Building sanctuary for unmet grief.
๐ Presence and land-based care for the grieving.
รnashay is a physical grief sanctuary that supports people through loss and change. It is an exploration of shapeshifting, relationship, and presencing support for what is most unmet in ourselves, communities and land. As such, we are building a physical grief sanctuary on Tewรก land in Abiquiu, New Mexico where an interspecies web of connected liminal workers, grief bearers, deep listeners, animal
s, artists, body workers, musicians, plants, movers, and the spaces needed for such meeting can be brought as an offering to the grieving and land.
03/02/2025
This one's gonna be beautiful โขแโขโ
Sat, 3/8
Noria grief cafรฉ at the Tea House
๐ช๐ฏ ๐๐ข ๐๐ถ๐ฆ๐ฃ๐ญ๐ข, ๐๐
w/ Joan + Hope Logghe
3 to 5 cafรฉ, with community potluck
feast to follow.
RSVP at [email protected] for directions, info, and cafรฉ etiquette. โ
02/28/2025
We pretty much adore everyone we work with. This one is no exception. Meet Dr. Bayo Akomolafe , รบnashay Board Advisor, writer and Ambassador.ย
We've been with Bayo for 5 years now, since a lone conversation between Aimee + Bayo during covid, on their shared aches, near-birthdays (3 days apart!) and giant dreams for sanctuary. Bayo has been a dear, generous support to us, and is dear soul kin.ย ๐โโ๏ธ
About:ย
Dr. Bayo Akomolafe is a widely celebrated international speaker, teacher, public intellectual, essayist and author of two books, These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanityโs Search for Home and We Will Tell our Own Story: The Lions of Africa Speak.ย
He considers his most sacred work to be learning how to be with his daughter and son, Alethea Aanya and Kyah Jayden โ and their mother, his wife and โlife-nectarโ, Ijeoma. โTo learn the importance of insignificanceโ is the way he frames a desire to reacquaint himself with a world that is irretrievably entangled, preposterously alive and completely partial.
As Visionary Founder and Elder of The Emergence Network and Chief Host of the widely popular online-offline course/festival series, We Will Dance with Mountains, Bayo curates an earth-wide project for the re-calibration of our ability to respond to civilizational crisis โ a project framed within a material feminist/posthumanist/postactivist ethos and inspired by Yoruba indigenous cosmologies. He considers this a shared art โ exploring the edges of the intelligible, dancing with posthumanist ideas, dabbling in the mysteries of quantum mechanics and the liberating sermon of an ecofeminism text, and talking with others about how to host a festival of radical silence on a street in London โ and part of his inner struggle to regain a sense of rootedness to his community.
ใ
Read Bayo's answer to 'why the need for sanctuary in these times?' in above slides.
02/28/2025
Also, locals. Have we mentioned, recently, how much we adore our landmates? ๐ฅฐ
02/27/2025
Locals ๐ฆน ๐ ๐
02/24/2025
So moved and honored to have Nikesha Breeze join our council, as local Board Director. Nikesha was with us in 2022, and installed this rock grief garden on the land for รบnashay's inaugural opening. ๐โโ๏ธ We're humbled to deepen in community and work with them.
Learn about their powerful work here: nikeshabreeze.com.
About:
Nikeshaย Breeze is a multidisciplinary artist, teacher, and facilitator whose work interweaves creativity, spirituality, and radical care. Drawing from over 25 years as a Hindu pujari, kirtan wallah, death doula, and Chinese medicine practitioner,ย Nikeshaโs practice is deeply rooted in ancestral and cultural grief work. Their art reclaims historical narratives of the African diasporic body while envisioning Afro-futures, employing mediums such as oil painting, ceramics, sculpture, performance, and installation.ย Nikeshaย creates transformative sacred spaces and enacts durational rituals that center mourning, prayer, and radical reclamation. Their public rituals invite collective accountability and care, embodying cultural sovereignty and diasporic healing. A writer, poet, and filmmaker,ย Nikeshaย reconfigures language and narrative as tools of liberation, crafting new syntaxes that honor communal memory.ย Nikeshaโs life work bridges art and ritual, guiding communities through grief, healing, and the reclamation of ancestral wisdom.
02/17/2025
land art, by kind guests ๏ฎ โ
02/17/2025
We are amiss without our ๐ข hybrid pups, who'se (let's be honest) very existence exudes simultaneous love and grief work on the land, ๐ข๐ญ๐ญ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ต๐ช๐ฎ๐ฆ.
