A Spiritual Approach to Loss & Grief

27/07/2025

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We are delighted to announce that the NSW Health Department have approved crematoriums to offer shrouded cremation to the NSW community.

Shrouded cremation is the practice of returning a body to the elements by way of fire cremation but without the need for a coffin. It is a beautiful, sustainable and respectful practice and one Natural Grace is proud to have pionereed in Victoria and offered our community for over a decade.

This is wonderful news for all those seeking to minimise their environmental impact but also for those for whom a coffin serves no meaningful purpose.

As highly experienced shrouded cremation practitioners, we invite you to talk with us about how shrouded cremation could work for you.

For more information you can visit us at our beautiful new Hunter Central Coast Sanctuary, explore more about shrouded cremation at https://naturalgrace.com.au/hunter/green-funerals/ or call us on 02 4951 6631.

18/07/2025

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Nature is always teaching us...

In our world, we bury the dead.
We light candles. We say words. We try to make peace.

But in the wild?
There are no eulogies. No soft goodbyes.
Only instinct, silence, and things left unspoken.

Yet somehow… this little bird stayed.
Pressed against the body of one it likely loved.
Not for food. Not for safety.
But for something harder to name.

We like to think emotions are ours.
That pain belongs to poets, and mourning is a human luxury.
But nature tells another story.

Here, on the hard ground, no one’s watching.
No camera crew. No crowd.
And still — it mourns.

Maybe not with tears.
Maybe not with understanding.
But with presence.

Because even in the wild, the heart knows what it lost.
And sometimes, even the smallest creatures
carry the heaviest feelings.

---

30/05/2025

We all express love for our pets in different ways....

25/02/2025

12/01/2025

A handy book for everyone...

22/09/2024

Over the past four years, terminal ovarian cancer has been shoving Cora Torr, 61, towards life's exit door.

20/08/2024

Death asked me to join him for dinner
so I slipped into my favorite black dress
that I had been saving for a special occasion
and let him walk me to our candlelit tryst.
He ordered a ribeye, extra rare
I ordered two desserts and red wine
and then I sipped
and wondered
why he looked so familiar
and smelled like earth and memory.
He felt like a place both faraway
and deep within my body
A place that whispers to me
on the crisp autumn breeze
along the liminal edges of dusk and dawn
somewhere between dancing
and stillness.
He looked at me
with the endless night sky in his eyes
and asked
‘Did you live your life, my love?’
As I swirled my wine in its glass
I wondered If I understood the thread I wove into the greater fabric
If I loved in a way that was deep and freeing
If I let pain and grief carve me into something more grateful
If I made enough space to be in awe that flowers exist
and take the time to watch the honeybees
drink their sweet nectar
I wondered what the riddles of regret and longing
had taught me
and if I realized just how
beautiful and insignificant and monstrous and small we are
for the brief moment that we are here
before we all melt back down
into ancestors of the land.
Death watched me lick buttercream from my fingers
As he leaned in close and said
‘My darling, it’s time.’
So I slipped my hand into his
as he slowly walked me home.
I took a deep breath as he leaned in close
for the long kiss goodnight
and I felt a soft laugh leave my lips
as his mouth met mine
because I never could resist a man
with the lust for my soul in his eyes
and a kiss that makes my heart stop.
~ Gina Puorro
Author's note: A playful love poem to Death, because I want to remember to relate to it as a part of life, and in ways that exist outside of violence and brutality.