Spring Scaffolding & Liminal Spaces
- Grounded Grief
- 4 days ago
- 5 min read
THE GROUNDED GRIEF NEWSLETTER | MARCH 2026
March brings the quiet magic of the in-between. It’s that strange, uneasy stretch where the trees are still bare, yet the balsam root sunflowers are just beginning to bud. While the landscape looks barren to the eye, it is actually a powerful container teeming with new life. This month, we're exploring the concept of liminal spaces in our grief. Today, Katherine Hatch reflects on this specific moment of early spring and the hope a small bud can offer, while we share Juniper Wong’s beautiful insights on navigating the uneasy, transformative space of the cocoon. We are also sharing our upcoming gatherings, and warmly welcoming our newest team member, Jodi Kanter.
Wherever you are in your grief today, we are so glad you are here.
Welcome Our Newest Team MemberExpanding our circle of care. |
We are so glad to announce that Jodi Kanter, Grief & Trauma Professional Counselor Associate, has joined our East Team.
Jodi KanterGrief & Trauma Professional Counselor Associate A trained drama therapist, Jodi believes creativity is a powerful force for healing. She uses expressive arts, humanistic, and psychodynamic therapies to help adolescents and adults navigate loss.
Inspired by kintsugi—the Japanese art of repairing pottery with gold—she views therapy as a way to integrate grief into a new version of ourselves, helping us become "stronger in the broken places."
We are thrilled to bring her energy, expertise, and compassionate approach to our community.
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March's Theme: Liminal Spaces |
If you're in Portland, we invite you to join Monday’s grief circle Happy Hour for Sad People: Liminal Spaces with @groundedgrief X @rhinestone.pdx. If you’re somewhere between who you were and who you’re going to be - if you’re mid-unraveling, mid-becoming, mid-something you don’t have a name for yet - you’re invited. |
Spring Scaffolding
By Katherine Hatch | Founder & Practice Lead
4-minute read
In the Yakima region of Central Washington, there are sets of expansive hills and canyons. They appear barren from a distance, albeit a bit more green right now if you knew to compare them to the rest of the year.
Yet up close, this landscape is teeming with life. The balsam root sunflowers are ready to burst, the sage is coming in leafy and fresh, and the blue and purple wildflowers daintily peek out ever so slightly.
Much of life is still in bud form. Seemingly ready to burst. And also ever so patient in doing so. There is an inherent hopeful pragmatism to it all. Like it’s done this before :)
Sometimes I wish my grief could feel this way. Predictable. Patient. Pragmatic. Even hopeful. I sit in a canyon and wonder if I can will this metaphor of spring in central Washington onto my grief.
And I realize I don’t have to will it... because I remember that my grief is actually not something that I have much control over. Like the budding life in that canyon, it already knows its path. My grief is beyond my will and whim.
With that insight, the budding all around me seems to reorient my grief, even if just for some moments, into something different... something less alone, less desolate, and less despairing. My grief gets to be surrounded by nature’s pragmatic ways... similarly to how grief is only asking for us to sit and be with it... not to fix or change it. Grief is actually pragmatic, too, allowing us to live with what we cannot change.
Spring can scaffold grief—not by taking it away, but by giving it a context, a new way to be carried, a form of budding and possibility instead of decay and despair.
Spring can scaffold our grief if we let it—perhaps helping us sit with the pain in new ways. Maybe we sit with this pain with some sunlight on our skin, or some budding trees in the background... and maybe, we can even notice our grief as part of a cycle within us that needs to be allowed—not changed or fixed.
If you're looking for a space to be among others who understand, join us for our next Grief Walk in Maryland or Portland or our Happy Hour for Sad People: a monthly unconventional grief circle hosted at a local PDX bar. You can find the details about these events and all others here and we've included handy links below.
With warmth and solidarity,
Katherine & The Grounded Grief Team
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Upcoming In-Person Events:
Happy Hour for Sad People: An Unconventional Grief Circle
March 30, April 27, May 25, June 22 | 7:00 PM Pacific Time
Portland, Oregon
Grounded Grief x Rhinestone PDX have turned "Happy Hour for Sad People" into a monthly residency. Join Juniper Wong, MSW, LICSW every fourth Monday of the month for the grief circle you didn't know you needed...yup, at a bar.
Grounded Grief Walks PDX
Biweekly on Tuesdays from 12:30-1:30 pm Pacific Time
Portland, Oregon
Join the Grounded Grief Team for gentle outdoor grief group woods walks with space for quiet, conversation, and connection. Grief Counselors Katherine Hatch, MSW, LCSW, and Alyssa Ackerman, B.A., LMT, will be leading us on these walks.
Moving Grief Together: An Outdoor Walking Grief Support Group
Fridays from 10:00-11:00 am Eastern Time
Chevy Chase, Maryland
Join Tisha Washington, MSW, LMSW every Friday from 10:00-11:00 am Eastern for gentle outdoor grief group walks with space for quiet, conversation, and connection.
REMOTE WORKSHOP SERIES
Join us for our bi-monthly offering of one-hour remote workshops!
Here's what's upcoming. Mark your calendars!
April 7th: Grieving My Sibling: A Disenfranchised Loss
We hear how hard it is to find support for the death of a sibling.
Join Katherine Hatch, MSW, LCSW, Lindsay Wooster-Halberg, MSW, LCSW, and others who get it for a 1-hour online workshop that aims to bring together people navigating sibling loss.
April 14th: EMBER: Support Group for Every Kind of Loss
Grief isn't meant to be navigated in isolation. We're building a space that honors the messy, non-linear, and beautifully human experience of loss and life. Thank you for being part of it.
If this newsletter resonated with you, please share it with a friend—we appreciate you helping make our community just a wee bit bigger.
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