Senzhen (she/they) is everyone's friend, unless you're a canine that comes near her food bowl, and/ or threatens her kin. She vibrates at such a high frequency, not even the hardest days can keep one's heart from melting at her golden eyes and soft pillow-y love. Not to mention her ๐ค๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฑ๐ญ๐ฆ๐ต๐ฆ presence in the moment (with potential adhd, that is constantly smitten by the smells and tastes and potential cuddles at her whim). She is the squiggliest of the pack and always finds a way to squirm her way into your arms. Commonly confused with a seal, she brings a nice watery flow of love and sweetness everywhere she goes.
She is 2nd soprano of the howling chorus, with a fantastic range that usually travels on its own, and away from the pack, ending in distraction of the next beautiful thing.
02/16/2025
Localscape ๐โโ๏ธโ
Community favor.......
For those who've attended ๐๐ฐ๐ณ๐ช๐ข ๐จ๐ณ๐ช๐ฆ๐ง ๐ค๐ข๐ง๐ฆ(๐ด) (over the past 3 years that we have offered them)โฏ would you consider taking 3-5 mins to fill out our TESTIMONIAL FORM (link in bio)?
This would help us immensely, in gathering feedback to refine these cafรฉs and seek funding to strengthen/ expand them. Recent executive orders, and... the general sick political climate, makes work like this tricky. And, well... we could use all the support we can get ๐
Thank you in advance, and find the form in our bio links.
02/15/2025
๐ข Meet ๐๐ช๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ฆ ๐๐ฐ๐ฉ๐ฏ๐ด๐ฐ๐ฏ, our sweet(est) land-mate. A dear (aqua)human that serves as รบnashay staff for Admin support and grant research. Feels only right to introduce her on her favorite day, Valentine's day! ๐นโบ๏ธ
About:ย
Simone (she/her) .nyc is an interdisciplinary artist, researcher and cultural worker mostly making work about/ with water. You can find her living, traveling and dreaming in the (or a) Aquatic Universe.ย
"While at รบnashay, I have been grieving in my own way in deep silence and solitude, while also learning from the Unashay Council and attending Noria Cafes, the first in-person spaces I've been exposed to, dedicated toward meeting grief in a gentle, welcoming and communal way.ย
In the past, I've been able to sense or recognize unmet grief in others, like family members, more than I've recognized my own grief. It feels like (similar to other families) grief dwells in me and my lineages, and I'm/We are just not sure what to do. All of this within the greater context of Time, societal changes and collective grief.ย
During these times of great change, Unashay, in the beautiful high desert of northern New Mexico, is a passionate guide in grief-tending. I never thought I'd spend time at a grief sanctuary, and here I am!"ย
Simone currently offers powerful 1 hour Natal, Progressed and Solar Return Astrology readings on a sliding scale from $50-$75 for people new to/curious about astrology. But it's open to anyone interested. You can book an online session with her by emailing [email protected] and/or DM'ing her .nyc โจ
Last photo is the heart nebula, 7,500 light years away in the constallation of Casseopeia ๐ซ
02/14/2025
า .goldera
02/12/2025
๐ข Sat, March 8, ๐๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐๐ฆ๐ข ๐๐ฐ๐ถ๐ด๐ฆ in La Puebla, NMโฏ
will host a Noria grief cafรฉ with ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐
๐ข๐ฏ๐ฅ ๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ณ ๐ฅ๐ข๐ถ๐จ๐ฉ๐ต๐ฆ๐ณ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐
Joan Logghe has lived a life of poetry in La Puebla, New Mexico. She and her husband Michael live in a family compound where they built their own solar houses, raised three children, have 5 grandkids, and one great grandson. She has taught extensively and to all ages, from UNM-Los Alamos to children in central Europe. She has led a yearly workshop at Ghost Ranch since 1990, taught at Santa Clara Pueblo day school, and, for 21 years, at the Santa Fe Girls' School. Over and over, she has experienced the salutary power of poetry. She has run art and writing workshops, AIDS writing circles, and workshops for crisis, illness, and loss. Joan was Santa Feโs Poet Laureate from 2010-2012. She has authored and edited countless books of children's and adult's writing. Her latest book, Jade Bird: Singing Grief, explores the mysterious confluence of grief and beauty amidst the loss of a baby grandchild.
