Below is our council of Board Directors, Advisors, Staff, wolf kin + partners in the field.
Rose Gordon, únashay Board Director
Hospice, Bereavement and Spiritual Care Worker, Trainer and Mentor
https://www.circlesofcompassionatecare.com
A note from Rose:
“The need for grief sanctuary is essential during these times of both personal and global losses. Sanctuary is a place of refugia, a space where there is shelter, a sheltering space under which new life can grow. Long ago they were churches or Cities of Sanctuary - places for fugitives that were considered sacred or holy places where they could live, untouched by the law of the land.
Today we need both inner spaces and outer places that are spacious and sheltering, places where we can take refuge from the busy, marketplace aspects of life. In these intentionally crafted spaces we can tend to the layers of grieving - feel the depths and tides of loss, be tenderized and informed by loss…and perhaps identify what we treasure, what we value and what we love …and find new ways to align ourselves with what matters in our life.
Unashay can be that refugia, a sheltering space where grief can be held, explored and used to feed life.”
About:
“I came to Taos in 1969 and have lived with delight and gratitude alongside the deer, coyote, rabbit and birds on a mesa of piñon, juniper, sage and chamisa in Arroyo Hondo. My two adult children were born and raised here, the land has gifted me inspiration and sanctuary. As a child I spent happy times exploring the cultural exhibits in the Brooklyn Museum along with playing street games, dreaming of planting a time capsule and reading, writing and doing art projects at school and at home.
At around 8 yrs old I developed an interest in death and nighttime dreams and decided that I had one foot in the river of life and one foot in the river of death - and that being in both those places at the same time mattered! Having realized that no one around me talked about death I let it fall into the background of my life. As I think about it now however, that interest was always quietly guiding me towards the experiences that have shaped and informed my end-of-life work.
In 1989, I spent 4 days tending the dying of a dear friend in West Texas, which propelled me into 30 years of being with the dying time of life. That has included getting a specialty degree in Hospice and Grief Counseling, over 30 years participating in a Dream group, 2.5 years working as a Deputy Investigator for the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator, 5 years serving as Director and faculty member for the Upaya Being with Dying Project, 18 years working in Hospice - training and mentoring Hospice volunteers and 7 years providing Spiritual Care and Bereavement to Hospice patients, their families and community members.
I also teach on-line sessions for the Demystifying Death course though University of Chattanooga School of Nursing, have designed and facilitated end-of-life training for international hospital staff and community members in Colorado, New Mexico and Dubai; and volunteered at a hospice in India.”
Dr. Bayo Akomolafe, PhD., únashay Board Advisor + Writer
Author, Founder and Executive Director of The Emergence Network, Lead Teacher and Host of “We Will Dance With Mountains' Course; PhD, Department of Psychology, Covenant University, Nigeria Adjunct Professor, Pacifica Graduate Institute, Steward of "Making Sanctuary" methodology. | https://www.bayoakomolafe.net
A note from Bayo:
“What do you do when forward movement is queered? When speaking truth to power reinforces the might of the powerful? When there is no highway to travel? The work of making sanctuary is the work of sitting with the troubling, the unsettled, the irruption of the unexpected. As home shifts beneath our feet, we will need more than just our convictions about right action and justice to meet the moment; we might need a new sense of groundedness. New feet altogether. We might need to take up the vocation of libating the ground as a cartography of exile. And what better to use for our libations than our tears?”
About:
Dr. Bayo Akomolafe is a widely celebrated international speaker, teacher, public intellectual, essayist and author of two books, These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home and We Will Tell our Own Story: The Lions of Africa Speak.
He considers his most sacred work to be learning how to be with his daughter and son, Alethea Aanya and Kyah Jayden – and their mother, his wife and “life-nectar”, Ijeoma. “To learn the importance of insignificance” is the way he frames a desire to reacquaint himself with a world that is irretrievably entangled, preposterously alive and completely partial.
As Visionary Founder and Elder of The Emergence Network and Chief Host of the widely popular online-offline course/festival series, We Will Dance with Mountains, Bayo curates an earth-wide project for the re-calibration of our ability to respond to civilizational crisis – a project framed within a material feminist/posthumanist/postactivist ethos and inspired by Yoruba indigenous cosmologies. He considers this a shared art – exploring the edges of the intelligible, dancing with posthumanist ideas, dabbling in the mysteries of quantum mechanics and the liberating sermon of an ecofeminism text, and talking with others about how to host a festival of radical silence on a street in London – and part of his inner struggle to regain a sense of rootedness to his community.
