how is your heart grieving?

hello, friends. earlier this year i hosted a ten-week grief container called river styx, and it was one of the most beautiful, nourishing, powerful spaces i've ever been a part of. a group of grievers came together with tenderness, vulnerability, and deep sensitivity, sharing their grief and offering their hearts to one another, and it was both profoundly healing and a necessary reminder that grief is not something we fix: it's something we learn to attend to.

in october, i'm going to be facilitating this experience again, and i'd love to invite you to join us. i'd also like to share a few other ways that you can engage with your grief — in community spaces, with your tarot cards, and on your own, so i'll be sharing a few more newsletters this month with thoughts, exercises, tarot spreads, and invitations, all about tending and understanding your grief.

if you want to read what i've written about grief in the past, click here.

grief impacts all of us, even if we don't realize it. the recent deaths of beloved artists like dolly parton and tim curry have highlighted for so many of us how collective grief is experienced — not just through grappling with the horrific effects of climate change, or the AI tech bros who are trying to destroy everybody, but through collective loss and the ways that we navigate it.

yet in spite of all of the terrible, brutal things that are happening in our world right now, a lot of us seem certain that we should still be acting "normal" somehow: still holding ourselves to old standards, still treating ourselves with zero compassion, still expecting ourselves to be wildly productive.

i've talked to so many people who insist that if they were just stronger, braver, more energetic, more optimistic, more organized, they could surely handle the endless onslaught of pain and violence and injustice that we are all witnessing and experiencing. they treat this systemic collapse and endless series of institutional and cultural failures not as a collective issue, but as a personal shortcoming. and it's not uncommon for me to try to gently, compassionately, lovingly suggest that the exhaustion and overwhelm and frustration and anger that they're feeling, the guilt and shame that they're carrying, is actually grief.

this is not a gotcha. it's not meant to be an insult, or a trick, or a trap. it's meant to help you understand why things feel so heavy and hard, why you might be struggling, why we all have the same look on our face when there's another major loss or catastrophe or hideous policy change. we're all grieving.

if you are engaging with this world in an authentic and open way, if you are paying attention to what is happening to your neighbors and communities both locally and worldwide, if you have an empathetic and compassionate spirit, you are also grieving — whether you acknowledge it or not.

so my questions for you, to start to consider for yourself: how is your heart grieving? what does grief look like for you right now? what shape does your grief take? how is it showing up? and what is it costing you to hold your grief in whatever way you're holding it?

sometimes, grief just feels like heaviness — exhaustion, numbness, the sensation of everything taking three times as much energy as it used to. other times grief feels sharper, more acute, is accompanied by more external expressions of sorrow like tears, anger, restlessness, or irritability. and of course, for many of us grief simply has to be compartmentalized, tucked away in a neat little box within our hearts, with all of the other things that feel like too much to process.

and i get it, i really do. it can feel easier to shove our grief to the side, to try and keep it tidy and orderly, to insist that we're fine and can carry on as usual. but nothing about this world is usual anymore, from the climate crisis to AI data centers to long COVID denial to rising costs of everything, from strange fruit and ICE abductions and concentration camps and our increasingly deranged mad pedophile king of a president, there is so much to grieve, so much to feel.

the challenge, of course, is that grief doesn't simply disappear when we tuck it away. over time it grows even heavier, takes up even more space, demands even more energy to keep it at bay. and if you find yourself feeling overwhelmed and drained every single day, if you're struggling to stay hopeful or dream of a future that isn't utterly grim, grief work can be an absolute gamechanger.

but where do we even start? how do we even begin to make space in our lives for grief? and with everything feeling so heavy, why should grief work be a priority?

we start slowly, friends. we start gently. we start gradually, patiently, graciously. we start with curiosity and compassion, with tenderness and sweetness, with thoughtful questions and intentional boundaries.

we don't go crashing into our grief at full velocity, with no breaks and no buffer zones. we don't give diving into our grief headfirst, without life jackets or buddies. we don't force ourselves to engage with our grief at a breakneck pace, without a plan or a support system.

instead we dip our toes into the water, and see how it feels. we trace the surface, get our fingertips wet, observe the ripples. we walk along the edges and the riverbanks, observe the flows and currents, note when the waters swell and when they retreat.

