Breathing Wind

“One of my teachers says that all emotions contain their opposite. So when I'm willing to be with the grief, I have access to joy again. Instead of this armoring that comes very natural to us, we do our best to remain to find the willingness to open in an undefended way.”

— Vinny Ferraro

In this episode, Dara and Sarah talk with Vinny Ferraro about the training program, A Year to Live, emotional opposites and armor, insight meditation and how his practice has shifted his relationship to grief. 

Vinny Ferraro is a nationally recognized leader in designing and implementing mindfulness interventions. He’s served as the Training Director for Mindful Schools, Challenge Day and the Mind Body Awareness Project. His experience includes decades of direct services to incarcerated people. He’s been empowered in the Buddhist Insight tradition, and he’s been the Guiding Teacher of the Big Heart City Sangha in SF since 2004.

This episode is part of a Breathing Wind miniseries titled Grief and Humor, co-hosted by Dara Kosberg and Sarah Davis. The Grief and Humor miniseries explores how humor allows people to get closer to their grief, explore it and better understand it, by creating a gateway into the hard feelings.

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“We often feel like maybe it's a betrayal of our grief to feel joy or that there's no room in grief for joy, or that it means, if we're grieving the loss of somebody who died that we loved, maybe we're not loving or honoring their memory enough or whatever the stories are that we tell ourselves. But we need joy to hold the heavy and the sad.”

• Naila Francis

In this episode, Naila talks with Sarah Davis, producer, about her miniseries, joy as resilience, and the ways that resilience appeared in her conversations.

This episode is part of the Breathing Wind miniseries titled Joy as Resilience, hosted by Naila Francis. The Joy as Resilience miniseries explores why embracing joy is not frivolous and how cultivating it can help us weather challenging times and open our lives to greater connection and purpose. 

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“I understood really early about when you go through extreme grief, that there's loss in different kinds of ways. It’s not just the person that passed away…It’s all the threads that hold you close.” 

• Colleen Attara

In this episode, Naila talks with Colleen Attara about her early experience of grief and how that’s informed her journey as an artist and educator; her willingness to embrace joy in the midst of transformation; and the gift of being a caregiver to her mom, which inspired her altered book art practice. 

This episode is part of the Breathing Wind miniseries titled Joy as Resilience, hosted by Naila Francis. The Joy as Resilience miniseries explores why embracing joy is not frivolous and how cultivating it can help us weather challenging times and open our lives to greater connection and purpose. 

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"So it's not [about] bypassing the grief, or bypassing any of it. It's about creating space for it, holding it, seeing it, recognizing it, having a conversation with it, you know, and really honoring it. And knowing that underneath that is this place for you to access your joy as well."

• Simone Baker

This episode is part of the Breathing Wind miniseries titled Joy as Resilience, hosted by Naila Francis. The Joy as Resilience miniseries explores why embracing joy is not frivolous and how cultivating it can help us weather challenging times and open our lives to greater connection and purpose. 

In this episode, Naila talks with Simone Baker about her earliest experience with grief, how she began to “thaw” from the deep sadness she carried, and how the body can help process both joy and grief. 

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"I think you really have to have the sad to also appreciate the beauty."

• Moon Fang

This episode is a part of the Breathing Wind miniseries titled Joy as Resilience, hosted by Naila Francis. The Joy as Resilience miniseries explores why embracing joy is not frivolous and how cultivating it can help us weather challenging times and open our lives to greater connection and purpose. 

In this episode, Naila talks with Moon Fang, Southern California-based death doula and enthusiast about their work in the death awareness community, their experience with partner loss, and how the difficult moments can help with receiving joy.

Moon is a queer podcast host of Queer Death Stories and a future co-host of a project called Queering the Moon. They are a writer, a ritual dabbler and a seeker and a singer. A storyteller and a connector. Curiousness is their vice.

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"Personally for me, joy is my inherent nature. I really do feel it to be the essence of who I am and how I move through the world, which is interesting because so much of the work I do is around grief and loss and dying. And yet those experiences and journeys are so much more expansive than we might believe them to be, and are capable of holding joy, too, and many other positive emotions that we might not associate with them.” 

• Naila Francis

This episode is the trailer for the Breathing Wind miniseries titled Joy as Resilience, hosted by Naila Francis. The Joy as Resilience miniseries explores why embracing joy is not frivolous and how cultivating it can help us weather challenging times and open our lives to greater connection and purpose. 

As a writer and a grief coach, Naila’s work is often informed by her love of poetry, the gifts of healing rooted in nature and community and her commitment to expanding our grief, literacy and death awareness.

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"So they experienced this death. And then they all have to band together – ‘we're still going to make everything happen.’ That's kind of how I felt after my dad passed away; I'm just going to do everything that I need to do."

• Angela Tabora

This episode is part of a Breathing Wind miniseries titled Grief and Humor, co-hosted by Dara Kosberg and Sarah Davis. The Grief and Humor miniseries explores how humor allows people to get closer to their grief, explore it and better understand it, by creating a gateway into the hard feelings.

This is a two-part episode. In this episode, Part 2, Dara and Sarah talk with Erin Lim and Angela Tabora, co hosts of B***h Talk Podcast about grief and humor we saw in Little Miss Sunshine and other films. If you haven’t listened yet, go back to Part 1, where we talk about our parents’ humor, grief and humor, and humorous movies that remind them of their loved ones who passed away. 

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"…you have to find the humor. If it's not in their death, it's maybe something in their life.”

• Erin Lim

“My dad used to say that laughter is the best medicine…. I feel like it balances you out as well because you can't have the grief without the joy.”

• Angela Tabora

This episode is part of a Breathing Wind miniseries titled Grief and Humor, co-hosted by Dara Kosberg and Sarah Davis. The Grief and Humor miniseries explores how humor allows people to get closer to their grief, explore it and better understand it, by creating a gateway into the hard feelings.

In this episode, Dara and Sarah talk with Erin Lim and Angela Tabora, co hosts of B***h Talk Podcast, about their dads’ humor, grief and humor, and humorous movies that remind them of their loved ones who passed away.

“It feels like a wilderness exploration journey where, yeah, some parts of it we know and love. And some parts of it, we just don't know enough. And it's always a bit of a discovery. And the weather's always going to be different.”

— Duncan Cheung

This episode is part of a Breathing Wind miniseries titled Inner and Outer Wilderness, hosted by Duncan Cheung. The Inner and Outer Wilderness miniseries explores the wonderment of and between the wilderness out there and within each of us. 

This is the last episode in Duncan’s miniseries and is a compilation episode, highlighting themes discussed, including the metaphor of the wilderness, discomfort versus danger, home, joy, how wilderness spaces can be healing, and compassion.

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"No one can avoid negative stuff happening. Negative stuff happens all the time on a lot of different levels, whether I got gum on the bottom of my shoe, or my father died, right? And everything in between. We can't control that. And again, nature is the perfect metaphor for this – being out in the wilderness helps cultivate your ability to stay with your strong, resilient, loving wise self. And to let that core part of you lead."

• Wendy Rolón

This episode is part of a Breathing Wind miniseries titled Inner and Outer Wilderness, hosted by Duncan Cheung. The Inner and Outer Wilderness miniseries explores the wonderment of and between the wilderness out there and within each of us. For this episode, Sarah Davis, founder of Breathing Wind, led the conversation.

In this episode, Sarah talks with Duncan and regular Breathing Wind contributor and grief counselor, Wendy Rolón, about compassion for ourselves and others, how they tap into nature’s healing powers, and how to work with our inner children. 

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