She deserved more than that, I deserved more than that, he deserved more than that. So both of those things can be true.

Ellie:

Yeah, yeah, when you allow the tears and and this is a you to Melina, you and you to the global, you, well, you just so beautifully shared that with us.

Ellie:

I was just sitting with you as you let the tears come right now.

Ellie:

The tears come right now and there is this moment where, when we allow ourselves to go beyond the words of grief and we feel it in our bodies, whether it's coming up as tears, as groans, as yells, as physical movement or some kind of creative thing, however it wants to come, it's like the greatest.

Ellie:

What the words that are coming is equalizer of life. Like everything that feels distant all of a sudden feels close and everything that feels topsy-turvy all of a sudden comes even. It's like this opening into living, into the current of life, in that moment, so deeply and so connected, and in that there's movement that happens in our being, there's healing that happens in our being, there's cultivation, there's growth, there's all of these things. Not trying to approach grief, to get to those things, but allowing grief to be our doorway into these things. And so, sitting with you now, as you were letting the tears come out, I just wanted to say to the people listening that can you feel that, can you feel just this? It's so, it's so interesting. It's just like grief it's hard to put words to.

Ellie:

It's like this stillness that is not flat yeah, yeah, it's not empty, it's very full yeah, it's so luscious, it's so um, almost voluptuous in its form, like overflowing out, and it's deeply painful, and also so much more is there.

Melina:

Yeah.

Ellie:

And so I love that you just shared us with that, or shared that with us in that way, and I love this idea of you know you and I met in a spiritual based group. We're not entry-level spiritual people. We've been engaging in the depths and explorations of spiritual life for many years. We've shared that, and so for you arriving to grief maybe you hadn't engaged with grief in the way that you began to when your mom was diagnosed, but you were beyond the entry level of that exploration, and so I also love to speak to that, because that in and of itself can be extra lonely a little bit.

Ellie:

Our society operating in a and I don't mean to say that these things are entry level because I think that so much has grown from them. But when there is a culture of a lot of interconnection, spiritual connection and inner evolutionary work that's already been there, and then grief arises or meets our world, it can feel like what do we turn to and where do we turn to now? Yeah, and you and I have had each other to know what the power of letting all of that alive together feels like, like I don't need to let go. I might question everything that I've ever explored before I might change, I might not want to engage in these same things, and yet I can let all of these questions, all of these doubts, all of these recalibrations, these spinning of these questions, all of these doubts, all of these recalibrations, these spinning of my lens, this turn of my lens, be here at the same time as all of these other things.

Ellie:

And in order for all of that to be present, I think that usually there's like a process on the other side for somebody holding space. They've needed to go through their own journey with that. Maybe it wasn't through death and grief, Maybe it was through something else. But yeah, yeah, there's, there's this well of, there's this well underneath the um, the grief work that we know in the world, that's, it's ripe and ready to hold people at whatever level they're coming in at, or and I don't mean level in a hierarchical way, it's like level they're coming in at, or and I don't mean level in a hierarchical way it's like, however, you're connecting, but you are, it's ready process, yeah, in your journey yeah, it's ready to hold people as you float and let the water carry you.

Ellie:

Yeah, and I love how beautifully your story speaks to that.

Melina:

Yeah, notice how, in the moving with the tears, a couple things there's and you mentioned it too like there's the speaking about the grief which is so important, the process to write right, all of these things, and then there's the bodily experience of grief, and I think we're in our culture, we're getting more into oh yeah, the body is important, like we're. So you know in the mind about a lot of things, and grief too, and that's a beautiful starting place. Um, you know, talk therapy and talking with friends and all of that is so important and, and I think what people are starting to wake up to more and desire is spaces to drop it, the deeper layers that live in the body, um, and there's no, yeah, there's, there's absolutely no rush for that. I mean, I think, with my own grief, like you, yeah, it's not. Like you know, for me, I think, which you will remember from my grief process right after losing my mom, I was like I couldn't cry a lot, which was very strange for me. I mean, most of my life I intellectualized my pain and I was told by so many therapists After it was like the third or fourth therapist or coach or healer I was working with who was like you're talking about your sadness but you're not feeling it, which would annoy me so much. I was like, no, I am, because I understand it, like I love understanding and analyzing, so that's like my safe zone and I'm I'm really like it.

Melina:

Just I'm so, as I mentioned earlier, like I'm so grateful that I am now so much more in touch with actually feeling things, and that's not to say I'm perfect at it whatsoever. However, I know the importance of to stay open to all of life, to my vibrancy, to creations, to all of it in an organic way. That's not let me just do my gratitude, you know, in an organic way. Let me just do my gratitude, you know, in an organic way. It just requires this relationship with pain and sorrow and grief. That is open and it's not. And it's not a forced rush thing, because for me, the other side of this can be like when she first died, I was in shock, even though I knew, because that's the other thing people love to say to me. I just had someone say this Well, but it's easier because you knew, you know, you knew you had six months.

Ellie:

That's another thing I hear you know, I could talk about that for a long time.

Melina:

That's another thing that people think and it's fine and in some ways, sure, like, yes, I, it was beautiful that we had this time, that I had time to start processing, and it's it is different than losing someone suddenly and it's still, they're still dead, you know, and um, it's just so anyway, I mean, I could go on about that, but oh, I lost my train of thought. What was I saying?

