April 6-July 3, 2026.
For writers, artists, thinkers, and sensitive humans who feel stalled, numb, or overwhelmed, and are looking for a slower, more honest way to create their way through loss, heartbreak, endings or a season of despair.
You came here because something collapsed. There was an end.
A career. A relationship. A life. A version of yourself you thought would last, but did not.
Grief often simply lingers, waiting for you to fully give it attention, inviting you to remember what was held most dear.
This is a space where you’re invited to stop outrunning sorrow.
We create our way through despair.
The Art of Grief is a creative container for those who are willing to remain in honest relationship with what has been lost. It is a threshold for your own creativity that wants to be born out of this. Over three months, we listen. We let the body speak. We let unfinished things dance at the edge of our attention. And when it feels true, we respond creatively.
This is an apprenticeship to who you are now, not a lamenting for who you once were. It is noticing what wants to be born through the inevitable cycles of triumph and tragedy, lament and laughter. It is an initiation into falling in love with your whole life, including the places that hurt.
Not everyone wants this. But if you feel a small, stubborn instinct to meet it rather than numb it, you’re ready.
Art is healing
Creativity turns pain into presence. It teaches the body to stay. It gives sorrow a shape. It refuses to let loss be the last story you tell. Creativity frees what grief has held captive and gives you back yourself.
“Grief is akin to praise; it is how the soul recounts the depth to which something has touched our lives. To love is to accept the rites of grief.”
― Francis Weller
✧ Have you lost something that mattered, and sense it changed the way you see, but you haven’t had space to explore how?
✧ Are you longing to make something from this season, to remain in relationship with it?
✧ Do you feel more tender, more fractured, or more awake than before, and unsure what to do with that?
✧ Are you ready to let your creativity change, to let it become truer, less performative, more necessary?
✧ Has grief rearranged your inner world, but the outer world expects you to carry on as if nothing happened?
✧ Do you feel words, images, or longings gathering beneath the surface, but you don’t know where they belong?
✧ Do you crave beauty not as escape, but as something sturdy enough to stand beside sorrow?
✧ Do you want to be in the company of others who understand that grief is not weakness, but depth?
✧ Do you feel that if you don’t respond creatively to this loss, something in you may go silent?
The Art of Grief is a twelve-week creative threshold beginning April 6, designed for those moving through loss and wanting to create their way through it.
Over three months, we make space to encounter to breaking open of your heart for real creativity to come through. We listen to our grief, not rush it or try to diagnose it or fix it. The course unfolds through weekly on-demand sessions that explore the inner terrain of loss: memory, anger, numbness, longing, unfinished conversations, and how each of these can become creative material.
Each week offers a way of staying present to what is alive, including what hurts, and a creative invitation that meets you where you are, sometimes as simple as noticing, sometimes as tangible as writing, shaping, sketching, or speaking what has been held inside.
The bi-monthly live gatherings (for those who choose them) create a communal field where grief is witnessed rather than explained. We slow down enough to hear what despair is actually asking of us. We allow fragments. We open ourselves to the gifts that the fires bring, and what remains when all is stripped away.
This course is about letting creativity become a loyal companion to what has been broken.
For some, a project will begin to take shape here a body of writing, a ritual practice, a return to abandoned work. For others, something quieter will emerge such as a steadier relationship with sorrow, a voice less afraid of truth, a way of making that does not require self-betrayal.
Weekly Recorded Sessions
Slow, on-demand teaching and reflection
Twelve hour-long recordings released weekly.
Each one explores a dimension of grief and offers a creative way of staying present to it.
Listen at your own pace. Return as needed.
What’s all included:
Private Community Forum
Ongoing reflection and gentle connection
A protected space for participants to share insights, questions, fragments of work, or simply witness one another’s process. No pressure to post. A place where grief and creativity are not rushed or fixed.
Creative Invitations
Low-pressure assignments that foster contact, not performance
Each week includes a creative practice designed to help you respond honestly to what’s surfacing. Creating. Noticing. Fragment work. Ritual. Reflection. Nothing is graded.
One-on-One Mentorship (Mentorship Tier)
Personalized guidance through your creative emergence
One private session per month. Dedicated time to explore your specific loss, creative block, or emerging project. Support that meets you exactly where you are. *Limited to 5 individuals.
