Life’s Poetry The Tending
A 6 month group experience exploring life through the lens of grief
The highlights:
6 months journeying together to explore the intimacy of life and grief
Meeting most Mondays 5-7pm BST/GMT, October through to March 2027
There are 30 places available
Cost is £1800 with 5 places for lower fees
When we allow the deep waters of grief, it brings us closer to life
Life’s Poetry starts on 12th October 2026
In our culture grief is hidden in the shadows, it’s deeply suppressed. Life’s Poetry seeks to bring you into a different relationship with life through the profound wisdom of grief.
In these difficult and challenging times, turning towards our grief has never been more necessary.
We come together in this six month holding to explore grief in all its ways. We’re living in a complex and devastating world where our lives are impacted by grief every day.
That’s not to say that life isn’t beautiful too, it is, but perhaps you can feel the sense of grief that is here, touching us, asking for us to take notice.
What can our grief show us in these times?
What wisdom may grief have for us, both personally and collectively?
What may grief open up and reveal within us?
How might we come together and not only tend to our grief but the world we’re living in?
Grief can be devastating, I know it’s pain. But I also believe in it. I trust grief to show us the way, to open us to our own humanity and the humanity of others.
Grief is part of what it is to be human. But all too often it’s diminished in our society, by the systems we live in, and because of this, those we love too. Grief is what it is to be alive. There’s no doubt that when we’re feeling and experiencing grief we are alive. Even amongst the pain, especially amongst the pain.
Life’s Poetry invites you to come and practice what it is to be human in this world, to practice the ways of grief.
We can start to build an ongoing and everlasting relationship with grief, that doesn’t contain or control its vastness, and may just bring you closer to life.
Life’s Poetry invites in all of life - grief and beauty, life and death, poetry and words, me and you and them, human and our more than human world. My grief, your grief and their grief.
Right now our grief, and our attention, is vital.
Life’s Poetry is the practice of being human
The details of the programme
Life’s Poetry asks grief to show us the way. We use grief to reimagine the world we’re living in, to reimagine the relationships we have with ourselves, with others and the world itself.
It’s informed by Francis Weller’s Five Gates of Grief (please see below for the current context of this) and the Sixth Gate of Grief that has emerged from his work (from Holly Truhlar, Rachael Rice + Desiree Adaway).
Life’s Poetry deepens into the practice of being human during the times we’re living in.
We will use a combination teaching, practices, sharing, and ritual to explore grief in this way.
We will meet on Mondays at 5pm BST/GMT (we have one session on a Thursday before we take a break over Christmas)
All calls will be 2 hours in length. The teaching sessions will be recorded, the sharing and ritual sessions won’t be recorded. Live participation is necessary.
Life’s Poetry will be hosted on The Portal which is a community space, we’ll use this space to deepen our work and our community in-between our live calls.
Grief will show us the way
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Coming together
The journey begins
Together we’ll lay the foundations of community, explore the landscape & context of grief, and set intentions.
Mon 12th Oct - Coming together
Mon 19th Oct - Laying the Foundations + Setting Intentions
Mon 26th Oct - TBC*Clocks changes in the UK on 25th Oct so there will be a time difference for those in different timezones
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Loss
Creating an ongoing and everlasting relationship with grief
To welcome in the threads of grief is to come into this deep intimacy with life. We’ll get to know the ways of grief, how it may be held, how it changes who we are, and how to deepen into relationship with grief. Who are we in the shape of our grief? We’ll also explore how we’re changed by acute loss.Mon 2nd Nov - Teaching
Mon 9th Nov - Practice + Sharing
Mon 16th Nov - Ritual -
Colouring outside the lines
The messiness of what it is to be human
Breaking the shackles of shame. Shame can often come up as part of what it is to grieve, because grief is wild and immense. Shame diminishes who we are, and when we come to face this we feel the echos of grief for all that we’ve lost within ourselves. Informed by the second gate of grief.Mon 23rd Nov - Teaching
Mon 30th Nov - Practice + Sharing
Mon 7th Dec - Ritual -
Our World
Coming to collective grief and the context of the world we’re living in
There is a collective grief we are all experiencing at the moment, as we watch the conflict of the world, the systems of capitalism and oppression and the impact to our Earth. The context of the world also shapes our grief. Here there is a distinct movement from I and me to us and we - and how we turn towards collective grief.
Mon 14th Dec - Teaching
Thurs 17th Dec - Practice + Sharing
Mon 21st Dec - Ritual -
Maturation
Restoring culture + creating new worlds
Expanding on the fourth gate of grief - what we expected but did not receive - we’ll explore the grief that comes for the world we haven’t experienced. We’ll take this further and look at how we create all that we expected. How we may create new worlds and places where we can be together, where we can foster belonging and do life differently. What is the necessary maturation that needs to happen as part of this?
