Grief Studies

new class for Feb 23rd to April 13th

It’s been a day.

Every day is a new day of spectacle as we witness the violent turning tides of fascism. A broken ceasefire as I anticipated would happen—as I’ve been saying for the last sixteen months—the Zionists have no morality, yet we still hoped that they would keep their word. Months, years, decades of blaming the Palestinians for their own annihilation, allowing the propaganda that it is Hamas who has been standing in the way of negotiations - all circulated by Western publications who refuse to tell the truth. Witnessing this has left me in a rage-filled state, it’s left me feeling so much grief for this planet, and for our future.

Who are we if we don’t have truth? If we don’t honor it?

I’ve been trying to navigate the fires in Los Angeles for the last few weeks. Thankfully, I didn’t have to evacuate my home but my roommate Maya, a survivor of Katrina, keeps reminding me that all of us could become climate refugees at any moment.

My climate anxiety has been pulsing and rupturing and it’s hard to believe that I’ll be OK. I don’t know how to feel through everything. Another Trump presidency and corporations are still invested in weapons as the planet continues to choke. Those of us who have been paying attention know that this is just the beginning, our planet is sick, and we refuse to collectively make her better.

My literary agent recently dropped me and as I read her email where she said she didn’t feel like we were the right fit, I wondered if I’d been naive all these months speaking so openly about Zionism. Palestine has my heart, I will always defend Palestine, but sometimes I wonder what the long-term cost will be on my career and life that I’ve become such a publically outspoken person about Zionism. In truth, I don’t care, I’ve lost a lot but the reality is — as a survivor of incest and CSA, I never had a lot to begin with. Everything I built has been from nothing. I try to remember that as I feel this sadness take over me.

I completely rely on this Substack and teaching to make my rent and I’ve been in a financial slump recently after taking a bet on myself last year and going on a European tour… and I don’t have money for next month’s rent… but it’s been hard to motivate myself to do anything… now things are so dire that I wonder how I’ll survive. Will I lose my home? Where will I go if the fires engulf more of this city? After 18 years, my asthma has been acting up. Just earlier this week another fire - the Hughes fire - popped out of nowhere, just north of me. In one day, it spread to almost 10,000 acres. The Palisades are still raging, as is the Eaton Fire. So many Angelinos have lost their homes, including friends and comrades. It’s hard not to feel the devastation of the moment. It’s hard not to feel the grief.

This is all to say, as I navigate a moment of extreme sadness, after having a panic attack that was triggered by my depression and climate anxiety, I realized it’s time for me to teach Grief Studies again, a class I’ve been teaching for a year now and one that was born out of my depression and not knowing where to put all this feeling. Last year, almost two hundred of you sat with me for eight weeks every week and processed everything with me as we moved through the grief and decolonization stages together. It was an honor. Every single person that committed to that experience - thank you, I love you. You made me understand that I have value and that my work means something. As I continue to struggle within an industry that’s never protected me, I lean on you, this community that I’ve built despite it all.

If you are reading this and my work has helped you, it would mean a lot if you became a paid subscriber—if you aren’t already. I need all the help I can get right now, and your generosity would really help buoy me through the difficult work I do of speaking loudly about liberation. Alternatively, please take my classes! Inshallah, I will commit to teaching three Grief Studies sessions this year (again), I’ll keep doing my solstice and equinox classes as well and Yumi and I will be teaching our decolonization classes again—maybe even in a city near you! Especially as I navigate making new work and new art, I need your help and your support — I need your community. If you are a person who can hire me for a job, please reach out!

And, in case you’re interested, here’s more information on Grief Studies. It would be an honor to sit with you.

+++

Grief Studies

Note: there are no more full scholarships left!

In the first five classes, we will focus on one of the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance) alongside the five stages of decolonization (rediscovery/recovery, mourning, dreaming, commitment, and action). The last three classes will focus on “finding meaning,” “restoration” and “resilience.”

A lot of this work was sourced from my own findings while writing Who Is Wellness For? As I wrote the book, I started to see this relationship between how grief was undoubtedly an indicator of so much, it was like a current that moved through our bodies, charging certain parts of us—generally without our full comprehension. Yet, I realized, in my own life, the more you enquire after your own grief, the more that is revealed, and the easier it is to get to know yourself… the better a tool you become for revolution in your community and society.

After further inquiry, I realized the grief stages are strangely synced with the decolonization stages… which felt apt. We, all, collectively, heal through decolonizing.

This class is designed for that.

I will be using writing prompts and works by Billy-Ray Belcourt, Aracelis Girmay, Hala Alyan, Agha Shahid Ali, Mosab Abu Toha, Hanif Abdurraqib and Noor Hindi (to name a few of the brilliant writers whose work we will be reading every week) to let theirs (and others’) works guide us to the center of our own grief.

This workshop is for anyone who wants something to participate in something that will push them through some of the stagnation of sadness and onward to liberation.

More information:

When: We will meet for 8 weeks every week from February 23rd, 9 am PST - 12 pm PST, to April 13th.

There is limited space available.

Where: Zoom (I’ll send a link)

Will this be recorded? Yes.

How much is it?

• It’s $650 for the 8 weeks

• There’s a sliding scale rate of $500 for Black, Indigenous, and Palestinian folks as well as working class and disabled folks and CSA survivors. I know I also have a lot of readers in the Global South, if you ever want to take a class please reach out and I will try and figure something out.

• There are a few partial scholarships

• There are 5 full scholarship spaces, if interested please let me know why you want to take this class & why you’d like/need a scholarship.

• I also take a payment plan

The workshops I teach are a place of care and radicality.

I prioritize the voices that are silenced in this everyday white supremacist, Zionist, ableist, anti-Black, Islamophobic, anti-Arab/Palestinian, transphobic, queerphobic world and so these workshops are an attempt to create a space where we can acknowledge that these systems of oppression exist, and understand that it’s our responsibility to unlearn these things, especially when (and while) we are in community. If you are a privileged-bodied person, please move with that understanding in this space. Humility is required here.

I don’t tolerate harmful language, at the same time, I endeavor to create a space of accountability and witnessing. This is hard work, grief work requires ego work, if you are willing to do this work, and are hungry to be in space with others who want to do this work, please reach out. It will test you, it might even push at certain limitations and boundaries… grief work is very uncomfortable work but I’m realizing it’s the most significant work you can do right now…

If all this sounds interesting and you feel ready, email me at mofhasan@gmail.com