Ellie:

you were saying that. Someone just said to you that it would be easier, and I'm just caught on the word easier. I just want to invite anybody, if anyone ever said anything is easier to you about your grief easier doesn't really exist in the vocabulary of loss and grief, or even pain I just want to invite that in. First you were speaking to that. It was hard to connect with your body.

Melina:

Yeah it was so now being in my spiritual journey and all of this stuff, just really for me, it's been a journey of returning to my sadness and allowing that, and allowing my anger and allowing these quote unquote negative emotions.

Melina:

I hate that we call them that, because they're just emotions and we're, we're all, and it's not to like, like we're not trying to heal our way out of them. We're actually trying to meet them more deeply, so that we're not like, oh my God, this is completely overtaking me like or breaking me or whatever. And of course, those moments are beautiful too, and a lot of us have those, I've had those. But it's like can we build relationships? Tending the garden is coming back. Can we build relationships? Can we tend to these emotions? Can we allow them to move?

Melina:

You said something beautiful about moving with it and, as you, you know, you all felt and heard when I was moved. There's a natural pause. It's just like a, a pause and a and allowing myself to really feel that wave, rather than explaining it or saying I'm so sorry or rushing through it, and that's hard in spaces where that's not always the norm or that's not always welcomed. I have been in spaces like that, where it's really brave, and I also wanted to say that if you're not there, that's okay. Like there's no, like oh, I'm crying. So this like great, you know it's, that's not. You know, because I was in shock for a while and again, even though I knew I'm putting this in air quotes even though I knew she was going to die, I was still in shock because nothing can prepare you, like, again, the mind cannot prepare you for the embodied experience of a loved one's death, just nothing. So what you knew, and when I was trying to be like, tell me what it's gonna be, you're like you're just gonna have to go through it. And I was like okay, because, yeah, nothing can prepare you. So I remember feeling like, why am I not crying more? You know, I'm in touch with my feelings, what's happening is something wrong. And then just kind of realizing grief cannot be rushed. And the other side of this is like wanting to just rush to get somewhere in my grief, wanting to rush and and for me you know that when my mom died I was 11, 12 weeks postpartum, which is a strange time because most people are kind of coming out of the bubble and wanting to start to see, to see family and friends, which I did, and I had really put my life on hold for a long time for my to tend to my mom and her last months I shut down my business, which was doing really well. I shut it down completely and really publicly and um tended to her and tended, and then tended to my son after he was born, and so when she died, I was really feeling a strange desire to return outwardly to see friends and to.

Melina:

I attended a concert, you know, and in my mind I was like what, like this is weird, I don't know, you know, and in my mind I was like why, like this is weird, I don't know, I shouldn't be, I should be like crying in the bed and what I thought grief should look like. But, you know, I just really trusted that, because that's what that's where I wanted to go, and I and I did, and and then, after about a month and a half of that, my nervous system was fried and my nervous system was like, okay, we did that and you're attending a new baby, you're, you're, you know, and like I started to like just realize, okay, I'm entering the shock was wearing off. That was, I think, giving me some energy to do these things. And I just heard really clearly and my body was speaking to me. My body, I mean I was exhausted, I mean I wasn't sleeping because of my baby as well. So there was that, but it was, my body was just exhausted and it was like okay, time to rest, okay, time to rest. And I listened and it's funny because so many people were like, wow, it's incredible that you just I just shut everything down.

Melina:

I had gone back, I had started going back to my business a little bit and I shut it down again, which was really hard because I felt I was like I just came back and now I'm shutting it down again. But I mean, when my body speaks, I listen and I've learned, I've learned over the years to do that even when it's really uncomfortable, and yeah. So I really slowed down again and I, I, I honored that for like six weeks after her death. I needed to just be back out in the world and that was beautiful and that it wasn't at all what I thought that grief would look like. And then I realized, okay, I'm past some of the shock and I am out of the death portal, which, as you know, is an intensely psychedelic experience portal which, as you know, is an intensely psychedelic experience and just so intense, and so I was like coming off of that and coming off of the birth portal that I had been in just weeks prior to that.

Melina:

So I've been in a lot of portals and my body was just craving rest and to slow down, and I was scared because I knew that meant that the grief would would come up, um, and it did and, and I slowed everything down and I would. I just remember driving around and crying and then, at the same time, I was like, oh, I'm so like. I was like my tears are back, like I felt as I really listened and slowed down. Of course, I was afraid, and I was, I knew, is what I needed to do. And that neck, when I was ready though you know I wasn't ready to do that right after she died, I wasn't and, um, but when my tears kind of came back, I was grateful because I was like, okay, I'm, I can, I have more capacity now that I've slowed, I've taken a lot of things off my plate so that I actually have space and time as much as I could, as a new mother, to just be with some of this. And you know, yeah, it's, it's especially as a new mother.

Melina:

I mean I remember, like in the, it wasn't that I didn't cry at all, but I was ready, I could feel my body was ready for rest and more space so that I could meet the grief on a deeper layer and I mean I know I will forever, for the rest of my life. You know I have no, luckily. I know that grief is not linear, like I think we really think in this culture like the more time that passes, the more it's quote unquote, easier there it is. I have no illusions of that. I think the grief shifts, of course, as we shift and I think, yeah, there's always new layers. There's always there's just more that we can access and different and that comes up and and just I think the main thing is to, just as much as we can stay, stay open to it.

