Tending Grief with Camille Sapara Barton

The Psychedologist

A rich stroll through a wide realm of topics relating to grief with the brilliant Camille Sapara Barton. Topics include the dynamic balance of connection to spirit and to the material aspects of life; parents and their grown children, learning to enjoy one another; cultivating an intentional grief practice (ideally in community) and Cami’s new book - Tending Grief.

Picking up a thread for the conversation with Ayize Jama-Everett earlier this year, we talk about evil, and how this might relate to grief. Cami shares some of the cosmology and cultural elements of the Dagara tribe that inspired them as they wrote the book. They also share about the grief of uncertainty, and the mass loss of the Covid pandemic, and grieving things that have not yet come to an end, such as ongoing systemic oppression.

We discuss joy and cultivating space for play, as part of grief tending. Cami imparts their experience with this work - that feeling one emotion opens them up to a greater depth of engagement with life and its full spectrum of feelings and experiences. We also hear sound guidance around finding spaces that can safely hold us in our grief.

Links: https://camillesaparabarton.com/

https://camillesaparabarton.com/tending-grief-book/