Mon 11th Jan - Teaching
Mon 18th Jan - Practice + sharing
Mon 25th Jan - Ritual -
Ancestral Reverence + Beauty
Changing relationships in life and death
When someone we love dies we believe it’s the end, what if it isn’t? It is possible to change the relationship we had with a loved one even in death. Here we will explore what it is to build a relationship with our ancestors and tend to the grief they carry. We will also look to the more than human world in the ways of relationship and beauty.
Mon 1st Feb - Teaching
Mon 8th Feb - Practice + Sharing
Mon 22nd Feb - Ritual -
Reimagining the relational
Rupture, repair + truth
So much grief resides in our relationships and the relational field. Longing for something different, different ways to honour the ending of a friendship, a rupture with a loved one. What is it to be in relationship in a different way? How might we hold complexity in what it is to be human? How do we speak truth and stay in the difficulty? Exploring the sixth gate of grief - the harms we’ve caused.
Mon 1st Mar - Teaching + Ritual (Co-facilitated with Holly Truhlar)
Mon 8th Mar - Sharing + Harvesting -
Completion
Completion with intention
We will use everything we’ve learnt about grief, endings and ritual to complete our time together and our journey together.
Mon 15th Mar - Completion + Ritual
*Daylight saving time starts on 14th March in the US but not in the UK so there will be a time difference here for those on different timezones
Optional Integration Call on Monday 19th April
The Elements of Life’s Poetry
Coming Together
We were never meant to grieve alone, we were never meant to do life alone. This is a grief in and of itself. This is why we come together, this is why we come to Life’s Poetry as a group, where there’s the possibility of building relationship and kinship. Sophie, a past participant says it best - Knowing you in a way that some people never dare to know one another.
We create Life’s Poetry together. It is different every year, because those who come are different and that’s the beauty.
Practices
There are many different ways we can hold our grief and ourselves. We will explore practices that can hold the immensity of grief and help build the foundations necessary to be human. My hope is that these go some way to restoring culture too. We will explore, writing, poetry, creativity, imagination, storytelling, our voices, the body, our breath, nature and beauty.
We won’t forget the practice of beauty during our time together. How we might come to beauty in times of sorrow.
Ritual
In our world we often prioritise knowledge and intellect above all else. We can spend years trying to figure our grief out. Grief needs more than this, more movement, more grace, more mystery. There are many ways to alchemise our pain and grief, to tend to what’s needed - this is why I offer ritual as part of Life’s Poetry. In Ritual we may meet ourselves and our grief in a different way.
Ritual is the sacred act of remembering.
Holly Truhlar
On Monday the 1st March 2027 we’ll be joined by another of my teachers and someone who is a trusted colleague in the field and landscape of grief, Holly Truhlar.
Holly is steadfast in her commitment to politicised grief in a way that inspires me greatly. Together we will be reimagining the relational. Never more needed than in these times. We will explore the depth of her work that comes through the sixth gate of grief - the harms we’ve caused.
We will weave teaching and ritual together in this unique session.
Holly is a collapse psychologist, politicised grief tender, and soul activist. Her body of work is a remembering and revisioning of what it means to be people of potency and culture, and she does this in extraordinary ways.
A note addressing Francis Weller
Francis was due to join us on Monday 26th October. This plan is now in flux as I take time to process recent developments in relation to his conduct and the impact on those involved, and await a response from Francis.
I’m practising holding humanity as we seek appropriate accountability and tend to the collective rupture in our lineage and field.
I’ll provide updates about this as Life’s Poetry The Tending comes closer, holding the psychological safety of participants is central in my decision making. If you’d like to speak to me about this, you can book a call with me.
My hope through life’s Poetry is that we’ll create a place of belonging where we can meet ourselves and life - in all it’s messy glory, in the immensity of our grief.
When I’m with others in grief, it’s the most alive I feel, grief brings us to aliveness - this is the invitation of Life’s Poetry.
Appreciation for Life’s Poetry
Come and join us
Coming into Life’s Poetry may take courage. Fear and resistance is completely normal, as well as jumping in with two feet. I’m here to support you every step of the way.
There are 30 spaces available, the aim of this journey is to be intimate and explore the inner landscape of who we are, as well as the systems and world we live in. This number of participants is designed to give space for this.
Pay in full
The full cost of this programme is £1800. You can pay in full or you can choose monthly instalments.
Payment Plan
You can pay in monthly instalments at no extra cost. If you need a longer payment plan get in touch.
Lower Fees + Scholarship Fund
I aim to remove barriers to participation, particularly for those in marginalised identities and communities, and therefore offer lower fee places and longer payment plans for those who need it. If you know you want to do this programme and need support, please get in touch. There are five lower fee places available.
The lower fee options are £1500 and £1200, with payment plans available. if this is still prohibitive, please let me know.
If you’re in a position to pay more to support lower fees or scholarship places, you can support the scholarship fund.
Email me at nicola@nicoladuffell.com. Everyone is welcome.
Life’s Poety Rooted