Melina:

Um, and I think you mentioned another thing about people that have met this and it's not that the people, the containers that I wanted to be a part of that could really hold me. It's not that anyone was quote unquote over their grief or a master at it. Everyone is in relationship to it. And the people that I really trusted and needed to hold me in my grief, it didn't, it didn't matter if they had had the same circumstances with me or not, you know, or lost the same person or not, or experience whatever, like it wasn't that at all. It was, it was, oh, this, it was a felt energetic sense of this person honors their grief. This person has met their grief. This person makes space for and goes deep with their grief, doesn't push it away, you know, and that's felt. I mean someone does not need to really say anything to me, I can feel it in their energy and those are the spaces that I really needed and, yeah, just like the spaces I really needed to were like that you are so beautiful at. And then the other people I chose to hold me is like there's no judgment at all, even when I needed to avoid my grief, even when I needed to numb it, that's fine, like that. We, it's okay, you know, that's part of it. It's not. Sometimes we can't, you know, sometimes it's like titration and it's different for every person.

Melina:

But for me, I had just been through such intensity for six months. I had been through the ups and downs, the anxiety of when, when is she gonna die, her, watching her suffer, bringing my son in. I need so much like I'm gonna be processing this year for the rest of my life, so much um, that I could not. I, just right after she died, was not the time and and everyone I was with just trusted my process so deeply and I did have a beautiful mentor, jasmine, reflect to me. And I did have a beautiful mentor, jasmine, reflect to me lovingly. You know, when I was hitting that kind of breaking point in my nervous, I just had a kind of complete breakdown, like six weeks after she died, where a few things were just converging and my body was losing it. I mean, I was, my nervous system was just so fried.

Melina:

I did have her, in one of our sessions, lovingly reflect to me why are you like? I think she said can you share with me why you're wanting to go back to work? I was so triggered. I was like because I love my work and my clients need me back. And like love my work and my clients need me back. And like you know which I do and it's true, and I was resisting the void, I was like so angry, I was so annoyed, I was like I've been in the void for so fucking long.

Melina:

I just want to be out. You know I just want to be out and you know you lovingly reflected to me too that I just needed to try it. That is really what I needed. I needed to try to I do some sessions with my clients. I needed to go attend events and it was great until it was not great and it was like, okay, now is the time to. I now have a little bit more space from all this to to rest and to allow more grief to come up, as I will continue doing for the rest of my life. And so it's.

Melina:

Yeah, it's that beautiful balance of like not non judgment of wherever you are is perfect, and sometimes we do need that loving mirror of like. Your body needs to rest a little bit and it's. You know, I kept, I reflected on it and I was so triggered at first by what she said. I was like she doesn't know anything and and then I realized, yeah, she's right, she's right. And I had so much resistance to going back into the void, into the just letting everything go. I was like I, I've done that so much resistance to going back into the void, into the just letting everything go. I was like I've done that so much, I'm so tired of just letting everything go.

Melina:

But the void and the liminal space is so fertile and so full of importance and that's another thing in our culture, right Like the winter, when nothing is sprouting or this, you know, where there's nothing that can be seen on the surface, the void, the darkness we're getting back to. Like nature has four seasons and their cycles, and there's times to rest and there's times to to create and and and all of this. And, yeah, I think we just really desperately need to be reminded that those are really sacred spaces too. That and grief is a lot like that of really giving yourself the space when you can, when you're ready to just be in the darkness. You know, as I mentioned, I think, in the beginning, it's like there's so much wanting to rush through, wanting to get back, wanting to, and people will honor you and they'll say, oh, my gosh, you're so strong. So, as you and I have talked about many times, it's brave to be like I'm sad.

Ellie:

I'm still sad. I'm still sad Not going away.

Melina:

Correct, it's not going away. And, yes, my mom got to meet my son and it is still extremely sad constantly that she doesn't get to see anything else in the physical. And I mean, even now this is coming through too. Like I think I am talking about spirituality and connection, right, I'm like before she died I was like this is gonna be fine, like I'll just connect with her spiritually and it'll be great, and like I'm so glad I'm a spiritual person. And, yes, and I was so shocked by I couldn't feel her at all after she died. I was just so fucking angry at her for leaving me, for some of the choices that she made, um, and I could not feel her at all and I was like terrified because I was like I was banking on that, like like that, I'm going to really feel her.

Melina:

And again, in that case, I gave myself space. You know a lot of people like other people in my life, because I am around a lot of spiritual people were, who are connected to her, were like are you, are you, are you connected? Like, oh, my God, I'm, you know, really just kind of this, trying to connect, which I think is, again, totally fine If that's what you are doing beautiful. Um, I was. I just knew there was like this knowing of I need to wait. I don't want to try to force some kind of connection with her and I did feel there were a couple moments in those early weeks when I did still feel that I was so angry I was like I don't even want to be connected to her. Right now I'm angry and I needed to feel that and I needed again in my this container with my mentor, just to scream and pound my fists. My throat was raw, my fists were sore from pounding pillows. I mean, I had so much anger and I needed to move through that. You know, I needed to let that in and that was really scary too. Um, and I needed to just be with everything that was there.

Melina:

And slowly, over time, I have felt more and more connected with her and I'm still allowed to miss her in the physical. I'm still allowed. You know, there's anger. That's still there. Of course. There's longing, there's sadness. There's longing, there's sadness. There's it's all. It all can exist at once. It, you know it just because I feel connected with her spiritually. It it also exists right alongside the like. Why isn't she here in the physical?

