A year long creative cohort exploring folklore and myths of flowers and plants as they relate to death, grief, and shapeshifting. This class primarily focuses on Greek myth and European folklore. Participants will explore their own process of shapeshifting and story-telling in grief and relationship with plants, creating and sharing creative writing and art inspired by the plants we meet and themes we explore each month.
Tears of the Gods
Flowers, death, grief, + ShapeshiftinG
Upcoming Course Dates
February- December 2026
Classes meet on Thursdays from 2-4pm eastern (US) time
all sessions are recorded for those unable to make it live!
Discounted $450 through December 26th!
Scholarships form open through December 20th.
This class might be for you if…
✨ You love the idea of turning to the more than human world as inspiration and creative collaborators
✨ You are excited about plant magic, myth, and folklore, and deepening your relationship with the plant world
✨ You are looking for a creative outlet with which to express and process grief and loss
✨ You also want a creative practice that makes space for joy, play, and pleasure
✨ You are looking for ways to re-enchant your creative practice (or your life in general!)
✨ You feel you could benefit from a gentle, steady container for grief tending, rather than the occasional container that dives deep but leaves you feeling exhausted
✨ You’ve either found your creative practice disrupted by grief or overwork, OR you’ve found yourself brimming with creative energy but you’re not sure where to put it or how to begin or build a steady practice…
✨ You want to have sustainable rhythms in your creative practice rather ones that leave you burnt out, disappointed, and frustrated
✨ You are working through grief related to creative expression and would like a supportive cohort to do this work alongside
✨ You are looking for a cohort of others wanting to hold space for and support one another in grief filled times
✨ You appreciate moving at a slower pace and a community setting
Please note: this course does not cover how to use or prepare herbal remedies (see instead the herbalism for grief support course).
An interdisciplinary cohort for creatives of all kinds
This course is grounded in the idea that we are all creative beings and we benefit from being in the company of others cultivating their creative practice, across a variety of creative mediums and backgrounds.
Participants accompany one another no matter where they are in relationship to their creative practice - whether you are new to thinking of yourself as an artist and would like support stepping into this part of yourself OR you’ve been creating art for years and find yourself craving some external structure, inspiration, prompts, and a supportive cohort of creators.
Past cohort members have created and shared with one another….
poetry, short stories, essays
songs, plays, dance, performance
sculptures, drawings, paintings, collage
spells, rituals, candles, altars
embroidery, clothing, fiber arts
costume, masks
culinary creations
gardens and nourishing spaces
the list goes on!
course Topics
In addition to doing a deep dive of the folklore of 10 different plants, we will explore the following themes together:
Flowers and Plants as Allies for the Underworld
Reconnecting with our lived experiences with plants and stories
Reconnecting with ancestral plant stories
Grieving as Shapeshifting + Being with the Unknown
Becoming Compost & Flora: Ripening into Death
Story Telling, Creative Writing, Art Making, + Myth Making
Entanglement + Collapse: staying with the trouble of love amidst collective + ecological loss
Course structure
Our class will meet 3 x per month.
(Aside from the first month, in which we will have one additional class opening the space, meeting one another, and setting intentions!)
Meeting 1: Meeting the Plants
In first class meeting of each month, we will dive into the stories, myth, and history of that month’s plant as they relate to grief, death, and shapeshifting. These sessions will be part story sharing and part creative workshop, with time to journal and create using plant-inspired prompts.
Meeting 2: Collective Studio
In the second session of the month, we will have an informal collective studio time, in which we will create alongside one another using whatever mediums we like. Though sometimes these spaces are silent as we each do our own thing, there is also room to collaborate, connect, and share our reflections and ideas with one another.
Meeting 3: Discussion & Art Share
The final meeting of each month is dedicated to collective sharing—a space for your own insights, stories, and magic to emerge. In these gatherings, we share the creative projects and insights that have taken root during our month-long journey with that particular plant, and create the soil for new collective myths, projects, and understandings to grow.