Resident flufferwolf; Wagging, beating heart of únashay
Senzhen (she/they) is the squiggliest of the pack and always finds a way to squirm her way into every opportunity for love and pets. Commonly confused with a seal, she always brings a nice watery flow of love and sweetness everywhere she goes.
Senzhen (senzsh-en): princess flowerheart
Marah Moore, únashay Board President
Social Change Architect
A note from Marah:
“I moved from the east coast to New Mexico in 1981 to attend a quirky little liberal arts college in Santa Fe and have lived in New Mexico (the land of entrapment) since, raising my four children in the high desert of northern NM. I completed a Master’s degree in Community and Regional Planning in 1993, and have spent more than 30 years working with non-profits and philanthropic foundations, helping them move more effectively towards the changes they hope to see in the world. I am retiring at the end of 2023 and will turn my creative energy towards making more art— a passion that has been back-burnered for much too long!
I am excited and honored to spend time in my retirement working with Únashay. Before I was 30, I lost a daughter and a husband, and have since lost one of my parents and many others who were dear to me. I have experienced the grief of divorce and betrayal, and the grief of living in a world that is imploding in so many ways. There is so little support for those who are grieving. Únashay is a beacon in the desert, and will provide support to so many as they embark on their own journey through the complex landscape of grief.”
About:
Marah Moore is former Director and Founder of i2i Institute, having worked with complex social change initiatives, providing integrated research, evaluation, planning, and capacity building services. She holds a Master’s degree in Community and Regional Planning (MCRP), and has worked in the field of evaluation and planning for over 30 years.
Throughout her career, Marah worked with direct service efforts to design programs that met the emergent needs of communities, state-wide and national initiatives (e.g., child welfare, positive youth development, early childhood) to develop integrated and responsive systems; as well as international initiatives (e.g. early intervention in the Russian Far East, Agricultural Research in Africa, Indigenous land rights in Southeast Asia, and Women's Economic Empowerment in Africa) to support effective and sustainable social change.
Marah is an associate with the Human Systems Dynamic Institute, where she was the Chair of the Evaluation work group, and has served on the Epidemiological workgroup for the New Mexico Department of Health.
Camille Sapara Barton, únashay Board Advisor
Social Imagineer, Writer, Mulltidisciplinary Artist and Somatic Practitioner
https://camillesaparabarton.com
A note from Camille:
”I sense that grief is necessary medicine. A watery submersion that supports us to sense deeply, reconnect and get clear on what matters to us. In these times, clarity, love and motivation are necessary to (re)grow ways of being that can support us to live well with each other and our home planet. It takes more energy to build than it does to destroy. I hope that learning to be together with our grief will enable us to create the intimacy and bonds of trust that can allow us to create the more beautiful futures our hearts long for. “
About:
Camille Sapara Barton is a writer, embodiment facilitator, movement artist and consultant that supports people to flow through transitions. Their work aims to create relational wellbeing by cultivating connection to the body, care practices, grief and imagination. Camille supports organisations to increase resilience and reduce stress, while navigating change. They also offer trauma informed, embodied facilitation and consultancy to support cultural workers, funders and those working with socially engaged topics.
Camille is the author of Tending Grief: Embodied Rituals for Holding Our Sorrow and Growing Cultures of Care in Community (2024). Based in Amsterdam, they designed and directed MA Ecologies of Transformation (2021 - 2023) which explored how embodiment and socially engaged art making can create change through the body, into the wider world.
Drift: arctic lightning seer
Resident coyhusky (coyote + husky), Moonflower, Friend of the heart, Watchkeeper
Drift (she/her) is the longest standing animal resident at únashay. Known as the alpha of the pack, Drift tends to win over many of the hearts of visitors to the land. While sweet and gentle, watch out, Drift is always ready and willing to take down anyone/ anything that threatens the vibes at her home.
