Moonbeaming

Grief Is Love With Nowhere to Go with Fariha Róisín

Episode Summary

This week, Sarah welcomes back writer, educator, death worker, astrologer, and Many Moons 2027 contributor Fariha Róisín to the podcast. Sarah recently took Fariha’s Grief Studies class, and the two go deep on what grief really is, why it’s tied to love, and how it can become a gateway to healing, accountability, and decolonization. From there, the conversation moves into energy work, magic, and Fariha’s devotion to Mary Magdalene, a thread that connects to the 2027 planner and the High Priestess year ahead.

Episode Notes

eady to bring intention and magic into 2027? Love all the Tarot talk on this pod? Pre-order your copy of the 2027 Many Moons Lunar Planner HERE to get the good good.

This week, Sarah welcomes back writer, educator, death worker, astrologer, and Many Moons 2027 contributor Fariha Róisín to the podcast. Sarah recently took Fariha’s Grief Studies class, and the two go deep on what grief really is, why it’s tied to love, and how it can become a gateway to healing, accountability, and decolonization. From there, the conversation moves into energy work, magic, and Fariha’s devotion to Mary Magdalene, a thread that connects to the 2027 planner and the High Priestess year ahead.

Please take care of yourself! This conversation touches on childhood trauma, family harm, abuse, and the violence of the current moment, including Gaza. Feel free to skip ahead if you need to.

In this episode you’ll hear:

• How Grief Studies was born in 2024 out of collective grief, and why Fariha never planned to teach it more than once
• Why grief isn’t just sadness: its ties to love, trauma, and even the animal kingdom
• Why anger is so often mourning in disguise, and how seeing it that way gives us more room to hold it
• What it means to be the “emotional sponge” in your family system, and how many sensitive kids grow up to become facilitators, therapists, and artists
• How grief can be a bridge to decolonization, and why decolonizing starts with humility
• Why we need real spaces to be vulnerable, and the hidden cost of comfort, avoidance, and outsourcing every hard feeling to a therapist
• How to stay grounded in a spiritual world that can breed bypassing and ego
• How qigong and Reiki taught Fariha that energy is always available, and why she says to use our magic tools for revolution
• Fariha’s introduction to Mary Magdalene, the overlap between Magdalene and Mother Mary, the Black Madonnas, and what it means to become a Magdalene devotee

References:

• You can read Wendell Berry’s poem “Questionnaire” HERE

More on Fariha:

Born in Ontario, Canada, they were raised in Sydney, Australia, and are based in Los Angeles, California. As a Muslim queer Bangladeshi, they are interested in the margins, liminality, otherness, and the mercurial nature of being. Their work has pioneered a refreshing and renewed conversation about wellness, contemporary Islam, degrowth and queer identities and has appeared in Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Vice, Village Voice, and others.

Róisín has published a book of poetry entitled How To Cure A Ghost (Abrams), a journal called Being In Your Body (Abrams), and a novel named Like A Bird (Unnamed Press) which was named one of the Best Books of 2020 by NPR, Globe and Mail, Harper’s Bazaar, a must-read by Buzzfeed News and received a starred review by the Library Journal. Their first work of non-fiction Who Is Wellness For? An Examination of Wellness Culture and Who it Leaves Behind (HarperWave) was released in 2022, and their second book of poetry Survival Takes A Wild Imagination came out Fall of 2023.

Substack "How To Cure A Ghost" and IG @fariha_roisin

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