Hope Logghe is a Lactation Consultant providing care to rural communities in Northern New Mexico. Hope worked at a milk bank in Pittsburgh to bereaved families in donating their precious milk to medically vulnerable infants. She trains medical providers to give care to newly bereaved families. As a lactation consultant with a local home visiting program, she provides in-home lactation support to families. She lives with her husband, Leland, and their two beautiful daughters, Kaleia and Krystal, who fill the land with trampoline laughter. / https://jadeheartcare.com/about
02/12/2025
๐ข Meet our lovely and deeply generous Board President, ๐๐ข๐ณ๐ข๐ฉ ๐๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ณ๐ฆ. She serves in many ways, whether by leading the รบnashay board, research, grant writing, grief cafรฉ hosting and the spontaneous cup of tea.
About:
Marah Moore is former Director and Founder of i2i Institute, having worked with complex social change initiatives, providing integrated research, evaluation, planning, and capacity building services. She holds a Masterโs degree in Community and Regional Planning (MCRP), and has worked in the field of evaluation and planning for over 30 years.
Throughout her career, Marah worked with direct service efforts to design programs that met the emergent needs of communities, state-wide and national initiatives (e.g., child welfare, positive youth development, early childhood) to develop integrated and responsive systems; as well as international initiatives (e.g. early intervention in the Russian Far East, Agricultural Research in Africa, Indigenous land rights in Southeast Asia, and Women's Economic Empowerment in Africa) to support effective and sustainable social change.
Marah is an associate with the Human Systems Dynamic Institute, where she was the Chair of the Evaluation work group, and has served on the Epidemiological workgroup for the New Mexico Department of Health.
02/11/2025
๐ข ๐๐ฐ๐ณ๐ช๐ข ๐จ๐ณ๐ช๐ฆ๐ง ๐ค๐ข๐งรฉ, ๐๐ด๐, ๐น๐ธ๐ต 22โฏ
in cozy Taos home with
Aimee Wilson.
3 to 5p cafรฉ, with community potluck to follow.
For this Noria: we'll explore '๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐จ๐ณ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ฏ๐ฅ ๐ข๐ง๐ต๐ฆ๐ณ' or '๐ฅ๐ถ๐ณ๐ช๐ฏ๐จ' life altering events. We'll look closely at what that ground feels like now, and whether it's even a ground at all. How is it different? What is it that you walk on, or with, in the aftermath? Together, we'll explore ways of languaging the sensation(s), and how our world feels different during and after loss.
Please RSVP at [email protected] for directions, cafรฉ etiquette and space info. We'll gather in Marah Moore's lovely Taos home, and share a meal afterwards.
Cafรฉs are free to all, and welcoming of donations.
More on ๐๐ช๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ฆ ๐๐ช๐ญ๐ด๐ฐ๐ฏ:
Aimee (they/ them) serves as Founder and Executive Director of รnashay Sanctuary. Music is their primary language, having written, performed and recorded two albums. They have served under many roles, as singer, writer, social worker, community organizer, fundraiser and group facilitator for houseless women and LGBTQ2SI+ community in Philadelphia. After much intimate experience with loss, and decades of work within a system that doesnโt take care of the grieving, Aimee was moved to summon รบnashay. They currently study extensively with Megan Devine of Refuge in Grief ; and dwell in New Mexico with wolf kin and chosen family, tending the sanctuary and writing music.
02/11/2025
๐ข We are so pleased to welcome, dear....
๐ ๐๐๐ธ ๐บ๐๐ ๐ท๐๐ to the รบ๐ฏ๐ข๐ด๐ฉ๐ข๐บ council, as ๐๐ฐ๐ข๐ณ๐ฅ ๐๐ช๐ณ๐ฆ๐ค๐ต๐ฐ๐ณ
๐น
HOSPICE, BEREAVEMENT + SPIRITUAL CARE WORKER | TRAINER | MENTOR
About Rose:
โI came to Taos in 1969 and have lived with delight and gratitude alongside the deer, coyote, rabbit and birds on a mesa of piรฑon, juniper, sage and chamisa in Arroyo Hondo. My two adult children were born and raised here, the land has gifted me inspiration and sanctuary. As a child I spent happy times exploring the cultural exhibits in the Brooklyn Museum along with playing street games, dreaming of planting a time capsule and reading, writing and doing art projects at school and at home.
At around 8 yrs old I developed an interest in death and nighttime dreams and decided that I had one foot in the river of life and one foot in the river of death - and that being in both those places at the same time mattered! Having realized that no one around me talked about death I let it fall into the background of my life. As I think about it now however, that interest was always quietly guiding me towards the experiences that have shaped and informed my end-of-life work.