Ellie:

yeah, there's a lot of pulling apart we can do of all this, but the one thing that's not true. I'm never gonna say just one thing, as everybody listening knows, you included. We had let many great conversations around not comparing what it's like you having really respected the way and admired the way that I had moved with my grief, and both of us but me, me needing to kind of say and I'm, you're going to do it super differently than I did, it's going to be different. And not comparing circumstances and also finding the beautiful overlap of circumstances and how similarities are there. We've had so many incredible conversations around what I call like finding your attuned pace and you doing all of that so beautifully. And attuned pace for me is allowing yourself to connect with what you need where it is now, follow that until it changes and trusting that. That is your way of honoring your grief journey and you did that so beautifully of like, no, I need to be out, I need to go, do these things, I need to see people, I want people to meet a baby and great. Trust that and it will take you right to the next thing. That's maybe that's five years of doing the exact same thing and maybe it is in. Okay, in two weeks I'm going to realize I'm right, I'm in a different space already because, in its non-linearness, these are arcs, constant arcs. They might be baby arcs, they might be lifelong arcs.

Ellie:

You know, every moment that grief invites us into something, there is a whole storyline that comes along with it, a whole experience of you know, like many lifetimes that get to be lived within it, and so I well. First of all, I love how grief invites us into deeper relationship with ourself, but also how it requires deeper relationship with ourself in order to continue to meet it over and over. And when we talked, I loved how you started using layers. I have used levels Levels is really not the right word for what I was talking about earlier but the sense of layers, of letting the grief work and the grief experience penetrate us on greater layers than just the mind, because the mind, also in our world, ends up being a protector from feeling our grief, because it's been deemed unsafe for so long, it's been deemed vulnerable, weak, whatever. There's thousands of other things that go along with that, and so part of the reason that I believe that you were able to step into, in different places at different times, this, the exploration that you're on and in with grief now, is that you already, through your process, had already been on a journey of developing a deep relationship to yourself. And so as we talk about a journey of developing a deep relationship to yourself, and so as we talk about you know you heard, your body spoke and you listened.

Ellie:

Some people might not yet have that relationship with themselves, which is fine. And in the grief process you will probably be invited into little nuggets of beginning to listen to and connect to and decide oh, do I want to honor this or not? Am I ready to honor this or not? Do I need help in honoring this or not? Do I have capacity to honor this or not? And this brings me to kind of the sense of ceremonial space and to slowing down and to beginning to cultivate relationship with our pain, or continue to nourish that relationship with our pain over time.

Ellie:

If we already have cultivated is really in order to listen to those parts of us, in order to offer space to us, we really do need to let our nervous systems land. We do need to feel safe and held. We do need to um spaciousness, because it isn't something. Yes, some people get into you and I both have our own versions of quick intuitive hits or body hits or something, but the very deep messages and knowings that have guided both of us have come from um having just enough space to be able to hear that or feel that. It doesn't mean that it was, you know, six days of silence or anything like that, but I wish yeah, it was just like one hour of somebody holding space for you to step into a little bit slower of a cadence.

Ellie:

And because grief carries and it's like a symphony of cadences really it's not just like one specific People. When I first lost, my mom talked a lot about, or I would read a lot about this idea of the cadence of grief and in that early grief I really felt like, yeah, it is. There is this kind of downward feeling cadence that I'm being asked to meet and over time I have realized that there's just like the opening cello note to the symphony of your life. You know it ultimately takes on so many different rhythms and this is part of the reason that you have a deep relationship with music, that I love. Music connected to grief work too, because the many notes and the many rhythms and the many beats of music bring that cadence alive in our bodies in a way that we can't always, you know, through the mental world, connect with.

Ellie:

And so a little bit of holding just I mean I was gonna say a lot of holding just uh, uh, I mean I was going to say a lot of holding is fantastic too, but just a little bit every week is enough to kind of let your system ease into listening to what's there and feeling what's next, and receiving what is here in the moment that's needing to be tended to, that's asking to be tended to, that's asking to be tended to, that's asking to be trusted, so that, whatever the next exploration of this, you know, of this journey is, can have space to, to come up and to move through you, whether that be another expression of grief, whether it be a new idea, whether it be a conversation that needs to be had with, you know, a loved one, in order to feel like you are living your life in the way that you need to be living your life right now. There's a million different expressions of that, and I love one of my favorite conversations. I mean, I don't have a favorite conversation, I love all of our conversations but I specifically remember this moment where you had had maybe it was like in July, it was right before it was right as you were getting in touch with your anger on a new level. And you texted me about a session you'd had with Jasmine and somebody else and that you had sat for tea and somebody else, and that you had sat for tea in like a 24 hour period and I was like whoa it? And then you said I felt the new iteration of my business starting to come through for the first time and I was like, yes, because there was enough space to like, really, and you had had this powerful release of anger. It's like so much release that got to happen while you were so held that then you just like got to receive what was you know, the droplets of the golden liquid, of what would be next Right, and it didn't all come like okay, here, now go do it, melina. It was just like this, it almost like fairy dust sinking into your cells of like, okay, there's something. Yeah, and and I know you've experienced that in body work related stuff too, and I have, I have two in this process, but I, you know, as we offer sacred ground and welcome people to join us in this.

