Claire Brakel Packer
Dear Brokenhearted: you are welcome here.
Your grief belongs.
Grief-friendly newsletter. Subscribe here
Hi! My name is Claire Brakel Packer. I'm a writer and grief guide (coach) dedicated to reclaiming the sacred art of grief tending.
This is a space where deeply feeling and deeply grieving folks can find refuge.
Your heartbreak is welcome here.
Much of my work focuses on weaving embodied ritual practices as a way to walk alongside rather than fight, fix, or outcast the many and complex griefs we gather as humans on this beautiful and suffering planet.
GRIEF COACHING
Ready for ease? Delight? Relief? Even alongside the most devastating loss, this is possible.
I know this because I am also a griever. I've been here, I know the terrain.
I'd be so honored to walk with you and your grief. Let's transform your relationship with grief, let's find a new way. You were never meant to do this alone.
Get details & book a session here.
Grief Astronomer
by Andrea Gibson
A difficult life is not less
worth living than a gentle one.
Joy is simply easier to carry
than sorrow. And your heart
could lift a city from how long
you’ve spent holding what’s been
nearly impossible to hold.
This world needs those
who know how to do that.
Those who could find a tunnel
that has no light at the end of it,
and hold it up like a telescope
to know the darkness
also contains truths that could
bring the light to its knees.
Grief astronomer, adjust the lens,
look close, tell us what you see.
I write about grief a few times a month. Find me on Substack. Subscribe for free and access all content. There are no paywalls for grief.
Why "The Grief Letters"? I have always been a letter writer and journal keeper. It was natural, then, as I processed my own griefs to turn to letter writing. I wrote letters to my brother who died, burning them afterwards and sending the ashes on the wind. I wrote letters to Grief and Death themselves. Letters of sorrow and rage.
Rage often sits closely to grief for me and it helped to have a container to pour those feelings out into. When I decided to begin grief work as a public practice instead of just a personal one, it felt natural to shape my newsletter offerings around this practice of letter writing. My monthly group gatherings as well as my 1:1 coaching sessions utilize letter writing as a key practice to witness and hold the many griefs we collect on this good earth.
Curious about grief writing? Find more information on my offerings here.
ABOUT: My Grief Lineage
In 2001, I lost my older brother Daniel to suicide. I have walked alongside Grief and Death ever since. In 2020, I began to alchemize this personal pilgrimage into grief work and offer my medicine in the form of writing, group gatherings, and coaching. Below is a list of training and commitments that have informed my grief work.
Grief Educator Training, Certified Grief Educator, David Kessler Training, Spring 2025
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Hospice & Bereavement Volunteer Training - Unity Point Hospice 2023 & 2024
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Enter the Healing Ground: Grief Ritual Leadership Training 2023 - Francis Weller with Erin Geesaman Rabke, Holly Truhlar, Carl Rabke, and Alexandre Jodun
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Foundations of Somatic Abolitionism - Resmaa Menakem & Carlin Quinn, 2021
Reparative Communal Consultations for White Bodies - Education for Racial Equity, 2021 & 2023
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Doing Our Own Work: An Anti-Racism Seminar for White People - Melanie Morrison, Allies for Change, 2015
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Teaching English as Second Language, MA, St. Cloud State University, 2011
English Writing; Gender & Women's Studies, Japanese, BA, Illinois College, 2008