Lizzie Hart, únashay Board Secretary
Facilitator, Performing Artist, Program Director of Gather Well Psychedelics
https://lizziehartguide.com
A note from Lizzie:
“re - mem - ber: to have in or be able to bring to one's mind an awareness of (someone or something that one has seen, known, or experienced in the past)
sanc - tu - ar - y
a place of refuge or safety
At the heart of the crisis of humanity, the impending extinction of the human, is that we have forgotten, collectively, how to grieve. Human technology was once, long ago, rooted in ritual: the application of innate wisdom, communicated in acts of beauty, for the purpose of survival. Grief is one such forgotten ritual, though it is a ritual without form — like water in motion, grieving is a current which is impossible to define, but which shapes the griever as water in motion shapes the land.
What might we need to remember how to grieve, and why?
We need first to acknowledge that our remembering is required in order to participate in life, and that remembering is actionable, and essential. We need contact with others who share this understanding — to find one another. We need to harvest the wisdom of the land, sky and wild creatures who have not themselves forgotten. We need permission to allow our grief to shape us, organically — to let our feelings and perceptions, our bodies, our utterances, our art and our work be shaped by grief. And we need space (the confluence of time and place) to safely enter into the shaping. Unashay is in itself an acknowledgement, and it is a confluence — a place where people are invited and encouraged to remember.
Únashay is a place where people can take refuge from a “world-out-there”, so steeped in willful forgetting, even systematic denial, of the wisdom in grieving. Our collective wellness is the groundwater, Únashay is the well, and those who explore their grief at Únashay are those who both drink from and replenish the waters with each drop of their remembering.”
About:
Lizzie Hart (she/her) is a group facilitator, mentor, performing artist and Program Director of Gather Well Psychedelics. Her work is rooted in the principles of deep ecology, and her passion for the relational arts springs from an upbringing in and around Santa Fe, New Mexico, in conversation with nature spirits, dancers, musicians, poets, visual artists and grassroots movements for truth and reconciliation.
Aaron Bumgarner, únashay Board Treasurer + Communications
Arborist friend of trees, Stitcher of quilts and hearts, Builder, Writer
Aaron Bumgarner takes care of trees in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He writes a lot, lately about grief, and does quite a bit of art. The death of an incredibly close friend by suicide was a form of grief initiation for him. Feeling alone and lost in this new landscape, he realized what was lacking in grief support while seeking out any and all people, books, groups, and ideas that might guide him after his loss. Writing and sharing ended up being one of his main ways of processing and connecting. Visiting Únashay felt like an instant good fit, and he has continued to stay involved and help since his first visit to the land over two years ago. This has looked like supporting Noria grief cafes, in the form of facilitating and cooking pizzas after the cafes, as well as serving as Communications and Volunteer Steward.
For general questions, facilitation and volunteer inquiry, write Aaron at inquiries@unashayhome.com
Nikesha Breeze, únashay Board Director
Multidisciplinary Artist, Teacher, Facilitator, Writer and Filmmaker
https://nikeshabreeze.com
About:
Nikesha Breeze is a multidisciplinary artist, teacher, and facilitator whose work interweaves creativity, spirituality, and radical care. Drawing from over 25 years as a Hindu pujari, kirtan wallah, death doula, and Chinese medicine practitioner, Nikesha’s practice is deeply rooted in ancestral and cultural grief work. Their art reclaims historical narratives of the African diasporic body while envisioning Afro-futures, employing mediums such as oil painting, ceramics, sculpture, performance, and installation. Nikesha creates transformative sacred spaces and enacts durational rituals that center mourning, prayer, and radical reclamation. Their public rituals invite collective accountability and care, embodying cultural sovereignty and diasporic healing. A writer, poet, and filmmaker, Nikesha reconfigures language and narrative as tools of liberation, crafting new syntaxes that honor communal memory. Nikesha’s life work bridges art and ritual, guiding communities through grief, healing, and the reclamation of ancestral wisdom.
Jessi Rado, M.A., LMHC, únashay Board Director
Artist, Psychotherapist, Visiting Assistant Professor
A note from Jessi:
“Grief is the paradox that confounds our linear sense of growth. When it is our turn to grieve (and we will all have our turn), we are beckoned into a transformation far beyond the confines of our loss. Wild, edgeless Terrain. Immovable Threshold. Site of Initiation. We build sanctuary in this landscape to welcome the disoriented, metamorphic traveler. In the welcoming of Grief, we challenge the ways that dominant culture has siloed and outcast this necessary Kin, ferocious as It may be. Grief tells a fundamental truth about living and loving in this impermanent plane. It has much to teach us humans about what matters most in our lives and how much we truly care about each other, ourselves and the living world we inhabit.
