"Facilitation is triage now" -NB

What does it mean to lead group spaces in a world that feels increasingly raw, volatile, and grief-saturated?

Melissa and Narinder sit down as artists, death workers and teachers to talk about how the role of the facilitator is changing, and why many space-holders are feeling exhausted and under impossible pressure.

We talk:

• the collapse of the Spiritual Teacher archetype
• the rise of grief-literate communities
• entitlement dynamics in healing spaces
• discernment vs hypervigilance
• boundaries for facilitators
• the difference between authority and domination
• how facilitators can survive this era without burning out
• grief as a portal to joy
• why artistic practice is a potent container for grief

This episode is for anyone who holds space for others: teachers, grief workers, artists, coaches, therapists, facilitors and community organizers and leaders.

✨ Magic Links:

🪞 Narinder Bazen’s Nine Keys School of Death Arts

🌷 Flowers on a Table (Narinder’s upcoming course)

🫧 Join Devotion Mode — Melissa’s monthly snail-mail art club:

Each month, readers receive art in the mail: postcard prints, drawings, and writing that’s cooked up in the studio that month. A tactile antidote to the algorithm. Go slow, touch paper.

Stay Connected —

• Follow Melissa’s Instagram for hot art memes
• Join Melissa’s weeklyish newsletter for creative musings and studio news

Big thanks to Ben Coleman for composing our theme music, and Gavin Bernard for vocals

When you find yourself more and more interested in non-ordinary states of consciousness and cultivating a deep relationship to Divine Intelligence, but have spent a dizzying amount of time apologizing, downplaying, or sanitizing your visions, gifts and ‘out-there’ theories on reality, my friend, you may be hauling around the Mystic’s Grief.

Let’s sort through some of that, shall we?

Grief Threads winter edition begins February 23 - are you in?

Five weeks of cozy sewing and intuitive quilting while getting about the grief stored in our hearts and bodies.

Work with Narinder 1:1 or learn about her Death Midwifery Training.

10/10 recommend!

Book 1:1 Creative Coaching time with Melissa

Free Resources —

• Download Attention Reset - my free digital art zine on getting outta your head and into your body

Stay Connected —

• Follow Melissa’s Instagram for hot spirit memes
• Join Melissa’s weeklyish newsletter for creative musings and first dibs on workshops and art

Big thanks to Ben Coleman for composing our theme music, and Gavin Bernard for vocals

Erin Palovick made our stunning cover art <3

Oh lordy this is a big one for my artists and creative folk.

I asked my audience on IG to name some of the grievances they carry having chosen the artist's life, or from not feeling allowed to chose the artist's life. Ugh, devastating. You're responses were gutting, and very universal. So here's my hot take on each of them. Spoiler, it's a lot of tough love. So go make your art.

Some topics covered:

- feeling too broke to do the kind of art you wish you could make

- feeling like your ship has sailed, and comparing yourself to other people who achieved 'success' early on in their journey

- feeling robbed of a childhood where free, playful expression could be fully explored

- fear around not having a clear direction - too many ideas and paralysis on where to start, overwhelm overwhelm overwhelm.