Ellie:

I think it's so powerful to talk about how, ceremony and sacred space, and what do we mean by sacred space? For me you can answer this differently if you want to For me, there is this sense of bringing like intention, um of, and a heartfelt intention that is, that truly sees everything as equal, that sees everything as welcome and that says, yeah, I am here and I am willing to be with what's here and I. I see that there is life in this, even though it feels like death, or even though it is life right now, that there are parts of me that are needing to die to meet it. And in the complexity and completeness of that, that's what I feel is connected to the word sacred. And so, as we carve out these sacred spaces, they nourish and offer us so much in how we can begin to, layer by layer, make space for a different relationship with our pain, where our body actually feels like it's safe in this moment, because I am not alone, I am not judged, I am not going to be overcome, I'm not floating in the ocean by myself. Somebody is on a surfboard holding onto my hand. I am not going to drown here. Okay, I can let even a fraction of my grief or my sadness or my pain be present and like, feel it today. I don't need to go beyond what I'm ready for, but I can say yes, I can say okay to just whatever it is. That's there, and the beautiful thing about this is your system and your body and your energetic and emotional system. In my experience with these things, never it's not like a tidal waves comes over you. If you're ready for just a baby, baby, still ocean, it's just like you. You are met with what you're ready for and what is the perfect layer to be with. Um, to continue like this is.

Ellie:

I've really been talking, wanting to write or talk about how I really despise the terms like we need to move forward or are how are you moving forward or you need to move forward. Like that was something that came up for me a lot in my early grief and something that was I knew that just by living, just by being here, I was moving forward. But this idea of moving forward being so linear, whereas I feel like moving forward is actually round, it's actually this like rolling yeah, it's a spiral. It's actually this like rolling yeah, it's a spiral. It's like this rolling sensation that swell like, folds into itself over and over and over again. And so I don't know how I got on the topic of moving forward, but basically, by just allowing, like, whatever's there to meet you, that is all that's needed to continue the very, whether it be fast or slow that day, the natural momentum of your being and moving forward, and then moving forward and like not leaving grief behind.

Ellie:

But what is this walk with it that I'm going to continue to have, continue to deepen into, continue to deepen into, continue to live and share? I mean, as you were talking about connection with your mom, I don't know that I've told you this, but just in the past week, twice one was in a dream and it was actually at your house. I dreamt that my mom and your mom were at your blessing, or we were at another version of your blessing way, when Melina had her blessing way we weren't sure if her mom was going to be alive at the time and I traveled to California and we made a bunch of food and we had, like, the most incredible day and.

Ellie:

I got to meet your mom, cuddle on the couch with your mom. You and I got to like embrace and tremendous sobs afterwards. It was something I'm sure neither of us will ever forget and I had this kind of dream. I've had a lot of dreams recently and I had this dream of my mom when she was well like, being in your kitchen with your like, being in your kitchen with your mom, being in your kitchen with your mom, and I was talking to my mom about helping me make some food. And then, a couple of days later, my sister just texted me I miss mom. And I said, yeah, me too.

Ellie:

And I just happened to be sitting in the same chair that I'm sitting in now and for the first time, I was able to imagine her knowing my house like as if she were well, walking around my house, as if she knew it like the back of her hand, like she'd been here 5 million times, and hollering up the stairs to me while I was in my office and imagining sitting on the couch with her, which she probably sat on the couch with me 5 million times.

Ellie:

So that's probably why, but this is almost four years of never having imagined her so far in this space and one of the griefs being, when we bought this house, she'll never walking out of our old apartment a couple months after she died, she'll never know. Another home that I'll live in was so beautiful. Because, also, when you've seen someone deteriorate physically over time, it takes a long time to unravel those images and to um be receive the restored images of them and their vibrancy again and their radiance. And so you know, as we move forward, as you so beautifully spoke about like it's, there's this continued deepened relationship with grief that we welcome in, when we welcome in that spiral moving forward, not when we think of moving forward as like well, that happened and now I need to go this way.

Melina:

And something that's so beautiful about just witnessing you on your grief journey that I admire is all those griefs you mentioned, right, I mean that one that you just mentioned, yeah, like the griefs that I never heard anyone. I mean there's the grief of, like, losing this person is no longer here physically, and that's the one that a lot gets a lot of attention. And then there's so many others the changing family dynamics, the exactly what you mentioned, like my mom is not going to be here to see when I move, and that grief and all the little griefs like they're, they're just constantly knocking at the door. Yes, and we have a choice. We can push them away and say, no, not right now, which is valid Sometimes.

Melina:

That's what we need to do. We have I mean, I'm a mom, you know I can't let it all in all the time. I remember in the days after my mom died, like after I put my son to bed, I would just cry. I would just be like, okay, now's my time to cry Like he's in bed Cause I didn't have time, you know, I just couldn't during the day. So sometimes we do need to push it but it, like you said so beautifully, just taking even an hour. It doesn't have to be six days of silence, and for most of us that's not attainable, but just have a desirable.

