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While my home-base is in Colorado—on the stolen, ancestral lands of the Arapaho, Ute, and Cheyenne tribes—I work with people and communities across the Dreaming Earth. You can send me a digital howl using the button below or by emailing holly@hollytruhlar.com. If you want to know about upcoming workshops, groups, and in-person events sign up for my newsletter below, connect with me on instagram, or explore my Events & Offerings page.

 

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SORROWS OF THE WORLD VIGIL: Monday, June 2nd, 5-6p SORROWS OF THE WORLD VIGIL: Monday, June 2nd, 5-6pm MDT There is so much swirling. So much collapsing inside and around us. We are grieving personal heartbreaks, cultural ruptures, and the ongoing violence of empire. This is a time for vigil. A time to gather our scattered selves and sit, candlelit, in the company of others who feel the weight of it all. We’ll grieve relationship losses and the personal deaths that have touched us. We’ll grieve the genocides in Palestine, Congo, Sudan. We’ll grieve the assault on trans lives. The rise of fascism. The desecration of land and water. We’ll grieve what feels like too much to carry alone, because together we can hold it with deep care and heart. Join us for a one-hour grief vigil where we’ll welcome all sorrows, light candles, share our griefs, play music, and hold space for all that aches. DETAILS Day: Monday, June 2nd Time: 4–5pm PDT / 5-6 MDT / 7-8 EDT Where: Register on EventBrite, hosted on Zoom Facilitated by: Naila Francis @thishallowedwilderness and @hollytruhlar Not recorded. Candles encouraged. Registration in the bayo portal. Because grief is sacred and we don’t have to do this alone. Quote credits: @jaiyajohn @rowenwhite @adriennemareebrown . . . #CollectiveGrief #Vigil #GriefRitual #PoliticizedGrief #TheSorrowsOfTheWorld #TheWildEdgeOfSorrow #JaiyaJohn #RowenWhite #AdrienneMareeBrown #FrancisWeller #GriefSupport
GRIEF & SOLIDARITY DAYS are here, this weekend: Ma GRIEF & SOLIDARITY DAYS are here, this weekend: May 31st & June 1st. Across kitchen tables, under trees, in backyards, parks, and next to creeks, people are gathering to grieve. Because grief is not just personal. It’s political. It’s ancestral. It’s alive in the marrow of our movements. Grief reveals what we love. And in grieving together, we remember that we belong to each other. That no one is disposable. That the world’s pain is ours to tend, not alone, but together. Grief is not weakness. It is resistance. It is the alchemy of heartbreak and devotion. It is a doorway to collective liberation. This weekend, we grieve to remember. We grieve to resist. We grieve to root ourselves deeper in solidarity. The resource packet + video recording from our Grief & Solidarity Days prep call with @kaichengthom, @desireeadaway, @alexandra_blakely, Francis Weller, and me is available through the end of Sunday. It’s waiting for you in the usual place. The recording l:nk is woven into the letter on the final page of the packet. Through that call, we raised $1,550 for the National Immigrant Justice Center. Thanks to so many of you for your generosity. Thank you for turning grief into meaningful action. If you want to donate, there’s more info you know where. If you’re gathering this weekend, I’d be honored to witness, share in the comments, or through a post or story. I’ll be gathering with a small circle tomorrow with the donks, the creek, and our grief. Be tender. Be brave with each other. XO, H 🌈🫏🧙🏻‍♀️ . . . #GriefAndSolidarityDays #TheWildEdgeOfSorrow #CollectiveLiberation #GriefSupport #Solidarity #CommunityBuilding #EmergentStrategy #IHopeWeChooseLove #WhatItTakesToHeal #WhatIfWeGetItRight
“This may be the first genocide where the perpet “This may be the first genocide where the perpetrators and their supporters openly push to annihilate and starve people while demanding validation, inclusion, safe spaces, and lived experience affirmation.” —@JehadAbusalim A friend sent me these words and I’ve been sitting with them, letting them sink in, letting them work me. You, like me, might need to take a breath or two with them. BREATHE. We can hold the trauma of Jewish persecution, honor the heartbreak of the Holocaust, fight antisemitism, AND name the genocide in Palestine. These truths are not in conflict. They are not separate. They are threads in the same grief tapestry, and we must learn to hold them together. While I can recognize and hold many forms of discomfort and grief, I will not center Zionism, or any oppressive ideology, in my grief spaces. Mentioning the genocide in Palestine in an adult class about grief, or really any space, does not obligate me to then hold a lengthy, in-depth process around it. It takes courage to name hard truths, even when it rattles the room. It takes skill to welcome discomfort and grief without centering narratives that cause harm or silencing what needs to be named. As the teacher and facilitator of a container, I need to be able to name what’s happening in the world, especially when silence enables ongoing violence. This is the heart of politicized grief tending and soul activism: To name truth in rooms where it’s often omitted, and to trust that we can sit with the grief and complexity together. To create spaces of belonging that are brave enough to welcome everyone’s full humanness, while remaining clear about the ideologies we, as a community, will not uphold. We must grieve in ways that disrupt, dismantle, and liberate. May our grief be politicized. May it be in service of collective liberation. In grief & solidarity, Holly 🌈🫏🧙🏻‍♀️ . . . #PolticizedGriefTending #CollectiveLiberation #Polycrisis #WeCanDoHardThings #EmergentStrategy #GriefSupport #RuptureAndRepair
