often shaping our emotional and physical landscapes in ways we don’t fully understand. In ancient traditions, grief was not something to be fixed or avoided; it was something to be honoured, held, and witnessed. Our ancestors cultures understood that loss, change, and grief are natural parts of the human experience and that true healing comes from feeling grief fully—expressing it, allowing it to move through us, and sharing it with others. They created rituals and spaces where grief could be held with reverence, ensuring that those in mourning were supported by their communities, not left to navigate their pain in isolation. In contrast, many of us, particularly those who come from European settler lineages on Turtle Island, have inherited a culture of emotional suppression. Generations of trauma, both personal and collective, have fostered an environment where grief is often hidden or ignored, leaving individuals to suffer in silence. This disconnection from the wisdom of our ancestors and the practices that once allowed us to live with loss in a soulful way has left many of us adrift, struggling to make sense of our emotions and how to heal.

The modern challenge is that we are increasingly isolated in our grief, caught in a cultural paradigm that values individualism over community, and where emotional expression is often stigmatized. In this context, grief is pushed down, dismissed, or even pathologized, preventing us from fully experiencing the depths of our emotional lives. This suppression keeps us from living authentically and from embracing our full humanity. To live a soulful life is to live with imagination, creativity, and a deep connection to the emotions that make us whole. We must reclaim the wisdom of the ancients who knew that grief, when witnessed, can be transformative. By reawakening soulful practices that honor loss, we can bring imagination back into our lives—not just to heal grief, but to restore our connection to each other and to the world. In the process, we open the doors to a more vibrant, whole existence where grief is not something to be feared but something to be held, processed, and ultimately integrated into our story as a source of strength and resilience.