Melina:

Yeah, and that's why I love ceremony too, because ceremony I think you would ask what sacred space means, and I love what you said about being heartfelt, intentional, and to me it's really honoring our grief. What keeps coming up is like honoring our grief as sacred. It's not something we need to move on from, it's not something we need to escape, it's not something we need to minimize or heal from or it's like no, we need to honor this. This is part of being a human being. This is sacred ground Like this is connecting us with life and and with our hearts and with our purpose and with our, you know, with our joy and our creativity and all of it. And to me, ceremony and dropping into these deep spaces is such a beautiful part of that. I mean you mentioned I've received beautiful visions. I've received so much from those, these kinds of spaces, and I need these spaces. And you know, if you're someone who's, I think, with grief, you and I talk about it's like no-transcript and just just be there, that's it and and and not say a word, like you're met and held, and I totally understand that it can feel scary and that's also why I think these loving containers are so needed, because sometimes you just need someone to hold you and it, when you are starting out, when you are like, where do I even begin with this? And like you and I fully trust that we trust in everyone who joins us that there's you're. You're exactly where you need to be and you're going to experience exactly what you need to experience, whether that's complete stillness, whether that's just a sense of ease and being held, whether that's tears, whether that's an idea it could be so many of these things and there's absolutely zero pressure to be feeling anything or doing anything and there's zero judgment. I think that is, there's zero expectations, and I think that those spaces are, are so needed to just be still to, to listen, as you said, to feel the body, to feel what's here and on the other side of the fear of oh my gosh, is what? If there's this thing that's gonna come and overtake me, which I've totally felt, there's just so much peace and there's so much, just more available when you're willing to be held, when you're willing to take a chance on something that you might be scared to, especially when you know that there's no expectation of anything you need to be feeling, and that's ironically. You know tea ceremony, which is part of our event is, is such a beautiful, has been such a beautiful ally for me and my grief journey.

Melina:

Um, and what I hear from people over and over again is because people come to ceremony and some cry the entire time, some sit in silence, some are like, yeah, I was thinking about my lunch, you know, like I was thinking about going to the farmer's market, like it, there's no expectation, you can, you can. Or sometimes people will say my mind was so active I couldn't really drop in. Or some people will say my mind was so active I couldn't really drop in. Or some people will say, oh, I dropped in the very last bowl. Or you know, I don't know. Like there's zero expectations and I think we just crave, we're craving spaces like that, where you're just, you can just come exactly as you are, but you're held in a really strong container.

Melina:

You know you and I are strong containers and I know that that. I mean, I don't even need to say that. I don't need to say it because it can be felt by everybody listening to this. And yeah, we don't this faces.

Ellie:

The spaces we hold are very multi-dimensional and well, just welcoming to the full being and experience. Did you? What? Were you remembered what you were going to say? Yeah, but then I thought of a note, so bring me back to. I want to talk about tea and my first experience with tea with you, because I I think that that might help kind of this exploration of tea, and I would love for you to talk about that more so.

Ellie:

What I was going to say earlier that I had forgotten was we've also talked a lot and I talked to clients about this a lot of the grief that nobody talks about, about any step in life you're taking and that person just not being there for it, and we talked about this with the houses. But it's really heartbreaking, it's really devastating to be it's its own, you know, its own. One of those instruments in the grief symphony is this devastation that, even though something can be so incredibly beautiful and joyous and good incredibly beautiful and joyous and good that whomever is there, whomever you've lost, is not going to be there with you in it. And I have worked with this with people that have gone through tremendous breakups where, just stepping into, actually they feel more authentically connected and more alive and more excited about their life than they've ever felt before. But they miss that. For even somebody that's still alive, they miss that person so much. Or it's so sad to imagine having a whole, nother life without them. And I know you and I have talked about just like it's so crazy and hard to imagine an entire lifetime of our moms not being here and an entire lifetime of like, yes, you are still in the first year.

Ellie:

In the first year there's so many firsts, like everything is a first, and on top of that you have a baby and he's living all of his firsts and you're living all of your firsts as a mother. And then it doesn't stop at the first year and a lot of times the first year is given this kind of time period of like, oh yeah, all of the firsts. And it's this, um, just you know, just like moving into my house, or like stepping into something beautiful, or you, you know. Or starting your business from a new place, like kind of creating the next iteration from your business from a new place. Or for me, when I have my children, or um, all of these things that are so incredibly beautiful that they won't be here to be living with us beautiful, that they won't be here to be living with us. It's incredibly heartbreaking every time it doesn't get better or easier.

Ellie:

And in order to walk with that, um, I think also another thing that ceremony offers us and tea offers us so beautifully is presence, and this attunement to presence and this is presence is really kind of at you know, again, going back to the symphony, it's like the through line of all grief stuff. The more we can attune ourselves to presence and learn um presence and invite ourselves into presence and welcome in presence and I could say a million things about using a million different words for that the more we experience that presence with our grief, the more we can say welcome into our life, to the life that's coming, and know that we are gonna meet everything with presence as it comes and in that, have space to meet the layers as they arise. And part of you know these, these sacred spaces, is the invitation to become like present, not only present with your eyes and your mind, and like this hyper focus. I'm squinting and putting like narrow, narrow vision focus with my hands. It's like this heart presence and this body presence and this like seated in your root and your womb presence and feeling body presence and this exceeded in your root and your womb presence and feeling your hips and letting everything be alive here now and just experiencing that and so going.

Ellie:

Moving to tea the first time that you shared tea with me and served me tea, it was at my house. You came to visit and we had never been together in person and we were both really looking forward to it. Such a great time. And I had heard you talk about tea but I hadn't really experienced, I didn't really know what to expect, and it was really beautiful and I want to reflect on this for the people that have never done quote unquote done tea before? Yeah, done tea, yeah.