We rotate through this rhythm each month, meeting 10 different plants total, and our last month together (December) will focus on wintering and closing the space.
Course Schedule
Tuesday, Feb 3, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Welcome and Opening the Space (all other classes on Thursdays!)
February - Rosemary & The cloak of Venus: crossing the threshold into creative consciousness
Thursday, Feb 5, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Rosemary Workshop
Thursday, Feb 12, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Collective Studio
Thursday, Feb 26, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Reflection & Art Share
March - Anemone, vegetal gods, & The tears of venus: Grief as wild beast & life bringer
Thursday, March 5, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Anemone Workshop
Thursday, March 12, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Collective Studio
Thursday, March 26, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Reflection & Art Share
april - Peony: making beauty while falling apart, befriending monsters in grief’s underworld
Thursday, April 2, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Peony Workshop
Thursday, April 9, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Collective Studio
Thursday, April 23, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Reflection & Art Share
may - rose: pierced hearts, Desire, & The erotic, as allies for the Unknown of grief + creative process
Thursday, April 30, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Rose Workshop
Thursday, May 7, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Collective Studio
Thursday, May 28th, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Reflection & Art Share
june - Poppy, Nyx, & Demeter: Rest & darkness as creative cauldron, & Blooming within Ruins
Thursday, June 4, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Poppy Workshop
Thursday, June 11, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Collective Studio
Thursday, June 25, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Reflection & Art Share
July - Yarrow & the Grief of achilles: weaving ourselves back together, repair + titration instead of wound excavation
Thursday, July 2, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Yarrow Workshop
Thursday, July 16, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Collective Studio
Thursday, July 30, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Reflection & Art Share
August - Vervain & The Tears of Isis: Re-membering our multitiudes, grief & creativity as compost
Thursday, August 6, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Vervain Workshop
Thursday, August 13, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Collective Studio
Thursday, August 27, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Reflection & Art Share
September - Chamomile: Slowing down, Easing the passage, & Making sanctuary in times of rupture
Thursday, Sept 3, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Chamomile Workshop
Thursday, Sept 10, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Collective Studio
Thursday, Sept 24, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Reflection & Art Share
October - Pomegranate & Persephone: forbidden fruits, Belonging to multiple realms as grievers & artists
Thursday, Oct 1, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Pomegranate Workshop
Thursday, Oct 15, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Collective Studio
Thursday, Oct 29, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Reflection & Art Share
November - Thyme & the tears of helen: grief altared perspectives on time and space
Thursday, November 5, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Thyme Workshop
Thursday, November 12, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Collective Studio
Thursday, November 19, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Reflection & Art Share
December - Winter, Rot, and Root Systems - Closing the Space
Thursday, December 3, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Winter Workshop
December 10, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Collective studio
Thursday, December 17, 2-4pm Eastern Time - Closing the space
VIRTUAL CREATIVE SHOWCASE TBA
NOTE: changes in the topics and meeting times may occur - but I will do my best to let you know ahead of time!
course approaches
click on each of the headings below to learn more!
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Coming from a background in community organizing and community based education, I see the classroom as a space made up of relationships, and relationships as the place where healing happens, as well as a place of deep learning. While there will be spaces where I am sharing in a lecture or workshop based format, much of our exploration of what is shared will be collective dialogue - rather than simply me sharing with you. While there is no requirement to share, this is a space where I hope all will feel that their insights and experiences are welcome and valued.
While each session is recorded, I think of the course as an invitation to be with each other in grief and our desire to support others in grief. All this to say, you’ll probably get more out of it and feel more connected to the course if you plan to attend most classes live- though this isn’t a requirement, and there are ways to participate via our discord for those unable to make it live.
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Every thing in our class is an invitation and optional, and choice is central. There are many ways to participate and no one right way. Listening to your body, your resistances, your excitement and interest will be encouraged throughout our course.
