Grieving Loss Experienced During Pregnancy & Birth
A Sacred Conversation with Aya Maria & Willow Brook
Sunday, August 3rd, 2025 | 11am Pacific | 75 minutes
A gathering for those seeking to honor the inextricable dance between life and death in our reproductive experiences
Suggested Donation: $25-35 | No one turned away for lack of funds
Recording available to all registrants
What if grief and death are not interruptions to the sacred journey of pregnancy and birth, but woven into its very fabric?
In the profound territory of reproductive experience, we encounter one of life's deepest mysteries: there is no life without death, no birth without loss, no becoming without letting go. Every pregnancy, every birth, every postpartum transformation carries within it both the creative force of new life and the necessary deaths that allow for rebirth.
When we approach pregnancy and birth as sacred physiological rites of passage—initiations that transform the very biography of our bodies—we begin to understand that grief is not an unwelcome visitor, but an essential companion on this journey. The grief of who we were before conception. The death of innocence as we enter the raw power of gestation. The profound letting go required in birth. The mourning of our previous self as we cross the threshold into new identity.
In this tender exploration, Autonomous Midwife-Partera Aya Maria and Wild Heart co-founder Willow Brook invite us to recognize how the life realms of pregnancy naturally open us to the grief and death realms—not as pathology, but as sacred territory where we remember ourselves as extensions of raw natural power, moving through conscious ceremony with the earth's own cycles of creation and dissolution.
This Gathering Is For You If You Are:
- Navigating any form of reproductive grief—from obvious losses to subtle transformations
- Seeking to understand pregnancy and birth as sacred rites of passage
- A birth worker curious about honoring grief as part of the reproductive continuum
- Longing to connect with ancestral wisdom about life, death, and renewal
- Ready to explore how grief and joy dance together in reproductive experiences
- Wanting to reclaim ceremony and elemental wisdom in your healing journey
Through Our Time Together, You Will:
- Discover how grief is woven into the sacred fabric of all reproductive experiences
- Explore pregnancy and birth as physiological rites of passage that include necessary deaths
- Learn from ancestral technologies that honor both creation and dissolution
- Understand how to move through reproductive grief as conscious ceremony
- Connect with elemental wisdom that sees us as part of earth's cycles of renewal
- Find ways to hold space for both profound loss and the continuation of life force
Questions We'll Explore:
How are grief and death inextricably woven into the sacred territory of pregnancy and birth?
What do ancestral technologies teach us about honoring transformation through loss?
How can we approach reproductive grief as sacred ceremony rather than pathology?
What does it mean to move through physiological rites of passage consciously?
How do we honor ourselves as "extensions of raw natural power" in times of loss?
How can elemental wisdom guide us through the cycles of creation and dissolution?
Your Guides for This Journey
Aya Maria
Aya Maria is a mother, Autonomous Midwife-Partera, and Elemental Fertility Guide & Educator. She works with women and families to activate their cyclical-elemental memory and approach reproductive care consciously and ceremoniously.
Rooted in the understanding that menarche, gestation, childbirth, and postpartum are sacred physiological rites of passage that transform the biography of our bodies, Aya guides people to move through these initiations as conscious ceremony. She has supported over 300 births and worked with over 400 women and families through her immersions and formations.
Her teachings come through Ancestral Plant Medicine Work, Traditional First Nations Doctors, Comadronas & Matronas of Central and South America, and the activation of ancestral and intuitive memory through daily disciplines. Aya holds the understanding that we are natural parts of the Earth, designed to move through our physiological rites of passage in collaboration with nature's cycles.
Willow Brook
Willow Brook is an earth-loving educator, creative director, and artist who combines devotional practices of earth ritual, meditation, yoga, and song to support people through life transitions. As co-founder of Wild Heart, she creates sacred containers for exploring the divine feminine and bringing the sacred into everyday life.
Willow's approach honors the full spectrum of human experience, including the profound losses that shape our spiritual journey.
Event Details
Date: Sunday, August 3rd, 2025
Time: 11:00am-12:15pm Pacific Time
Format: Live Online Gathering via Zoom
Suggested Donation: $25-35 (No one turned away for lack of funds)
Recording: Available to all registrants
Please offer what is possible and generous to you to support our team in continuing to share these events.
We're Eager to Hear Your Voice
Participants will be asked to submit questions before the event to inform what our speakers share. You will also have an opportunity to ask follow-up questions during our time together live.
You are an important part of the conversation.
Grief Conversations Happen Every Month of 2025
Join the Wild Heart community in other heart-to-hearts exploring the full spectrum of grief.
These conversations are for those who may be feeling alienated in their grief experience, longing for community and supportive resources. We hope these dialogues with companions on the journey will offer new perspectives and aid in exploring grief as a spiritual process.
Explore All Grief ConversationsA Note from Aya & Willow
Dear Friends,
We recognize how isolating it can feel to carry grief around reproductive experiences in a culture that often separates life from death, joy from sorrow, creation from dissolution.
In our work, we've come to understand that grief is not an interruption to the sacred journey of pregnancy and birth—it is woven into its very essence. Every conception carries the death of who we were before. Every pregnancy includes the necessary dissolution that allows new life to emerge. Every birth requires profound letting go. Every postpartum transformation asks us to grieve our previous selves as we step into new identity.
When we approach these experiences through the lens of ancestral wisdom—understanding ourselves as extensions of raw natural power, moving through sacred physiological rites of passage—we begin to see that our grief is not pathology but ceremony. It is the very mechanism through which we transform, just as the earth herself cycles through seasons of growth and decay, creation and rest.
Aya brings the profound understanding that we are designed to move through these initiations consciously, in collaboration with elemental wisdom and ancestral technologies. Willow offers her experience in holding sacred space for the full spectrum of transformation, honoring both the fierce beauty of creation and the tender necessity of letting go.
Together, we invite you into a conversation that treats reproductive grief not as something to overcome, but as sacred territory to explore—a doorway into deeper relationship with the cycles of life and death that govern all existence.
We hope you'll join us in this exploration of how grief and life dance together in the most intimate spaces of creation.
With sacred witness and deep reverence,
Aya & Willow
