Grief can feel like a stormy sea - dark, vast, dramatic, ferocious, bewildering, exhausting, unpredictable, wild, and endless. Grief, when it’s given the opportunity to speak and be heard, to be seen and supported, and to be tended to with kindness and compassion, can change how the sea of grief feels and moves within you.
You don’t have to grieve alone.
And yet so many of us feel like we do or we need to because no one will really understand what we’re going through. While every person’s grief and their grieving process is unlike any one else’s, we all share a common thread that connects us to and with each other.
We have all experienced some form of loss, pain, and sorrow in our lives.
I’m sorry you may be grieving, but I am not sorry you have found your way here. Here, you will find a safe and welcoming place where grief and all of its accompanying emotions and feelings have a voice. Here, grief is not something to ‘get over’ or ‘move on from’, but to ‘be with.’ Here, grief is acknowledged, honored, and accepted as much as love is - they are both significant experiences of being human.
You can find comfort and companionship here.
Being a human is brutal at times. It can be especially hard when we’re grieving and we feel we aren’t being seen, heard, understood, and known by others. Sometimes the people we’re closest to are unable to be with us and that can feel like another loss that’s hard to bear alone. Sharing our sorrows is one of the ways healing begins to happen.
Mourning is the medicine we make together for ourselves and for each other.
Why subscribe to Salt Water Alchemy?
You will feel supported by the unique and therapeutic ways support is offered here through these alchemical forms of salt water; sweat (movement and music), tears (stories and experiences), and the sea (images and poetry).
You appreciate intimate stories, honest expressions, and vulnerable conversations.
You will find value in the variety of resources on grief that are shared.
You care about your own healing, well-being, and life force and you’re curious about the experiences of others.
You can participate as little or as much as you’re moved to do so in the community that’s created here.
Currently, subscriptions are free and all published content is available. Paid subscriptions with additional benefits (monthly gatherings, music playlists, and more) will begin soon.
Who is Lila Danielle?
Dancing Poet. Experience Artist. Grief Tender.
I’ve been writing and dancing since I was a small child filled with wonder and delight about pretty much everything. I began facilitating movement-based events and experiences in my early thirties. I’ve just recently begun offering embodied and expressive arts griefwork. (Here is where you can read more about who I am, what I created, and how I work with others, if you’re interested.)
Salt Water Alchemy was created in part because of my own experiences with grief and love. I am emerging from a four-year period of deep sorrow that resulted after a deep love of sixteen years ended very badly. Through my own sweat, tears, and time spent living by the sea, salt water has been one of my primary sources of support and healing. While my grief has ebbed and flowed, salt water has been a steady companion, a saving grace, and an essential part of my life that reminds me I am mostly made of water, like the sea which is fluid, forever changing, and free.
The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea.
-Isak Dinesen
I love what Dinesen had to say about salt water, but I disagree with her statement. The cure for anything isn’t salt water. There simply isn’t one cure for anything and everything. I believe you are the best medicine for your grief. I also believe real healing happens when we accept that grief, like love, isn’t something that ever goes away. They remain to teach and transform us in ways we never could have possibly imagined.
I’d love to have you join me here as we share our stories and humanity with each other as well as expand our capacity to be with both the fierce and tender nature of grief in our own lives, in other’s lives, and in the world. Together, we can practice the art of being human with one another through deep listening and presence, mindful attention and witnessing, and kind gestures and generosity of spirit. We are mirrors for one another, reflecting what we most want - to be seen, to be heard, to be understood, and to be known.
♥️ Lila
