Grieving Out Loud: Inside Toronto’s new open mic for loss

When Rachel Carmela’s mother died just before the COVID pandemic, her family was able to sit shiva. But the sudden lockdown in March 2020 curtailed communal gatherings where she could say Kaddish for the rest of her year of mourning.

At the time, Carmela was working as a music and mindfulness teacher. She began writing songs to help cope with her grief and immersed herself in books and courses on the subject.

When pandemic restrictions ended, Carmela found there were few spaces where young adults like her could publicly express grief through song and poetry after the initial loss. So she created one.

She calls it Grieving Out Loud, a series of pay-what-you-can gatherings in Toronto that launched in late August. The second session, on Oct. 1, sold out, with about 75 people registered, although only a few performed at the microphone.

Carmela is now trained in expressive arts therapy. Over two hours, with yoga mats and tea available, she helps people living with grief find community without requiring them to talk about a specific loss, whether a person, pet or life circumstance.

While most participants have not been Jewish, Carmela plans to expand the open-mic gatherings to include events specifically for Jewish audiences, including opportunities to process collective grief over Oct. 7.

She joins host Ellin Bessner on today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast to discuss the open mics where grief takes the stage.

Related links

Learn more about Creative Grieving, and follow founder Rachel Carmela, the therapist, through her Instagram.

Read a new op-ed by Ezra Shanken about Canadian Jews being denied even their own Oct. 7 grief in The CJN.

A new book by a Canadian Rabbi Avraham Plotkin, who is also a bereaved father, on how to cope with the death of a difficult parent, in The CJN.

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