The Grief Wave: When Grief Gets Dark

When grief gets dark, companionship brings light.

Now seeing clients throughout California and nationwide (virtually).

The California Grief Center offers therapy, support groups, and Catharsis Theater experiences designed to help you move through what feels heaviest—whether you’ve lost someone, lost your way, or simply long to feel alive again.

Explore care, connection, and community at caligrief.com.

🧭 TL;DR | This Week at a Glance

✨ Profiles & Ideas
🖋️ Adrienne Rich — Bringing women’s truth, identity, and power to the heart of modern literature

🌄 Native American Heritage Month — Celebrating Indigenous history, resilience, and living traditions in the United States

📰 News & Reminders
🤝 When Support Saves Lives — Long-term study shows family acceptance and affirming care reduce suicide risk among LGBTQ+ youth amid growing legislative attacks

🏡 The Caregiving Cliff — With a shrinking workforce and millions of aging elders, the U.S. faces a reckoning over who will care for those who once cared for us

🎉 Events & Gatherings
🌿 Nov 8 — Exploring Death Through Pottery with Annie Raysse
(Culver City)

🕯️ Nov 13 — Understanding Traumatic Grief Conference
(Lynnwood, WA + Virtual)

🙏 Nov 15 — Community Grief and Gratitude Ritual with Alexis Slutzky and Fellow Guides
(Santa Barbara)

🔔 Nov 20 — End Well 2025: A Day About Death & Life
(Los Angeles)

🌅 Dec 3–8 — 2025 Ram Dass Legacy “Open Your Heart in Paradise” Retreat
(Napili Kai Beach Resort, Maui)

💔 The Traumatic Loss Companion Course — An online program for navigating sudden, unexpected, or traumatic loss
(Virtual | Self-Paced)

🌊 California Grief Center
Virtual grief counseling in CA and nationwide, support groups, Catharsis Theater, and companionship for every stage of loss.

💌 Dear friends of The Grief Wave,

When grief gets dark, what saves us isn’t strength—it’s company. A voice that listens. A hand that stays. A moment when someone says, “I see you,” and means it.

This edition looks at how connection can change everything. From caregivers who have spent decades tending to elders with love and faith, to new research showing the life-saving power of family acceptance for LGBTQ+ youth, these stories remind us that care itself is an act of resistance.

We also turn toward those finding creative and spiritual ways to meet mortality—with clay, ritual, mindfulness, and community. Each practice, each gathering, each honest conversation is a small light against despair.

If your own grief feels heavy right now, may this week’s stories offer companionship and perspective. Even in the deepest night, the human heart keeps learning how to see.

✨ Profiles & Ideas

🖋️ Adrienne Rich

Bringing women’s truth, identity, and power to the heart of modern literature

Born in Baltimore in 1929, Adrienne Rich grew up between a Jewish father who “planned to create a prodigy” and a Southern Protestant mother who was a concert pianist and composer. Shaped by his library and driven through Radcliffe into early literary acclaim, she won the Yale Younger Poets Award for A Change of World and a Guggenheim to Oxford, beginning a life in which poetry, politics, and conscience refused to be separated. Called “one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century,” she used her work to bring the oppression of women and lesbians into poetic discourse, asking again and again what truly matters in a world defined by power and erasure.

Grief and change marked both her life and her art. She married economist Alfred Haskell Conrad, had three sons, and was widowed in 1970 when he died by suicide, an experience that helped radicalize her sense of motherhood, loss, and resistance. Rich's writing turned more personal and political in collections like Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law and Diving into the Wreck, while her partnership with Michelle Cliff and naming of the “lesbian continuum” deepened her commitment to women’s liberation, anti-racism, and solidarity.

Declining the National Medal of Arts, supporting movements against war and occupation, and writing landmark works like Of Woman Born and An Atlas of the Difficult World, she held to one quiet, insistent claim until her death in Santa Cruz in 2012: that poetry can break isolation, bear witness to loss, and help us stay faithful to each other in a difficult world.

