Grief Magic: Rituals, Tarot & Gentle Conversations about Loss

Happy New Year! I wanted to share a few small and gentle rituals for the beginning of 2026, little ways to mark this moment without rushing toward big resolutions or putting pressure on ourselves to reinvent everything overnight.I am still hibernating over here, so all I am trying to do is to prepare the soil for what will grow later in the year.I’ll walk you through a few of my favourite winter rituals: clearing and tending to your home, creating more space in your calendar, and checking in with friends who might need extra care this season. I’ll also share a reflection practice around defining your own sense of enoughness so you can move into the year with a little more peace and clarity.Finally, I’ll guide you through a simple ritual of writing a prayer for the year or the season ahead. It can be something short and personal that you keep close to remind yourself of what you most want to feel.This is also an invitation to join the winter season of our weekly glimmer sessions. These are beautiful drop ins on a Monday where you can be creative or do little rituals with other like minded people who want to begin the week (and the year) as they mean to go on: https://griefmagic.com/blessings/Thanks for listening,Yarrow

In this solo episode of Grief Magic, I share some gentle reflections on protecting your time and energy in the year ahead, so there’s room for meaningful connection with your grief, your body, and your creativity.I talk about how we can be intentional with the spaces we inhabit, both physical and digital, and create an environment that supports healing and rest. You’ll hear about:Making physical space in your home by decluttering gently and reconnecting with what you already haveReviewing spending and prioritising experiences and community over buying new thingsCurating your digital world by choosing what you engage with and using blockers or breaks to make space for stillnessSpending social time more intentionally and finding joy in making things togetherAsking what your grief actually needs from you right now, and creating rituals that allow it to move through you with tendernessThis episode is also an invitation to join the winter season of glimmer sessions, which start next week: https://griefmagic.com/blessings/ This is a beautiful space for creativity and renewal and there are sliding scale options available. We would love to have you!Thanks for listening,Yarrow

I wanted to close out the year with one more solo episode, talking about how I am celebrating and keeping things soft and simple. I am also sharing ideas for including loved ones we lost into our rituals, setting boundaries with family and making travelling more comfortable. Finally, there are some rituals for the winter solstice and a Rauhnaechste practice I am doing in here. Whatever you are up to, I hope you are ending the year with lots of rest and permission to dream. ✨ The Winter Glimmer Sessions begin in early January: weekly creative and ritual circles where we can rest, create, and tend to our inner worlds together. You can find all the details at https://glimmerportal.com/blessings/Love,Yarrow

Misha of Hafez Death Care, my guest for today's episode, has a really beautiful podcast I hope you will check out too - it's called Halva for the Heart and I was honoured to be on episode 14. In this conversation for Grief Magic, we went both deep and wide into some really meaningful topics that I hope you'll enjoy too: Dying and grieving in diasporaSmall and big rituals that help us navigate lossesListening to our bodies in the face of deathContinuing connections with people we have lost Misha (she/he/they) is an Iranian-American death doula and grief tender whose work honors the sacredness of death and the political power of mourning. Their path into this calling began at the tender age of twenty, when they were blessed with the gift of witnessing their mother’s death. Today, through Hafez Death Care, Misha offers culturally-rooted, anti-imperialist support for dying people and their loved ones before, during, and after the dying process.They also provide grief tending for personal, collective, and ancestral grief, teaching that grief is both an emotional process and an act of resistance. They facilitate community grief events, offer one-on-one death midwifery and grief support, and host Halva for the Heart, a podcast exploring death and grief through a diasporic lens. Misha’s work is grounded in the belief that by caring for our Dying and tending to our grief in community, we strengthen our movements for justice and deepen our capacity for collective care.https://hafezdeathcare.com/You are invited to join the Winter Magic retreat here: https://glimmerportal.com/tarot-for-grief-winter-solstice-retreat/Thanks for listening!Love,Yarrow

I loved the chance to talk to Alexis Cunningfolk again - we did an interview back in 2019 for episode #82 (in the before times!) and now got to catch up about their new book and expansive, beautiful and inspiring magic. Here is some of what we covered:Building a collective library of plants, magic & spellsEconomic justice & supporting access to community education Slowing down and setting a place for grief at the tableBuilding sustainable and magical creative practicesAlexis J. Cunningfolk is creating plant-led spaces of healing because none of us are meant to do this work alone. Practicing as an intersectional herbalist for over fifteen years and as a witch for nearly three decades, her work has led her around the country, presenting at various magickal, herbal, and academic conferences, as well as facilitating rituals for groups ranging from a handful of folks to hundreds. Alexis focuses on evidence-based and embodied plant healing while drawing on her experiences as a lesbian, a woman of mixed ancestry, and a third culture kid to create practices that help folks re-enchant their world and call themselves back home to their bodies. In addition to working with plants, she has been reading tarot since she was twelve, teaching since she was nineteen, and sneaking off to places in-between since she could walk. Alexis offers much of her work for free or low-cost, wild seeding wisdom as an act of gratitude and a spell of collective liberation.Find her work at www.wortsandcunning.com.Join my virtual winter solstice tarot retreat over here: https://glimmerportal.com/tarot-for-grief-winter-solstice-retreat/Thank you for listening!Love,Yarrow