RACHEL CLARA REED

We often say that death is the great equalizer - but even though we all die, not all people die alike. For many people in our society, their death ways reflect the systemic oppression they experience, as we see in genocide in Palestine and Sudan, and when Black and brown bodies are brutalized by the incarceration system in the U.S. and the UK.

This is why I see death work as activism, intricately woven into all of our movements.

This question underpins my work: What is a good death, and who has access to one?

And can we even begin to speak of a good death, if we can't ensure a good life for so many?

When I get asked // when I ask myself how we are meant to hold all that is happening right now - our personal griefs with global-scale grief, violence, terror - the only answer I have is that we are not meant to hold this on our own, but together.

I hear friends say they can't read the news right now, they can only focus on and serve what's right in front of them, otherwise they won't be able to cope. I hear other friends say that this is a privilege and a disrespect: we can't look away. I understand where all of these voices are coming from. I am all of these voices.

At a grief tending workshop two weeks ago, I listened to other participants speak aloud their many layered griefs - from heartbreak and abuse to witnessing genocide. I was struck by how lonely most expressed they felt, how they don't know who to talk to, or felt they had exhausted the listening ears in their lives. At an open mic two nights ago, someone asked everyone who has felt lonely this year to stand and at least half the room stood.

We need a big, brave resistance to this culture of loneliness that has swept in. In a media landscape where everything is becoming AI-shiny, I worry that we become even more afraid to show our messy, human vulnerabilities, our darker depths. When I believe that touching our darkness to another's allows us to feel lighter because we remember our shared humanity.

I know it feels too much right now - it is too much for one human soul to hold. But let's find ways to hold it together. Let's speak our fears aloud, let's gather to process collectively, let's topple the myth of self reliance. And then let's reclaim our agency, step by small step.

Sometimes the antidote to despair in this time is purposeful action. And sometimes the antidote is deep loving on and presence with the place and people that make home, home.

When my partner, Geoff, and I moved to London three years ago, we were making dinner in our half unpacked flat and reading the news about flooding up and down the UK. And I said, “Let’s put our art on the walls now. We don’t know how long we’ll have this life, here, now, so let’s enjoy it the most we can.”

Okay, it sounds dramatic. But what I mean to say is sometimes the only thing we can do in the face of uncertainty is enjoy, to our fullest ability, what’s right in front of us. We can’t know what will happen next. What we know is what we love, here, now.

I tend to nest hard, even when I’ve moved around a lot. Geoff and I are notorious for traveling impractically weighed down with framed art, books, and a rock collection, which we would display and surround ourselves with even if we were just staying some place for a couple of weeks. Inviting the topics of death and mortality to take center stage in my life and in my work reminds me that every moment is ephemeral. We often don’t know while doing something that it will be the last time we do that thing. Each tender gathering with other mortals is unique and will never happen again. We enter an experience to say goodbye to it. We enter a relationship to say goodbye to it. It is all precious. All we can do to slow down time even a little is pay attention.

And I guess this is also an opportunity to remind you, as I was reminded by Alua Arthur, the death doula I trained under, in a podcast interview the other day, that we are actually practicing stepping into the unknown in every moment. We never have any idea what will happen next. And yet we continue to step. So this is to say, we got this.

My identity lives in the in-between: I’m mixed race, third generation Chinese-American. Growing up, this meant often not feeling I fully belonged anywhere. This search for belonging has defined my life.

This is why I’m drawn to liminal spaces in my work: the thresholds between life and death, death and decomposition, conflict and connection, speaking and silence. In facilitation, this means I’m able to sit in the messy middle with people. This isn’t about finding quick fixes. It’s recognizing that human relationships are complex and nuanced, and staying with that complexity creates space for deeper understanding. I’ve learned that part of our work is getting comfortable in the liminal - where right-and-wrong thinking falls away and “I don’t know” becomes truth.

The natural world teaches us that liminal spaces are where generative life happens: forests meeting coastlines, changing seasons, mycelial networks. We have many teachers when our human-centric perspective feels limiting. They remind us that from the in-between, our imagination can expand to find paths forward we never thought possible. If we don’t rush towards certainty and closure, we can let go of what doesn’t serve us and nourish what wants to emerge 🌱

“Death is not the burden. Inequality and the violent imbalance of power is.”