and we don't do it alone — we do it with a guide, a companion, a ferryman.

the river of grief, our river styx, is not something that we have to wade into or attempt to cross by ourselves. instead it's something that we visit, again and again, through readings and reflections and conversations and discoveries, through sharing and listening and holding space, through practice.

your grief is not the enemy: it's a part of you that is crying out for care.

and once we learn how to identify our grief, once we understand how to listen to our grief, once we make a habit of sitting with our grief, it starts to feel less scary. it starts to tell us what it needs. it starts to feel less like a problem to solve and more like a piece of ourselves that we get to fall in love with.

the best part? there are so many ways to engage with our grief — and tarot makes a beautiful, potent, gentle and clear-eyed companion. tarot is the perfect ferryman to help us see our grief clearly, and to guide us through the challenges that navigating grief can bring.

and if you've been feeling isolated in your grief, tarot — and community — can help you learn to find the flow of grief with more ease.

this is the part where i tell you about how i can help you use tarot to engage with your grief, beyond the tarot spreads i've shared above (and the many spreads, essays, and resources that i've offered throughout the years on this very topic).

the big thing, the main thing, is that river styx is coming back. this ten-week collective grief container is for tender-hearted badasses who want to believe in the future again. we use tarot, journaling, and private community conversations to transmute our grief for the world into bold action and fierce hope — without drowning in overwhelm, helplessness, or fear.

this program will begin on october 4th, and opens for enrollment on september 27th. learn more, read testimonials from fellow grievers, and get on the waitlist here to be notified when the doors open.

but if you'd like to start with something smaller, i'm also bringing back my mini introduction-to-grief container styx & stones. this six-day experience takes place in my private discord and is designed as a very gentle starting place for learning how to listen to your grief. if you've never done grief work before and you're thinking about river styx, this is a low-stakes, community-supported place to dip your toes in. styx & stones runs from september 20th-26th, and you can sign up right here. (paid subscribers, scroll to the bottom for a discount code on styx & stones — my way of saying thank you for being here and supporting my work!)

and finally, i'm also running another free tarot for grief journaling event on september 27th — sign up here! this 90-minute live space is open to anyone, but serves as both a wrap-up for styx & stones and a launch day event for river styx. we'll discuss what grief can look and feel like, i'll offer some spreads and journaling prompts, and you'll have time to use your cards to interact with your grief in a supported place. save your spot right here.

questions? wondering if river styx or my grief spaces in general might be a good fit for you? feel free to email me at 3am.tarot@gmail.com — i'd be happy to chat with you. and if you've got specific questions about river styx or want to talk further about the program, i'll also be hosting a free river styx open house on october 1st — register here.

wherever this work finds you, whatever you feel right now — let’s tend our grieving hearts together.

river styx is for tenderhearted badasses who want to believe in the future again. if you want to learn how to transmute your grief for the world into bold action and fierce hope — without drowning in overwhelm, helplessness, or fear — then this is the program for you.

this is a ten-week, self-paced, resilience-oriented community grief container that includes:

• original audio lessons (including transcripts) delivered straight to your inbox each week, based on the tried-and-true ten-step framework developed by good grief network’s laura schmidt and aimee lewis reau
• recommended tarot cards to work with alongside your lessons, along with new spreads and accessible exercises for tarot readers of any level
• journaling prompts for personal reflection, introspection, and discovery
• suggested somatic exercises to stay grounded, stable, and present
• a library of resources for creating your own personal support plan
• a private digital discord community for sharing, encouragement, and ongoing support
• accountability tools for helping you continue to show up to the work
• five live zoom meetups for checking in and practicing community building
• lifetime access to course content and our co-created grief community
• the flexibility to engage with lessons based on your own schedule and timeline, along with gentle reminders to honor your capacity and personal needs

the program costs $666 or three monthly payments of $222. a higher solidarity rate of $888 is available for participants who are in a financial position to support scholarships for marginalized students.

join the waitlist now to be notified when the program opens on september 27th — doors close october 3rd, and river styx officially begins with the first email lesson on october 4th, 2026.

let’s tend our grieving hearts together.