Ellie:

Or experienced Done tea is a verb Experienced the ceremony that's what I say?

Melina:

No, I say done tea. Yeah, I know, it's so funny.

Ellie:

I know you and I say we did tea or whatever. We did tea or whatever, but ultimately what it and we've had many conversations about this too, because you've really shared this great exploration that you've been on for many years with me in the past year or so. But this kind of invitation to come present, to bring our focus here to this moment, to the tea, the tea representing and bringing us into this moment, and then allowing ourselves to receive the medicine of the tea, allowing ourselves to be in the practice of receiving, as we also, you know, sip our, you know offer it to ourselves through our hands, and to just be in the experience of letting something move into us and maybe through us. Sometimes, when I drink tea, it's almost like I can imagine the heat moving into me and like going into all of my you know channels and everything, and then I sweat a little bit. Or there's something moving out it's like a total through me experience bit or there's something moving out. It's like a total through me experience and in a way, that's a metaphor. You always say t is a metaphor for everything it's like, but it's also a metaphor for learning how to allow grief to move through like that and for it to hit and heat and touch all of these places in us and then come out in another form.

Ellie:

And so when you served me most days while you're here visiting, like the first day, I remember, yeah, my mind was wondering okay, what's this going to be like, what am I supposed to be doing? What am I, yeah, what are all these things? And then also receiving these messages, and then, over a couple of days of of doing this with you, receiving more and more messages, just feeling a really also deep connection to gratitude that I think can be hard to find in grief, really hard grief moments without that kind of sacred pause. And every time I've sat with you when you serve me, I think it has been a little bit more emotional and person like I've definitely there's definitely been tears. I've definitely received intuitive visions and messages, really beautiful ones, that have stuck with me. And when I sit by myself, now that I've learned and, you know, have, thanks to you, my own little set of things, I some days, this incredibly beautiful connection to my wholeness, to the energies, are alive in me and around me, and this, it's like the tea gently brought all of me and all of life online. And now for the rest of the day, I get to move from that place and so I'd love to for you, if you want to add whatever you want to add about tea ceremony.

Ellie:

But I just wanted to share somebody that was is new to tea and hasn't done a lot of the philosophical explorations of it or learns the technicalities of it like you have. I wanted to share a little bit about what that experience has been like for me. Um, and yeah, it's something that I feel like I can incorporate and sit with in and welcome into every part of my life, and so if maybe on the day we're doing sacred ground, you're not feeling ultra connected to your grief at the beginning, or maybe even through the entire thing, the tea will offer you whatever you need, you know, whatever is there, and the awesome thing about this not being a linear journey and those no expectations, as you were talking about, is like it's all great, it's all welcome, whatever that is yeah, thank you for sharing your experience and I'm so happy every time you text me your tea that you did tea.

Melina:

You're, like I sat with this tea, like, yes, it's so great, I love bringing people into tea and also, yeah, it's so beautiful. I always kind of see tea I love you have that vision of it like moving through your body. I really see it like moving through people, yeah, and like this, the fluidity of like it, just it touching the people it's meant to, and that there's no expectation around any of it. But then I always just love it, kind of it's slow, organic, unfurling and and to those who are called to it. And, yeah, tea is, I mean I could say so much about it, but really it is a beautiful space holder in and of itself. It's a beautiful medicine, it's a gentle medicine. Um, the teas that I drink, um, both ceremonially and, you know, casually but ceremonially are called living teas. So I recommend for anyone who's going to join us not required, but these teas, the specific types of teas, hold a really powerful energy, the plants themselves, energy, the plants themselves. And so we think of tea in the West, as you know, chamomile, and there's herbal tea and there's all these other teas, but the tea that I'm talking about is from the plant Camellia sinensis. They're tea trees. The teas that I drink ceremonially all come from China, certain regions of China, which is the birthplace of tea, where they have these tea trees, and the living teas have to meet many different criteria to be called living tea, so they're beyond organic. The trees are wild. The farmers have relationships with the trees, these trees are hundreds of years old, they're tended to really lovingly, and part of tea ceremony is the energy of all of it is important and the way the trees are treated, the way the farmers, the energy of the farmer, the energy of the person shipping the tea I mean all of it is part of the experience and the teaware and you know there's like endless stuff. But really, to just get started, the one thing I would recommend, if at all possible, is to purchase the living tea, and so two of the places to do that are Living Tea and Global Tea Hut, which I'm sure you'll link to um, because the energies of those teas have been so carefully and lovingly harvested and tended and that will really add. That's a big part. There's many parts of tea ceremony specifically, but that's the most important part is the tea, right, that's the most important part, where we all start, and so, if you're completely new, recommend doing that if possible.

Melina:

If you're sensitive to caffeine, we've, you know, I've put in our description a couple of teas that have been aged for many, many decades, so the caffeine levels are very low. I know you're sensitive to caffeine, so we've been testing some out, and so there's some that and these are not. The caffeine is still not going to be the same as a plantation tea or a regular tea bag, right, but these are like, again, really, the caffeine levels are. It tends to be just very clean and not, you know, crazy levels of energy, if that's something you're sensitive to. But, yeah, these specific teas all have such a different energy to them and, um, if not, you know, if you're not able to purchase, also, totally fine, you're more than welcome to join us, because the next aspect of this is just present, as you mentioned, is just like I hear from so many people and it is so hard to describe until you've experienced it like grief, right, yeah, it's like um, but what I hear from people constantly is wow, I did not know how much I needed to just sit here and sip this tea, like whether it's just hot water and lemon or hot water and mint, like anything, um, to have that experience of just being dropped in, to feel the warm water running through your body and just be present.