🌄 Native American Heritage Month

Celebrating Indigenous history, resilience, and living traditions in the United States

When stories are shared, history breathes again. Each November, the United States observes National American Indian Heritage Month, first proclaimed in 1990 by President George H. W. Bush. What began in 1976, when Cherokee/Osage leader J.C. Elliott-High Eagle authored the first Native American Awareness Week, has become a month-long tribute to the resilience, creativity, and enduring spirit of Indigenous peoples. From early proclamations by Presidents Ford and Reagan to those renewed by Presidents Obama and Trump, each declaration echoes the same truth: remembrance is an act of respect, and recognition is an act of repair.

Across the country, communities gather to celebrate Native heritage through storytelling, dance, art, and ceremony—bridging past and present, grief and survival, loss and renewal. Federal agencies and local leaders are called to listen, learn, and teach: to honor the many nations whose languages and lifeways continue to shape this land. More than a commemoration, the month is an invitation—to see Native history not as something behind us, but as a living presence that reminds us what endures, what must be protected, and what truly matters.

📰 News & Reminders

🤝 When Support Saves Lives

Long-term study shows family acceptance and affirming care reduce suicide risk among LGBTQ+ youth amid growing legislative attacks

On October 16, 2025, The Trevor Project released its first long-term study on LGBTQ+ youth mental health, tracking 1,689 participants aged 13–24 across the U.S. over 18 months. Researchers found sharp increases in anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation amid rising anti-LGBTQ+ laws—but also powerful signs of hope.

Youth with affirming homes had 37% lower odds of suicidal thoughts, and those with strong family support saw a 62% reduction. The study also exposed a troubling rise in conversion therapy, while highlighting that acceptance, access to care, and supportive environments remain the most protective factors against distress and despair.

🏡 The Caregiving Cliff

With a shrinking workforce and millions of aging elders, the U.S. faces a reckoning over who will care for those who once cared for us

In 2025, inside their Washington, D.C. home, Maurice White and Renee DeVigne began their twenty-fifth year caring for White’s mother, Evelyn — a retired teacher who had just turned 104. For decades, they have cared for twelve elders between them, often balancing love, exhaustion, and the quiet faith that family care still matters. White built an apartment for his mother in their basement, and each night they pray together before bed.

As birth rates fall and the caregiving workforce shrinks, families like theirs face impossible math: longer lives, fewer hands. The couple now relies on home aide Selisa Sutton and their own spiritual practice to sustain them. They hope that America will reimagine aging — a future where elders are never isolated, caregivers are supported, and connection, not cost, defines how we care for one another.

🎉 Events & Gatherings

🌿 Nov 8 — Exploring Death Through Pottery with Annie Raysse

Culver City | Saturday, November 8, 2025 | 1:00pm-5:00pm

For those drawn to the intersection of art and mortality, this intimate afternoon workshop offers a rare invitation to explore life’s impermanence through clay.

Led by potter and certified death doula Annie Raysse, participants will begin with a group dialogue on death, fear, and acceptance—considering how the awareness of mortality can deepen our connection to living. From this shared reflection, Annie will guide attendees in hand-building a coil vessel—an urn, vase, or jar—crafted with intention and care.

With only ten spots available, the experience is designed to be personal and contemplative, honoring each participant’s unique beliefs and journey. “I find the process [of handbuilding] to be more personal and the finished pieces to have a more organic and imperfect quality; a lot like life,” Annie shares.

💠 $185 members | $250 non-members
Saturday, November 8, 2025 | 1:00–5:00 p.m. | Members Only LA
Snack break 3:00–3:30 p.m. | Optional Glazing Workshop November 22, 1–3 p.m. ($50)

🕯️ Nov 13 — Understanding Traumatic Grief Conference

Lynnwood, WA + Virtual | Thursday, November 13, 2025 | 9:00am-5:00pm PST

For nearly three decades, Support 7 has walked alongside those navigating the aftermath of loss—creating spaces of understanding, compassion, and education for professionals and community members alike.

This November, they gather at Alderwood Community Church in Lynnwood for the 2025 Understanding Traumatic Grief Conference, a full-day event dedicated to exploring the impact of overdose and traumatic loss. Guided by experts including Dr. Ted Rynearson, Dr. Steve Juergens, Paula Becker, Dr. Barry Brown, and Jennifer Levin, PhD, the conference offers powerful conversations, shared stories, and integrative insights into how grief touches body, mind, and spirit.

