It’s hard to believe we’re halfway through 2026! If you’re feeling like time is moving strangely fast this year, you’re not alone.
But that’s not this month’s message. This month’s message is about something I keep witnessing, over and over, in every room the animals gather us into.
Whenever we come into community around our animals, even around our own grief, regardless of what someone is grieving - the threads of a tapestry begin to weave themselves. Support gets woven with relationship. And that creates belonging.
I want to tell you where I saw it most recently.
The Circle
Keri Kenny and I hold our Pet Loss Grief Circle monthly for eight people at a time. Every session, the animals and circumstances are different; different stories, different shapes of grief.
But something happens every single time. The message that comes through for one person’s animal ends up being relevant for almost everyone else in the room. And in June, before we even began, Keri shared a meditation she’d received. She led us into it through the movement and breathwork that open our circles.
We are one.
That mantra stayed with us for the full two hours. And it was meant to weave us - all of us - everyone in that room, holding different griefs, somehow so we could be held by the same thread.
The Herd
I saw the same truth again this spring, in an entirely different setting.
For six weeks, I worked alongside Anna Marie Ellison and eight other people in Grief, Grace, and Gratitude: Healing Through Grief with the Wisdom of Horses.” The losses in that group ranged widely - from parents passing, identities lost, beloved animals gone - and yet it became one shared experience.
The chickens helped too, flitting into frame at just the right moments to lighten what we were moving through.
Six weeks of strangers becoming something more than separate individuals. A herd, really with the humans included.
The Class
And then there was “Emotional Brilliance,” the class I led with Danea from Kula Yoga here in Grand Rapids. Twelve classes over six weeks, walking through Soul Level Intuitive Coaching alongside the twelve meridians, each one supported by a yin yoga practice.
What I loved most was watching everyone learn from each other. Different stories, building on each other, class after class.
These were three completely different containers; a grief circle, a herd of horses and chickens and finally a yoga studio working through the body’s meridians. And in every single one, the same truth kept surfacing.
We Are One
That mantra wasn’t just for one Saturday in June. It’s the truth underneath everything I just described. The animals don’t only teach us individually, they gather us. They show one person’s grief to another person’s grief, and somehow, in that sharing, both griefs become a little more bearable.
Last month, we talked about embodied intuition, learning to trust what your body already knows. Notice something now: every story I just told you is community helping people trust that knowing together.
You don’t have to do this alone. None of us do because that was never the design.
This Month
As you know, all year, we’ve been building something together. We connected to ourselves, sat with tenderness and grief and found steady trust. We came home to our bodies where we let enduring love move through us learning how to trust our own embodied knowing.
And now, we widen out. We let that knowing meet other people’s knowing. We let the tapestry weave itself.
Whether your animal is here with you right now, or whether they’ve passed into spirit, you belong in this. There is a thread already reaching toward you.
We are one.
I’ll see you in this month’s Monday Morning Check-Ins, starting this coming Monday. And I would be honored to have you join one of our circles or classes this year.
Trust the animals. Trust yourself and absolutely trust the thread that connects us all.
EVENTS FOR JULY
🐾 Learn Your Pet’s Secret Language - with Danielle MacKinnon at Omega in Rhinebeck, NY - July 24-26, 2027
If you’re interested in starting your Animal Communication journey, Danielle MacKinnon, my teacher, is hosting her annual weekend workshop at Omega in Rhinebeck, NY on from July 24-26 and I’ll be one of her teaching assistants. I know some of you will be there and I can’t wait to give you a hug! If you’ve not enrolled and have been thinking about it - I can’t recommend this workshop enough. I went through in 2019 and I left feeling so connected.
🌈 Pet Loss Grief Circle: Grief, Ground & Gratitude - August 15 from 1pm - 3pm eastern on Zoom.
While we aren’t hosting a Circle for July - we do have one planned for August. The Circle is open to everyone experiencing the loss of a beloved animal companion. Join me and trauma informed ERYT500, keri kenney (she/her), for an intimate Pet Loss Grief Circle. We come together for 2 Hours in sacred space to hear from our beloved pets, share memories and practice gentle movement to work with our grief. The Circle is open to 8 participants. Registration for the Circle is required. Fee is $45.
🍁SAVE THESE FALL DATES🍁
🌈 In-Person Retreat with the Horses - October 9-11, 2026 - Shabbona, Illinois
Anna Marie Ellison, her herd and I are holding an in-person retreat at her ranch west of Chicago October 9-11. It will be three days of in-person working with the horses to support your grief journey. You can learn more and register here.
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