Summer Grief || By Laura Zwisler, LPC

Someone gave us the idea that summer is always light and fun, full of hope. I’m pretty sure it was Shakespeare. He constantly paints winter as miserable and summer as glorious. Wherever we got the idea, we all wait for summer to come, thinking that this will be the season where we don’t catch colds, get to…

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An American Experience of Death and Grief || By Lisa Martinez MA, ERYT 200-RYT 500

I have written posts in this series on various cultural approaches to death: Japanese rituals, Mexican/Meso-American rituals, Celtic rituals, Nigerian rituals, and Samoan/Pacific Islander rituals. I’m sure I could fill years with different posts covering rituals from thousands of other major cultures.  Across the 195 recognized countries in the world, ethnologists and anthropologists have estimated…

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The day you mourn and weep for another’s death … the Igbo community rituals of mourning || By Lisa Martinez, Affordable Counseling Intern for People House, ERYT 200-RYT 500

Continuing my exploration of various cultural mourning and grief rituals, for this post I’m featuring the story of my dear friend Maria who is from the Igbo ethnic group in Nigeria. The Igbo people form one of the largest people groups in Nigeria originating from Igboland, an area located in an eastern and western section…

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