In 1989, I spent 4 days tending the dying of a dear friend in West Texas, which propelled me into 30 years of being with the dying time of life. That has included getting a specialty degree in Hospice and Grief Counseling, over 30 years participating in a Dream group, 2.5 years working as a Deputy Investigator for the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator, 5 years serving as Director and faculty member for the Upaya Being with Dying Project, 18 years working in Hospice - training and mentoring Hospice volunteers and 7 years providing Spiritual Care and Bereavement to Hospice patients, their families and community members.
I also teach on-line sessions for the Demystifying Death course though University of Chattanooga School of Nursing, have designed and facilitated end-of-life training for international hospital staff and community members in Colorado, New Mexico and Dubai; and volunteered at a hospice in India.โ
02/10/2025
Delighted to host Songcarriers this weekend on the land, and end with an Horno feast โจ (the pups scored big on pizza crust!)
Feels so important these daysโฏ to take good care, enjoy each other, root into the home chords of our selves, the land, and... that other music that happens.. when we spill into each other, and remember where we are *not in tact is where we begin.
02/10/2025
Recent sweetness on the land ๐๐ต๐ฅฐ
(with horno cooking, song + friendship)
02/07/2025
๐ข We're honored to be building our Board council a bit more, with powerful ones doing incredible work in the world.
Over the coming weeks, we'll be sharing new and old(er) รบnashay board Directors, Advisors, Staff, wolf hybrid kin and land stewards.
Here is ๐๐ข๐ฎ๐ช๐ญ๐ญ๐ฆ ๐๐ข๐ฑ๐ข๐ณ๐ข ๐๐ข๐ณ๐ต๐ฐ๐ฏ โ
Camille Sapara Barton is a writer, embodiment facilitator, movement artist and consultant that supports people to flow through transitions. Their work aims to create relational wellbeing by cultivating connection to the body, care practices, grief and imagination. Camille supports organisations to increase resilience and reduce stress, while navigating change. They also offer trauma informed, embodied facilitation and consultancy to support cultural workers, funders and those working with socially engaged topics.
Camille is the author of ๐๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ฅ๐ช๐ฏ๐จ ๐๐ณ๐ช๐ฆ๐ง: ๐๐ฎ๐ฃ๐ฐ๐ฅ๐ช๐ฆ๐ฅ ๐๐ช๐ต๐ถ๐ข๐ญ๐ด ๐ง๐ฐ๐ณ ๐๐ฐ๐ญ๐ฅ๐ช๐ฏ๐จ ๐๐ถ๐ณ ๐๐ฐ๐ณ๐ณ๐ฐ๐ธ ๐ข๐ฏ๐ฅ ๐๐ณ๐ฐ๐ธ๐ช๐ฏ๐จ ๐๐ถ๐ญ๐ต๐ถ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ด ๐ฐ๐ง ๐๐ข๐ณ๐ฆ ๐ช๐ฏ ๐๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฎ๐ถ๐ฏ๐ช๐ต๐บ (2024). Based in Amsterdam, they designed and directed MA Ecologies of Transformation (2021 - 2023) which explored how embodiment and socially engaged art making can create change through the body, into the wider world.
"I sense that grief is necessary medicine. A watery submersion that supports us to sense deeply, reconnect and get clear on what matters to us. In these times, clarity, love and motivation are necessary to (re)grow ways of being that can support us to live well with each other and our home planet. It takes more energy to build than it does to destroy. I hope that learning to be together with our grief will enable us to create the intimacy and bonds of trust that can allow us to create the more beautiful futures our hearts long for."
02/06/2025
Lidia saying it.
Speaking of "making way for the wail".... this Sat, FEB 9th:: Songcarriers from around the country will gather at รบnashay to teach each other repertoire, remember cultural seeds, and cross-pollinate songs whose time has come.
๐ Yurtcert 6p, with 7p horno pizza party + songshare.
Join us.