Grief is given a place at the table in our class discussions and check ins, but also in the design of this course, which is designed for those us who feel profoundly changed by our grief.
We will also be creating space to share about our joys, and to lean into those places in our lives where we feel nourished - to tend to the both/and of our grief/joy, and the relationship between the two.
This class is an invitation to really welcome ourselves and our grief however it arrives, emerges, and changes, and to let it be the vast, shapeshifting landscape of experience that it is.
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Sinking into our relationships with plants teaches us so much about practicing the art of sensing, noticing, slowing down enough to give plants and our bodies and the places we live our attention. Remembering that we are already being held. Opening to nuance and not knowing. Opening to the possibilities of care and mutual aid between species, to being “stopped in our tracks in wonderment” of the ecosystems we find ourselves in and the beings we share them with (Queer Nature). And that noticing, remembering, opening, sensing, becoming re-enchanted to the world is in itself incredible medicine. This class is an invitation to embrace slowness and the possibility of enchantment as medicine, and see what doors that opens for grief support from plants, their wisdom, and their stories.
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Instead of rooting our creative practices in capitalist expectations of endless productivity, at the expense of ourselves and the earth, we can have creative practices that look more like ecosystems. We can root our creative practice in attunement to ourselves and others, with seasons and cycles of growth and decay.
With the plants as guides and collaborators, we get to make our creative process a process of attuning to the world and ourselves.
What participants Are Saying
“Mara June is an incredibly gifted facilitator, herbalist, death worker, storyteller, and an exemplary example of community care. Their passion and love for the work they do, space they hold, and those they serve is immeasurable. What I value most about working with Mara, is the room for grief and joy to meander throughout the group and class, as well as happen simultaneously.
Mara has a knack for fostering connection and care with plants, grief, creativity, each other, and ourselves. I leave Mara June’s offerings completely enthralled with what I’ve gained and hungry for more. If you are curious about the work being done at Motherwort & Rose, I highly recommend jumping in – you’ll be met with such a soft and lovely landing.”
— Jillian, Tears of the Gods participant
“I am in the current cohort of this @motherwortandrose magic and I cannot recommend it enough. It is such a beautiful space to tend to your grief and learn and grow and know we are all grieving something, all of the time. We are never alone, and Mara creates that feeling in every class.”
— Abby, Tears of the Gods participant
“Mara holds grief space so tenderly and expansively. This cohort was full of magical humans, and was a nourishing portal to plant magic, creativity and care in this time of collective horror and heartbreak.”
— Lindsay, Tears of the Gods participant
“I have loved being a part of Tears of the Gods. It has deepened my relationship with plants and sparked curiosity about the myths and lore associated with them. It's also expanded my vocabulary for talking about grief. Most of all, though, the environment Mara created and nurtured has surfaced the poetry that's been dormant for so many years. The urge to create is no longer suppressed. it’s inspired my own grief work as well. I've gotten so much out of being with the people in this cohort.”
— Tamara, Tears of the Gods participant
“During the height of my grief this was a soft space to be held and witnessed. To not share the burden alone. To find beauty amidst the pain in art, folklore, poetry, and ritual. Meaning making was essential for my survival during a time of both collective and personal grief. In this class along with other tender hearted folk we explored storytelling, myth-making, and creativity to alchemize our sorrow. In this space we didn't just use herbal allies, but developed genuine relationships with each plant, honoring their spirits and learning to see parts of ourselves reflected in them. Mara weaves together creative spirituality, archetypal research, intuitive practices, and compassionate care work to create a bittersweet tapestry of love & death in community.”
— Leila, Tears of the Gods participant
Cost
Cohort based Course - Full access
Access to this 11 month cohort based course is $1500 $1050 for those who sign up by December 26th using the code JUNIPER30
Payment plans are available and can be selected on the registration page below!
Scholarships
Scholarships are available for BIPOC and low income students. If interested, please complete an interest form here by December 20th. Please don’t be shy!