Unashay seeks to build spaces that welcome the practice of building relationship to Grief, stewarding spaces of deep care and sheltering the radical process of dis- and re-orientation present in so much of the grieving journey.”
About:
Jessi Radovich (she/they) is an artist working at the intersection of creativity and community, seeking living means to nourish pathways of connection. She is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor in Psychology at Fairhaven Interdisciplinary College in Bellingham, WA. She holds a license (LMHC) in mental health counseling in WA state and maintains a small private therapy practice focusing on attachment connection. Over years, her work has oriented toward these very times, with themes of working with collapse, disorientation and loss through generative means such as storytelling, singing and visual artistry. She is a member of the song collective, Earth Practice, and co-creator of the beloved community singing podcast, Bliss is Ordinary. She developed the zine series, “Everyday Healing” and has enjoyed collaborations with street artist Swoon, Philadelphia Mural Arts, MoMA and the Million Person Project. She is currently teaching college courses on Community Singing and Communal Grief Tending, as well as working on a quilting project across carceral lines. She is a daughter, proud co-mom, bandmate, devoted community member and vivid daydreamer.
Archie (he/him) has a bit of a reputation for being the most submissive of the pack. With a constant longing look of eagerness for attention and butt pats, Archie has a way of swooning all of our visitors to the land.
Archie: sweet lone howler boy
Ben Myler, únashay Board Advisor + land resident/ steward
Artist, Singer, Quiet helper to many, Dazzling star (w/ a mad sense of humor!)
A note from Ben:
“Learning about the vision of Únashay was exciting and encouraging. I hope to advocate for such spaces and to see sanctuary develop in ways that are accessible for folks who are within the intersections of marginalization. Those who have the least access and who carry so much.”
About:
Ben Myler (they/ she) has lived in New Mexico for ten years. They now live on the land that is Únashay. They enjoy, greatly, the beautiful outdoors and Abiquiu community. They enjoy learning ways to build and create; and consider it a gift to be among so many talented and knowledgeable neighbors/ friends. Ben served as Supervisor at St. Elizabeth’s Men's Homeless Shelter in Santa Fé for 10 years.
Aimee Wilson, únashay Founder, Executive Director + lead writer
Artist, Singer, Culture keener
A note from Aimee:
“We need places, like the gouged out arroyos and waterways of the desert, for grief to spill. A topography of place and presence, carved by the grief that runs through it, to allow this river to have its way. By 'grief sanctuary', I mean an attempt to build a landscape for the waters to move. A landscape that is vast enough to match the inscape of grief of our times.”
About:
Aimee Wilson (they/ them) serves as Founder and Executive Director of Únashay Sanctuary, and directs únashay’s land-based, regional and online offerings. Music is their primary language, having written, performed and recorded two albums. They have served under many roles, as singer, writer, social worker, ayurvedic health counselor, community organizer, fundraiser and group facilitator for houseless women and LGBTQ2SI+ community in Philadelphia. After much intimate experience with loss, and decades of work within a system that doesn’t take care for the grieving, Aimee was moved to summon Únashay. They currently study extensively with Megan Devine of Refuge in Grief; and dwell in New Mexico with wolf kin and chosen family, tending the sanctuary and writing music.
Contact: aimee@unashayhome.com
Dolly: baby girl
Dolly (she/her) is the elusive resident of the land. If you’re visiting for the first time, it is unlikely you will see this sweet and shy little being as she will find every invisible opportunity behind a juniper or sagebrush. But she’s always close by, checking things out, and will eventually offer a sweet and bashful hand-lick before running under the house.
Gerard’s house
The women of Gerard’s are powerful community beacons and collaborative partners to Únashay. Gerard’s house is an amazing program based in Santa Fe, that serves grieving children and families, with offerings such as Nuestra Jornada (Our Journey), Grief Connections, Stepping stones and more.
the emergence network
ten is a planetary network of care and inquiry gesturing towards new assemblages of response-ability during moments when the ways that we think about and address the troubling crises of our times are increasingly a part of those crises. We are a fugitive, underground commonwealth of bewilderment made up of social artists seeking to create new openings to age-old problems. We aim to disrupt dominant modes of perception, engagement, and responsiveness in a time of crisis by disturbing modern notions of justice, power, and human agency.