Down to the Bones: Grief and the Bonewoman

Night Letters Podcast — Grief & the Bone Woman

In this episode, Iris and Ellen dive deep into grief — the personal, the collective, and the ancestral — and explore what it means to sit with sorrow rather than run from it.

In this episode:

How grief is showing up personally and collectively right now — and why that's actually a source of hope The feral, untamed nature of grief and why it resists being "polished" or rushed Why fully feeling loss is inseparable from feeling fully alive The pressure modern healing culture puts on "moving through" grief quickly — and why that's worth questioning Ancestral grief: carrying the weight of generations and finding meaning in it Practical ways Iris and Ellen have been moving with grief: crying, movement, writing, breathwork, animals, and community The Myth of La Loba (Bone Woman) Drawn from Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés' Women Who Run With Wolves, the story of La Loba — the wise elder who collects wolf bones in the desert and sings them back to life — serves as the mythic backdrop for this conversation. What bones in yourself are waiting to be gathered and sung back into wholeness?

Themes explored:

Grief as transformation and death/rebirth cycles The sacred nature of dark, uncomfortable emotional spaces Storytelling and song as acts of rebellion and hope Breathing new life into the bones — rebuilding identity after profound loss References mentioned:

Women Who Run With Wolves by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés Maria Souza (mythologist on Instagram) — Year of Myths course Beatle the Bard (bardcore/medieval hip hop on social media) Beltane & the thinning of the veil

Night Letters drops every other Wednesday at 10:00 PM on all major platforms.