Bi-Monthly Zoom Gatherings
Communal witness and real-time inquiry
Two live calls per month for those in the higher tiers.
Slow conversation. Shared reflection. Space to speak or simply listen. Not therapy. Not a show. You bringing your questions, and your gifts.
In-Person Closing Ritual / Final Integration Gathering
You will have the opportunity to come and join a live one-day gathering FREE, to be with me and others in this process.
About Rainier
Rainier Wylde is a creativity coach, writer, and podcast host devoted to helping people create from the soil of their lives. He is the founder of The Creators Collective, a community and resource for those seeking a more faithful approach to art, self, and purpose.
His work lives at the intersection of grief, creativity, and existential inquiry. For years, he has worked with artists, entrepreneurs, and sensitive thinkers navigating rupture, reinvention, and the ache of wanting to be in contact with reality. His approach is grounded, unsentimental, and deeply human.
Rainier is the author of As You Are, a meditation on self-acceptance and the courage to inhabit your life fully. His forthcoming book, Making Art Slow: Creativity & The Courage to Stay Human, explores devotion, presence, and the discipline of creating from your whole self.
Through his podcast and public speaking, he has explored the lives of revolutionary creators, spiritual dissenters, and artistic rebels, always returning to the same question: how do we live and make in a world that rewards inattention and performance?
The Art of Grief emerges from both personal loss and years of sitting with others in seasons of heartbreak and transition, as well as walking the intimate path of grief in his own life with the loss of both of his parents within a year and half. Rainier teaches how we create ourselves alive, and continue to push against despair.
Ways to Participate:
Foundation
Self-paced, private immersion
Access all twelve weekly recordings and creative invitations, as well as the online community, and invitation to final in-person gathering. Move slowly, listen deeply, and engage the material on your own time. Ideal for those who want a solitary, steady relationship with the work.
Gathering
Private immersion + COMMUNAL FIELD
Includes everything in Foundation, plus two live gatherings each month. A space for shared reflection, real-time inquiry, and being witnessed without pressure. For those who want accompaniment as they move through grief and creation. This is limited to TEN individuals only.
Mentorship
Full experience + PERSONAL GUIDE
Includes recordings, live gatherings, and one private session with Rainier each month. Dedicated space to explore your specific grief, creative process, and emerging work with direct support and care. This is limited to FIVE individuals only.
Frequently Asked Questions
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No. This course is not therapy, nor is it a substitute for mental health care. It is a container for people who want to engage sorrow thoughtfully and CREATIVELY. If you are in acute crisis or need clinical support, this may not be the right fit. This is about WHOLENESS and stepping into wholeness, not simply finding healing
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No. You don’t need to identify as a writer, painter, or “creative.” Creativity here is treated as a human capacity: noticing, responding, shaping experience into language or form. The invitations are accessible and low-pressure.
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That’s okay. Participation might look like listening quietly, taking a short walk, or writing a single sentence. There is no performance requirement here. Creation is approached as relationship, not productivity.
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This course is for anyone navigating meaningful loss: death, divorce, estrangement, identity shifts, illness, career collapse, or a future that didn’t unfold the way you expected. If something has ended or changed you deeply, this work applies. There are a thousand griefs and a thousand thresholds for imagination
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All live gatherings will be recorded and available for replay. You can participate fully even if you cannot attend every session in real time.
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The core commitment is one hour for the weekly recording. Creative invitations are flexible and can take anywhere from ten minutes to longer, depending on your capacity. This course is designed to work with your life, not compete with it.
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Maybe. Some participants begin or deepen meaningful creative work during the course. Others leave with a steadier relationship to grief and a more honest creative rhythm. Both outcomes are valid.
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If you prefer to move privately and at your own pace, Foundation is enough. If you value shared reflection and communal presence, Gathering may be a better fit. If you want personal guidance and direct feedback, Mentorship offers the most depth. Make your decision off of what your most imminent need and desire is
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Yes. The course concludes with an optional one-day gathering in Charleston, South Carolina. This is an opportunity to meet in person, reflect on the passage, and close the container together. Details will be provided to registrants.
Participants are responsible for arranging their own travel and accommodations.