Mel Greblo from The Coterie Global invited me to join her in Conversation.
The end of 2021 for Wendy Haynes brought with it a stark and unexpected diagnosis—a rare ovarian cancer. The dawn of the new year would be marked by radical surgery to remove the tumour and learning whether the cancer was contained or had spread – that deeply uncertain time of not knowing, so much, including whether one would live or die.
Wendy’s journey into the dark and light of her diagnosis, treatment and recovery was and is profoundly poignant. For 27 years Wendy had been holding ceremonial space with families – weddings, namings, intimate home and community funeral and memorial ceremonies. Wendy also facilitates Ongo: Everyday Nonviolence, empathy circles and mindfulness programs online. In a beautiful convergence of all of these practices and teaching, Wendy developed the acclaimed six-month program, ‘Celebrating this Precious Life, Honest Conversations about Death and Dying’.
All of this work – teaching and learning – came before her diagnosis, and as such her journey with ovarian cancer became an invitation to drop deeply into life, into the practices she’d been learning and teaching, into transformational learning.
We are honoured that Wendy will join Mel Greblo in a conversation about this sacred journey, sharing the various layers of unfolding, undoing, sense-making, practice, deep listening, being and giving Wendy experienced along the way. Please join us to discover more of your own unfolding as you drop into the life you’re in.
You can listen to that interview here:
Here is what Mel wrote after our Conversation together.
Wendy shared her story and journey with such generous warmth and grace, a truly inspiring conversation and one that will stay with us for a long time. If you were unable to join us or would like to watch or listen again, please find here a link to the recording.
Wendy read and performed several of her poems, and is in the process of working with Mark Tredinnick to compile her first collection, which we look forward to reading. In the meantime, some of Wendy’s poetry and writing can be read at her website and on her blog here.
Wendy shared so much of her wisdom and practice from her mindfulness and Nonviolent Communication training. I know we’ll be diving in deeper to these practices as it is clear the impact they have on whole person wellbeing and connection to other. Thank you Wendy for your generous and wise sharing and connection.
Thank you Mel!