These words from activist and writer Malkia Devich-Cyril ground me in the recognition that while death is part of the natural cycle of being human, many of the ways people die today are not natural. It is not natural to be bombed. It is not natural to be forced to leave your home. It is not natural to be unable to pay for healthcare. It is not natural to choose death because the conditions of life in society are unlivable. As we grow our capacity to speak about death and grief, we need to be able to speak about these realities.

The work of a death doula is to bring death back into the hands of the people, to remind us that we already know innately how to take care of our ill and dying loved ones, just as our ancestors did. It’s not to say we need to reject institutions completely but to remember our own agency: that we should get to decide how we give birth, how we love and care for one another, how we die. And it’s to fight for this agency for all of us. This is why death work, for me, has always been activism work, deeply rooted in all of our movements.

The text in the image is from the essay “To Give Your Hands to Freedom, First Give Them to Grief”, published in adrienne maree brown’s book Holding Change.

In the book “My Grandmother’s Hands”, trauma therapist Dr. Resmaa Menakem wrote that clients come to him for therapy, but more fundamentally, it’s because he has a settled nervous system and their bodies not only feel good around his, they actually settle in response.

This is a huge inspiration in my facilitation work: I continually practice settling my own body, allowing ease and safety to spread across the room and ripple outward, as participants feel more comfortable speaking about these topics. This is how I practice ‘with-ness’—being in relationship through active internal conflict resolution.

When people ask me how best to support loved ones who are experiencing a bereavement, I tell them: one of the most supportive things you can do is practice settling your body when you’re sharing space with that person. In our deathphobic culture, it’s natural to want to say the exact right thing but to feel anxiety about navigating someone else’s grief. What matters most is keeping our bodies open and calm, because that energy – the feeling that you are present and really want to just sit with the person you love – is felt.

From listening to stories of family conflict around end of life, one of the most common sources of misunderstanding happens because grief looks different for each of us. While there are some universal threads that we can recognize in each other’s experience of grief, it is an incredibly individual process – non-linear and often not logical.

We think we should feel the same – in fact, we crave to feel the same, because we crave for someone to understand where we’re coming from, entirely. We reach for a semblance of certainty in an experience where we’ve been forced to surrender control. This search for understanding actually leads to misunderstanding, and our experience can feel unbearably lonely.

I wonder if sometimes the most we can do is acknowledge that there is a part of our experience that will always be lonely, a part of our path that only we can tread. But if that is the same for everyone else as well, perhaps we can be lonely, together? Perhaps we can’t say “I know exactly how you feel” but we can say “I will sit with you, through whatever you are feeling.” Or we can say “let’s sit together in our individual griefs and be each other’s community.”

Being lonely, but not isolated. Lonely, together. An idea I'm testing 🌱

A moment of sweet stillness before a death dinner 🕯️

A friend recently said about a death dinner she attended, "I didn't expect so much laughter!"

I think there are many reasons why we can actually feel lighter speaking about death ~

There's relief in telling stories you don't often get to tell, and those stories being held with care. Often we may not realize how much being in silence and holding something privately is weighing us down until it's released in a safe space.

There's also relief in being able to acknowledge all of the emotions that are possible within grief: sadness and anger, yes, but also wonder, gratitude, hope. I find that many people feel guilty about the range of emotions they feel, because they don't think they're "supposed" to feel anything that could be considered "positive" while in bereavement. But the human experience is complex and varied, and naming our own complexities is a way to honor this and realize there is no right and wrong.

And then there's relief in seeing ourselves reflected in other people's stories: we are not as alone as we think. We are in a long lineage of humans who have been asking the same questions generation after generation. We may never reach an answer - it's the asking, together, that matters.

Finally, there's just something about humor that is a balm when things are difficult. It's not to frivolize big emotions, but it's to acknowledge that life and death is often absurd and strange. Humor cracks a window open and allows some breathing room when things feel heavy. It's a creative act: it can invite perspective shifts and connection.

If you're curious about attending a death dinner in London, I would love to host you. And - you do not have to have experienced an intimate bereavement. These dinners are for anyone who will die one day.