Melina:

And for me, a tea ceremony is so sensory and sensual, right, it's like the feeling of the bowl in my hands, the warm bowl, the steam rising, the sound of the water hitting the bowl, the leaves and if you're just starting, um, if you don't have any experience with tea ceremony, we're going to be doing leaves in a bowl, which is the simplest.

Melina:

You don't. All you need is a kettle of hot water and a bowl and some leaves. So we've put in the recommendation some keys that are a little bit larger leaves so that you can just place a few in the bowl and then you just put some hot water in the bowl. And what's so beautiful about leaves in the bowl? The simplest method? Um, it's just watching the leaves like, like, expand, and it's it's such a beautiful connection with the tea and the leaves themselves. Um, so that's what we're going to be doing in our ceremony. It's just super simple and, yeah, you don't need to know any of the technical aspects of it. It's really just about bringing presence to your cup, your bowl and seeing what's there, and there's so much more that can be explored from there, but that is. That's the basis of it.

Ellie:

Yeah, I was sitting with an oolong this morning that I've grown to really like I've tried it a couple times now called mercy, and I was observing the leaves in my bowl and how like tight and dry they looked. And then you know they're rolled, yeah, with every cup.

Ellie:

just I felt like this blossoming happening and it was really cool. I know that you and I could sit here for 5,000 hours and continue on and, yeah, maybe just do a moment to check in with if there's anything else you want to say to conclude no, I feel really complete.

Melina:

Um, do you want to share a little bit about sacred ground, or yeah, okay?

Ellie:

so on November 17th, melina and I are having our first sacred ground event, which is a ceremony for grief and growth, and the first 30 minutes of this time together will be a tea ceremony. It's all virtual so you can show up. It's a Sunday. You can show up from your home in a cozy place and experience this. You know the tea leaves the presence.

Ellie:

We'll have some time for meditation once we complete the tea and some musical explorations with our bodies, whether it be like somatic and intuitive guided movement, or whether you're already ready to write and express or some kind of expression wants to come out and I'll guide that after the meditation.

Ellie:

And then we'll have time to circle and come together and for gentle guidance and for connection and witnessing around anything that's moving for you, you want to share or anything you have questions about or want support around.

Ellie:

And I know we both know how rich and important the communal space, our friendship, is a tiny microcosm of the experience, of how powerful and necessary it is to be able to share our grief over and over and over again in sacred spaces, and I'm so like we have cultivated this together and I'm so excited to welcome people into the next evolution of it on a more public level, of being able to experience and receive the witnessing. I've just wrote my reflection. Actually it was in the program that you and I met in my first time being fully witnessed in community in my grief, after years of crying and having grief expressions that people, either you know, pitied me around or one of the leaders of another group, like because people weren't really grief literate or hadn't had these experiences themselves, or had had them but weren't in connection with their grief. The response was, I think Ellie just likes to cry and he was like no, I mean like I don't have anything.

Melina:

I don't have anything against crying.

Ellie:

Does it feel fun to sit here in front of 20 strangers at a retreat and, like bawl my eyes out? Not really, um, but I can't not do it because I can't. I'm unwilling to look away. You know, and I admire that so much about you, so to, I have learned over the years and you in your own way, like basically anything that could come from you in this experience will not scare us, could not scare us, and I am excited to just offer a space where you get to experience and receive whatever is there for you. So welcome and please join us in sacred ground.

Ellie:

We can't wait yeah can't wait Anything you want to add.

Melina:

Yeah, thank you so much for listening to this. Yeah, I love you so much, ellie, and it's an honor, absolute honor, to walk alongside you in life and grief and love and friendship and community. And I, ellie and I have. We had planned an event together. We've been wanting to do an event together for years and we had planned one and had a date and everything for last December and then my mom went into the hospital and was diagnosed with terminal cancer, so we, of course, lovingly set it aside and then it was not the time.

Melina:

I was deep into the void really until now, until about this month, when I have been feeling the call to come out and I am so honored to you know, ellie and I were like, all right, I think it's time, and so I'm just so honored to be offering this with you and so excited that it's time to offer it and I can't wait to see where it goes. And and, yeah, if you're feeling called to join us, we would love to have you at $33. So really accessible. And if you know, if that's not even accessible, like, please just let us know an email Hello at Ellie, flowcom or hello at Lena chairscom, and let us know we want it to be accessible and we'd love to have you and we can't wait to meet you and honor you and, yeah, just hold really beautiful space for you, um love you.

Ellie:

I love you too. It's gonna be so beautiful. We both know I'm smiling so big because I'm like. We both know we have so many future offerings coming and like it will be. This is so special because the first one- yeah, a year in the literal year, yeah.

Ellie:

And I think, around the date when we were going to have it, your mom was literally like almost, almost died those few days in the hospital. It was ended up being a very intense moment and yeah, I'm, yeah, I'm in awe of these journeys. I love you. Thank you for listening to transformed by grief. Please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe to the show and to share it with a loved one that needs this medicine today. If you are ready to deepen into your own transformed by grief process, you can join the sanctuary membership or work with me one-on-one at eliflowcom. See you soon.