We’re an eclectic community of folks -- artists, musicians, poets, dancers, breathwork practitioners, tattooists, healers, and more -- making space for grief and loss.

We don’t believe grief and loss is a ‘problem’ to be fixed. We do believe grief and loss is part of what makes us human. So loss, we meet you with care, creativity, and connection!

Our community is made-up of

Losstenders: everyday people with experience of grief and loss who co-create healing moments and rituals.
Sharers: fellow humans wading through grief & loss who might be feeling a little lonely or lost, and who could use a bit of care and camaraderie.
Circle of Support: folks with some background in grief & loss, cultural healing practices, and community engaged art who offer a listening ear & learning opportunities for Losstenders and Alumni.
Alumni: Losstenders and Sharers from prior cohorts who help to make decisions, organize events, and scout fresh opportunities.
Backbone Team: a grief doula, designer, and a couple of community researchers who support cohorts to get up and running, the network’s operations, and evaluation.

The Soloss Network is supported by the City of Edmonton’s RECOVER Urban Wellbeing team, REACH Edmonton, and social design shop InWithForward. Because grief & loss underpins so much pain, disconnection, and unwellness, this partnership is testing how to resource & grow a novel approach to community care.

About the backbone team!

We're Hayley, Rochelle, Clarence, Natalie, Sarah, Amanda and Sue, and our role is to nourish & support the Soloss network!

Talents

…meeting new people, striking up conversation, being playful, being fabulous~, creating beautiful things from simple ideas, generating magical moments in unsuspecting places, using beautiful language to challenge normative ways of thinking and express the nuance of ideas we hope to seed.

Traits

…welcoming listeners, very funny & good looking, last minute… To the wire, creative and generative idea makers, and shakers, a bit disruptive, warm, kind, willing to wade through tough conversations, out of shape, did we mention funny? Curious, affectionate, rule breakers, soulful, artistic.

Aspirations

…to change the world, but actually start small, be real, focus on the community around us, where we live, our community.

We want to create beautiful moments, authentic relationships between all kinds of people, help shift society where we feel confident to care for eachother, and it can be given and received between everyday people, not only professionals.

Needs

…enthusiasm, desire to learn, open heartedness, courage, ability to navigate tricky terrain ( physically and mentally), warm energy, timely reciprocal communication, by phone, in person, or text, able to improvise in the movement, trust, did we mention communication? Yeah we need a lot of that.

A perfect day

…witnessing moments of healing or care, that feel good, spending time together in ways that feel good, learning together with a group of beautiful people, expanding our relationships & horizons, sharing freely.

We value

…beauty, ritual, ceremony, moments of awe, pleasure, great conversation, quiet moments, radical consent, honesty, respect, catharsis, solidarity, imperfection, co-creation, nunchi, humility, giving people the space to be human beings, where they can navigate relationship that make sense for them.