About
When we bypass grief, we bypass love—so let's be with it, shall we?
Meet me
Welcome, I'm Tasha
I have worked very, very hard, to get here. I come to this work with a decade of experience of tending the portals of birth and death. I come to this work with a deep personal spiritual path and practice. I come to this work after years of sitting in devotion and awe of grief through my own incredibly deep and painful losses. I come to this work after hundreds of hours of professional training and self study to learn all the ways I can show up and be the most present and skillful helper as possible. I come to this work as a human being who knows that even though this is some of the heart wrenching, hardest, and most grueling work one can do- it is my work, my dharma, my truth, it is why I am here. To create beauty through these portals of pain, to gather, to hold, to witness & to trust that the greatest gifts in life are those of love, and those of death.
My work is firmly rooted in the continuing bonds theory and in ceremony. I call on the elements, earth and unseen beings and realms to support us as we journey into the underworld to create rituals to honor, remember, metabolize and be with our grief. I work beyond the veil and call forth the healthy and luminous ancestors to be with us.
I am passionate about supporting teens and young adults in parent loss. Pregnant women navigating loss of loved ones, parentless parents, and traumatic losses such as suicide, over dose and missing persons. In person retreats, circles and gatherings are among my favorite elements along with supporting people 1:1.
Beyond my grief work offered here I am a mother, writer, herbalist, birth worker, singer, and much more. I currently reside on Hawai’i island with my partner, 3 year old daughter and another child on the way in spring of 2024. In my free time I am writing, drinking herbal tea, taking baths, swimming in the turquoise warm waters and loving my roles of partner, mama and matriarch.
My parents are the bedrock of this work. My mother died when I was 21 after many years of battling deep trauma, addiction, mental and physical illness which spanned most of my life. I was her death midwife without even knowing what that was, giving her permission and saying my final goodbye to her in the hospital, she died 4 hours later. My father died very traumatically when I was 5 months pregnant with my daughter. His body was missing for many weeks until he was found in a river on the east coast while I was navigating pregnancy, living abroad and a few months later the pandemic. I am still digesting their deaths, and I will be for the rest of my life.
Education & Experience
Professional Trainings
- Trauma-informed Grief Support professional training - Shauna Janz 2023
- Loss through Death Support Group facilitator training, Grief level I, Living through Loss Counseling Society 2020
- Roots to Resiliency - Grief companioning training with Shauna Janz 2020
- Traumatic Loss Support Group facilitator training, BC Bereavement 2021
- Holding Space for Pregnancy Loss training, Birth Breath and Death Foundation by Amy Wright Glenn 2021
- Motherloss Certification, Claire Bidwell Smith 2024
- Continuing Bonds in Grief Therapy and Counseling - Association for Death Education and Counseling 2022
- Polyvagal Theory - Deb Dana LCSW 2022
- “What’s Your Grief” Continuing Education Professional Workshops
- Ambiguous Loss, Continuing Bonds, Grief Theory, Addiction and Overdose
- Children’s Grief, Ethics Personal Loss, and Countertransference
Bachelor of Arts in Human Development - concentration in gerontology
University of California East Bay
Thesis “Perspectives and grief experiences of young adults on parent loss”
Work Experience
- Hospice of Kona, Hawai’i Island - Grief counselor (currently on leave while pregnant)
- Coastal Kids Homecare - Grief group facilitator
- Kara - Grief Agency in Palo Alto, Volunteer
- Young Adult Group Facilitator/Peer Counselor/Camp Kara Youth Bereavement Counselor
- Owner and Operator, Arose Herbal Teas (formerly The Tea Tree Herb Co)
Herbal Medicine/ Birthwork
- Science and Art of Herbal Medicine, Rosemary Gladstar Distance Herbal Program - 2013
- California School of Herbal Studies - Body Systems 9-Month Program - 2014
- Advanced Community Herbalist Certification - Holly Bellebouno - 2017
- Herbal Medicine for Women Professional Course - Aviva Romm MD 2016
- Herbs + the Nervous System 6-Week Course, AHG - David Winston 2015
- Certified Holistic Doula Training - Sierra Childbirth Institute 2014 (DONA)
- Breastfeeding Basics - DONA Approved 2014
- Postpartum Doula Training - DONA 2016
- 5-Week Midwifery Student Volunteer, Bumi Wadah Robin Lim’s Clinic in Dulag, Philippines 2016
- 200-Hour Yoga Teacher Training - The Lotus Seed, Portland Oregon 2016
What does “tending to grief” mean?
It means so many things and looks so many ways. But some of my definitions include: Showing up in true presence to sit at the altar of loss and sorrow. It means making time and space for what is yearning to be felt. For these immense losses to be acknowledged. Tending to grief means making this a practice and an honoring. To grow into a new relationship with your beloved dead. To remember them, to carry them forward.
Tending to grief means letting go of the dominant cultural lie we continuously are fed that we need to let go of these people and that death and grief is something we are meant to just “get over”. It means carving out intentional time to connect with them. To go into the landscape of your memory, study the lines on the faces of the ones that you loved so dear and invite them to reveal themselves now in other ways. It means allowing your tears to fall and fertilize the soil, the land, the rivers, and oceans that are near. To call upon the earth and the land to hold you.
Tending to grief means to recognize the preciousness and the greatness of your love. It means to light a candle in the dark. To be in the marrow and bones of your heartbreak for it is simply a reflection of your profound, unconditional, love.
It means being held in your joy and your love for life because you are intimately connected with the fact that it is all so fleeting and impermanent. Tending to grief is to be open to the immense suffering and impermanence that this life has promised us. And to the boundless graciousness and beauty of it too.
I hope you will join me here on the journey With great love, and great grief
xoxo
—Tasha