All are welcome—survivors, therapists, chaplains, first responders, and community members—to learn, connect, and honor those affected by addiction and loss. Together, we’ll deepen our understanding of grief and strengthen the networks of care that help carry it.

💙 $65 in-person (includes lunch) | $35 virtual
Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025 | 9:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m. | Alderwood Community Church, Lynnwood, WA

🙏 Community Grief and Gratitude Ritual with Alexis Slutzky and Fellow Guides

Santa Barbara | Saturday, November 15, 2025 | 9:30am - 5pm PST

For over two decades, Wild Belonging has gathered communities to honor the sacred connection between grief, love, and belonging—a shared space to remember, release, and renew the heart.

This fall, we meet at Trinity Episcopal Church in Santa Barbara for a Community Grief and Gratitude Ritual, a full-day gathering guided by Alexis Slutzky, MA, MFT, Elisabeth Gonella, Kolmi Majumdar, Rene Tonalli, Lauren David, and Team. Inspired by ancestral and earth-based traditions, the ritual invites us to express sorrow, sing, move, and be held in the beauty of togetherness.

Each ritual welcomes all—whether you come with fresh loss or quiet gratitude—offering a place to tend the heart, transform pain into care, and remember our shared humanity.

💛 Sliding-scale donation $40–$120. Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025 | 9:30 a.m.–5 p.m. PT | Trinity Episcopal Church, Santa Barbara.

🔔 End Well 2025: A Day About Death & Life

Los Angeles | Thursday, November 20, 2025

End Well gathers people from all walks of life to reimagine how we live, care, and connect—especially at life’s end.

This year’s theme, Radical Bravery, invites participants to show up fully: to face grief, illness, caregiving, and dying with open eyes and open hearts. It honors the quiet courage of individuals and the bold collective action needed to build a more compassionate world.

Throughout the day, participants explore how age-old wisdom, new technologies, and evolving models of care can transform our relationship with death and deepen our capacity for empathy and belonging. Together, the gathering challenges outdated narratives, sparks meaningful dialogue, and ignites a movement grounded in connection and care.

💛 Join in Los Angeles on Thursday, November 20, 2025.

🌅 2025 Ram Dass Legacy "Open Your Heart in Paradise" Maui Retreat

Napili Kai Beach Resort | December 3-8, 2025

Since 2008, the Ram Dass Legacy Retreat has been a sanctuary for seekers—a gathering to reflect, connect, and return to the heart.

As we approach December, we meet once more at the Napili Kai Beach Resort for Open Your Heart in Paradise, honoring Ram Dass’s vision with music, meditation, teachings, and community. This beloved retreat continues to welcome pilgrims, newcomers, and longtime friends alike on the spiritual path.

All are invited to join this immersive six-day experience of silence, song, practice, and celebration in Maui.

💛 Registration open now. Dec. 3–8, 2025, Napili Bay.

💔 The Traumatic Loss Companion Course (Virtual)

An online self-help program for individuals living with the aftermath of a sudden, unexpected or traumatic death of a loved one

Since its creation, the Traumatic Loss Companion Course has been a refuge for the grieving—a guided path through pain, chaos, and the search for meaning.

As you face the aftermath of a sudden, devastating death, you are invited to join this online program led by Dr. Jennifer Levin. With warmth and clarity, she offers video modules, guided practices, and community calls designed to support you through trauma and grief, step by step.

All are welcome to begin this self-paced journey of healing, understanding, and connection with others who truly understand.

💛 Enrollment open now. 12 modules online + monthly live calls.

🌊 Get Help from the California Grief Center

You do not have to grieve alone. Whether you have lost someone, lost your way, or carry unspoken sorrow, there is a place for you here.

Our Philosophy: We do not treat grief as a problem. We treat it as a passage.
Consultations are always free.

💛 With care,
Brian Stefan, LCSW
Founder & Clinical Director
California Grief Center

✅ P.S. Know someone quietly grieving?
👉 Forward this letter. You never know who needs it.
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