I’m not here to be professional, palatable, appr I’m not here to be professional, palatable, appropriate, or respectful by empire’s standards. I’m here to be skillful, relational, alive, and courageous through my community’s blessing. This last week, I’ve been experiencing how these words—professional, appropriate, respectful—are weaponized to silence us. They demand our compliance with a violent, dehumanizing, extractive system. But here’s the thing: the more empire tries to silence me, the louder I’m going to get unless/until they disappear me. And if they do, may my echoes remain and may my voice become a thousand more. I just published an open letter to my students after being removed from teaching for naming the genocide in Palestine. I hope it’s supportive to their process. You can find it in my bayo. This whole thing has been a tremendous amount of labor, and still, it’s the least I can do for Palestinians, Jewish people, Indigenous people, and the students who showed up with heart. The administration couched their decision in all kinds of language: “unprofessional,” “pedagogical divergence,” “lack of an appropriate container of collective care.” But truth, and the values they align with, slipped through when they wrote: “We were not under the impression that this particular topic would continue to be spoken about in the way that you did in each of your classes.” What’s glaring is that the students who did reach out to me called me “EXCEPTIONAL” and expressed deep gratitude for the care, clarity, and teachings I brought. May we grieve in ways that disrupt, dismantle, and weave us back into belonging. May there be a Free Palestine and liberated people everywhere. And may we all be gloriously unprofessional by empire’s standards. . . . #GriefSupport #PolticizedGrief #TheWildEdgeOfSorrow #EmergentStrategy #Undrowned #DecolonizedTherapy #CollectiveLiberation
When I received notice that I was being removed fr When I received notice that I was being removed from my teaching position for naming the genocide in Palestine, they wrote that there is “a fundamental divergence in our approaches and understandings of how to build and tend a learning environment that is conducive to diverse student experiences.” From what I understand, they’re referring to Zionism as a “diverse student experience.” And, much of what was shared with me in our final meeting echoed Zionist rhetoric. Zionism is a political ideology that supports the creation and maintenance of a Jewish ethnostate at the expense of Palestinian lives, land, and sovereignty. It’s a form of extremism that is entangled with fascism, colonialism, and climate collapse. It is not a neutral position, it’s not a pro-Jewish position; it’s a political project that has caused, and continues to cause, immeasurable harm. I cannot support Zionist views, just as I cannot support anti-semitism, anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, or anti-queerness. If “diversity” requires me to tolerate ideologies rooted in supremacy, occupation, or erasure, I cannot comply. What I can make space for is discomfort and grief. The grief of ancestral trauma, of the Holocaust, of displacement and diaspora. The heartbreak of seeing one’s own suffering weaponized to justify another’s oppression. I can hold that grief with reverence and care. But I will not hold space for Zionist entitlement that demands silence and calls erasure “safety.” I will not soften the truth of genocide or occupation in the name of false neutrality. I will not equate complicity with care. We will not reach collective liberation by confusing inclusion with complicity. We get there by naming what hurts and refusing to look away. By holding truth and inviting our friends, classmates, and colleagues to do the same. We must facilitate spaces for grief that dismantles, disrupts, and acts in service to the whole. May our grief be principled and political. May our solidarity be embodied. May we rise in collective liberation. In Grief & Solidarity, Holly 🌈🫏🧙🏻‍♀️ . . . #CollectiveLiberation #DecolonizingTherapy #EmergentStrategy #TheWildEdgeOfSorrow #Polycrisis
This past weekend, I was removed from teaching the This past weekend, I was removed from teaching the final class of a grief and loss module at an online school. The reasons they shared with me were that naming the genocide in Palestine and continually using a politicized approach to grief were considered “unprofessional,” insensitive, and “incompatible” with their learning environment. They said my brief mentions of Palestine weren’t “conducive to diverse student experiences.” (More to say on this soon.) I was invited to teach grief and loss, and I did so through the politicized lens I’ve always named publicly. This is the heart of my work. I was asked to teach four 2-hour sessions to an “advanced cohort.” I offered live writing and embodiment practices, grief-informed frameworks, and three written grief rituals. I adjusted to the group’s pace, invited feedback, and made space for questions and reflections. If any student, including those who may have felt discomfort at my naming of the genocide in Palestine, had shared their grief or distress, I would have welcomed it. None did. Instead, many have offered their heartfelt gratitude for my teachings. Still, I was told my “love for Palestinians” got in the way of my teaching. That genocide is “too nuanced” to name. That I was “the issue.” This removal was not expected but it isn’t unfamiliar. I can name colonization, climate collapse, and even whiteness without receiving the same pushback I get when I name genocide in Palestine. We live in a time when educators are censored, fired, doxxed, or detained for speaking grief rooted in justice. It’s truly scary. I’m grief-full. I’m discerning. I’m learning in public. I’m receiving mentorship and support. And I remain committed to politicized grief tending as sacred disruption. I will continue to name empire. I will continue to name fascism. I will continue to name anti-Semitism. I will continue to name genocide. Because naming helps us begin to tend the heartbreak. My hope is that the students receive the care they need, and for a Free Palestine and collective liberation everywhere. In grief & solidarity, H 🌈🫏🧙🏻‍♀️ . . . #EmergentStrategy #TheWildEdgeOfSorrow #CollectiveLiberation #Polycrisis
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