๐ข
"SHOUT OUT TO all the women, trans, gender fluid, and q***r humans I know, love, and have worked with my entire lifeโartists and healers and teachers and laborers and activistsโworking mothers and sisters and daughters and grandmothersโand survivorsโyou are vitality. we do the heart labor the world tries to ignore, devalue and erase. We chop wood ( news flash: it goes way beyond actual wood, though thatโs a useful practice when one becomes lost), carry water, shovel s**t, bring milk, feed and love and comfort others, speak the stories, conjure the poems, wield the knives, bite through what others recoil from. We bleed. We give blood. We are the sword when called. We are breadwinners and bread makers. We heal fractures, we step into ruptures. We raise souls whether they are born of our bodies or not. We sing the grief songs. We poem. We story, destory, and restory. We create. We bake. We bead. We put creativity into motion and carry it when it is our turn and pass it on to others. We make way for the wail. We wrestle the rage and compost it and cast the spells no matter what is done to us. You canโt kill our erotic power which comes and comes with age and continues after death. We honor the dead and wash the dead and remember the dead because we profoundly understand death and birth not as opposites, but as intimates. We fight. We shapeshift. We stand where we are called to stand. We sit still in silence without flinching when called to stillness. We are sediments of ground and droplets of water and molecules of sky and kin with animals and trees and space. Literally. We are not your myths. Our lives are not for profit or consumption. Our bodies were never your property. We are not a rib or an anomaly. Our s*x seethes. We need no fame or fortune. We are the blood of the world."
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Like Annie, and so many, I share the anguish of Sinead not being supported as much *while we had her here. It's great and all that such an outpouring is happening now, but why not then?! Is she not showing, and screaming to us, how alone and (even) punished the "mentally ill" and traumatized are, for feeling into worlds that most of us are uncomfortable with? She was proudly vulnerable. A ruthless seer of presence. An imperfect, grieving mother and human, that wanted better. The world feigned her existence, and pure heart, and golden voice, whilst (often) shaming her for being a mirror to its own deficiency.
(And a note, which Sinead made countless times: this silencing and punishing of the so called "mentally ill" happens hundreds of thousands of times a day to ones we will never know, or see, or hear on the radio.)
I want my disturbance over this to (continue) to be imperfectly, transmuted into new, queer ways of being human together. A kind of way, that... spills... and sings.. and laughs... and tears the veil of the terrible, deadly programming that we must "hold ourselves together" in a world that is losing touch with its soul. So what if I/ we seem a bit coo-coo. What if what's coming doesn't fit in this, actual, mentally ill system? It's what we hear in the sirens and the music.
Love,
Aimee
(Snip from a larger letter underway).
*
Repost:
"I just want to share this little clip to remind ourselves of her strength, power, determination, humour and courage at TWENTY - FOUR years old!!! No-one knows what Sinead went through except her close friends and family, but here she is - speaking with such grace and dignity about how it feels to be publicly targeted and โtaken downโ when you try to speak truth to power. Now thereโs a global outpouring of love and appreciation, which is great, but I really wish sheโd had more public support for what she was trying to get through." - Annie Lennox
Building a grief sanctuary and artist residency in Abiquiu, New Mexico. A space to normalize the metamorphic phase of love-grief.
*
โSpaces to grieve do not exist. 3 days of bereavement from a job, funerals that leave no space for wailing, sanitized bodies and shortened rituals. We are far from a culture that sees the deep inherent value and healing in supporting these spaces.
We stand to lose much from not addressing these gaps. A planet in peril cannot magically find its way out without doing something differently.
We also stand to gain much from creating intentional grief and ceremony spaces. With community support, people may be able to move through a process that can be integrated into wholeness. Pain can become wisdom. Grief can become an act of praise rooted in deep love. Perhaps the healing and well-being of our planet may paradoxically lie in the intentional release of grief, the recognition of the pain that so often holds and binds us in addictive and consumptive patterns, so that we can live freely, creatively and in harmony with this place that holds our life.
As we collectively face the inevitability of loss in the face of climate disruption, global pandemics, mass inequality and the shift of perceptions of life, where will we learn how to be with the pain? How we will not become more heavily addicted, more dissociated, disillusioned or panicked? I believe that as we learn to fully mourn loss, we will come to see the right next steps to face each challenge we encounter and to let pain make us wise, sensitive, appreciative and protective of what is not yet lost. Not having any cultural context for grief, we need to re-learn this natural rhythm of love and humanness.
A grief sanctuary is a space to cry aloud, to pound the earth, to face a vast landscape and begin to place one's personal sense of loss in a wider context, to sing and wail around fire, to be seen and fully met in a broken state. After all, when we learn that our brokenness is not a defect but a doorway into deeper presence, we might discover that grief is less an enemy and more of a potent, universal human experience that comes from loving. And as long as we intend to live with love, we will need to become familiar with grief. Unashay is a space to normalize this metamorphic phase of love - grief.โ
- Jessi Rado, Unashay Board
Growth Counselor, yoga teacher and integrative artist
Stay tuned for more, or write Aimee Wilson at [email protected].
Building sanctuary for unmet grief. 
