Merryn Tenalach

Merryn Tenalach Walker of the between spaces. Living life in deep relationship with nature and unseen landscapes.

I offer grief tending, death doula support, sacred ceremonies, person centred funerals and nurturing retreat days.

I Want to Be Your Priority I think one of the deepest human longings is not simply to be loved, but to feel considered.T...
08/05/2026

I Want to Be Your Priority

I think one of the deepest human longings is not simply to be loved, but to feel considered.

To feel ourselves held in someone’s mind with care. Not as an afterthought. Not as something they return to when everything else is done. But as something precious enough to make room for.

This poem came from the ache of that realisation. The understanding that wanting tenderness, consistency, effort, and presence does not make us needy. It makes us human.

Love is built in the small turnings toward one another. In remembering. In prioritising each other in quiet ways, again and again.

And I think many of us are carrying grief around how rarely we truly feel chosen.

There are moments in life that do not simply pass through us, they remake us.Initiatory seasons are strange things. One ...
08/05/2026

There are moments in life that do not simply pass through us, they remake us.

Initiatory seasons are strange things. One moment you are on your knees in grief, rage, exhaustion, loneliness, staring into the rawness of your own humanity, and the next you are overwhelmed by beauty so immense it feels holy to still be alive inside it.

I am learning, once again, that transformation is not linear. It is tidal. Violent. Tender. It strips you bare and then hands you back to yourself in pieces you must learn to love differently.

Right now I am journeying through all of it. The highs that crack my heart open with gratitude. The lows that ask me to sit beside parts of myself I would rather outrun. The tenderness. The fear. The becoming.

There is no clean version of initiation. No polished ascent into wisdom. Only the aching, breathtaking work of staying present while one life ends beneath your feet and another quietly begins breathing through your bones.

And maybe this is what it means to truly live.

To let yourself be altered.

Photos:
1. Convincing myself I was well my doing my hair and getting in the car to go to my in laws for dinner. (I was not well and was violently sick once I returned home!)
2. Cushioning my empty womb space from the seatbelt and bracing for the bumpy journey
3. Celebrating the end of injecting myself into my sore, bruised tummy with anti-coagulants
4. Finding a teeny cracked open shell on the floor and deeply feeling the metaphor of how I felt cracked open in that moment too
5. The baby rabbit my cat brought into my bedroom alive and then killed under my bed. I sobbed, roared with grief and held it gently as it passed on my chest.
6. Recorded a video saying I could feel the rebirth coming only to be side swiped a few hours later and be back in hospital the following morning
7. Back in hospital where I desperately did not want to be!
8. The only thing in my hospital room was a clock that ticked out of rhythm. Literally watching the time pass was quite something at the two week post-surgery mark.
9. Breakfast from my husband that made me laugh so much I cried in pain
10. Gorgeous kitty companion 🥰

I have a small handful of really wonderful and supportive things that people have said to me during this time. I will be...
07/05/2026

I have a small handful of really wonderful and supportive things that people have said to me during this time. I will be sharing those too!

For now, please please reflect. Whether you’re a doctor, nurse, someone’s friend or family member, consider how hurtful it is to hear some of these things and how heartbreaking it is to hear something like this and then be told to find gratitude!

If one more person asks me what I’m learning, tells me to be grateful or suggests a deep breath is going to solve everything, I’m going to lose it!

On behalf of everyone who never got to share the truth of this life transition, I’m here sharing for us all. Am I too angry for you, jog on! Am I triggering? Good! I’m done with placating. I’m done with making people feel comfortable, keeping quiet to keep the peace.

24 hours apart. Yesterday afternoon I recorded a video…”I’m near the rebirth”, I said. I’m trying to find the trust that...
05/05/2026

24 hours apart.

Yesterday afternoon I recorded a video…”I’m near the rebirth”, I said. I’m trying to find the trust that that is still the case because today, 14 days post hysterectomy, I feel far far away. There’s emotions bubbling under the surface. Lament is one of my only allies right now. Thank goodness for my professional training, thank goodness for my faith, thank goodness for my life experience that tell me that, not only will I get through this, I will evolve and grow.

But right now, I’m sad, I’m lonely, I’m grieving and my world is changing exponentially.

03/05/2026

Part 2 of my brand new poem ‘Where the F are you?’. Not my normal poetic prose, instead a passionate sharing from the threshold, from the pain, from beyond me and into the collective grief that’s being brought to me over and over as I journey through my own grief 12 days post hysterectomy.

03/05/2026

There’s a collective anger brewing, blood boiling, heart racing, a pull to absolute upheaval, a breakdown of old, heartless ways.

I’ve had more lucid hours over the past two days, 12 days post hysterectomy, 12 days of pain, of discomfort, of being confronted with my inner turmoil and the world’s inner turmoil. The voices are loud. The change has to happen. The discomfort comes first, the grief comes first, the anger spilling out in all directions.

I’m grateful for the non-f**kery, that’s a new word, I’m grateful for the rumblings of break-this-sh*t-down, I’m grateful for the unfiltered rolling of passion coming through me.

If you don’t like this, scroll on by, if you can stand firm then listen to the call, listen to the urgency.

Not all care is easy.Not all presence is comfortable.This talk is an exploration of the spaces we often avoid, the hollo...
11/04/2026

Not all care is easy.
Not all presence is comfortable.

This talk is an exploration of the spaces we often avoid, the hollows of grief, exhaustion, and unravelling, and how they can become places of warmth when we choose to stay with one another.

I’ll be sharing The Hollow as Hearth at Ash and Seed Confest, a space for reflection on community, care, and the quiet, inconvenient work of staying.

If this speaks to something in you, I’d love you to be there.

Exhibition of Holding Vessels – Sofia SullivanSoulton Long Barrow Sunday 5th July 10am-4pmSet within the sacred landscap...
06/04/2026

Exhibition of Holding Vessels – Sofia Sullivan
Soulton Long Barrow
Sunday 5th July 10am-4pm

Set within the sacred landscape of Soulton Long Barrow, this exhibition invites you into an intimate encounter with the work of ceramic artist Sofia Sullivan, whose collection of Holding Vessels reimagines the urn as both art form and ritual object.

Each vessel is a one-of-a-kind piece, hand-formed and deeply considered, carrying a quiet gravitas that speaks to memory, presence, and the enduring relationship between body and earth. These are not simply objects of function, but sculptural works that hold space for grief, love, and continuation, vessels in the truest sense.

Sofia’s practice draws on elemental textures and rich, earthen tones, creating forms that feel both ancient and immediate, as though shaped in conversation with the land itself. The result is a collection that is at once breathtaking and profoundly grounding.

This exhibition welcomes funeral directors, celebrants, artists, and those seeking a meaningful resting vessel for a loved one, as well as anyone drawn to the intersection of art, death, and material beauty. Visitors will have the opportunity to view and purchase existing works, as well as discuss bespoke commissions.

You are warmly invited to step into this space, to witness, to reflect, and to encounter the quiet power of vessels made to hold what matters most.

Life has been looking different just recently. Making way for the only thing that is certain…change! I have to have surg...
15/03/2026

Life has been looking different just recently.

Making way for the only thing that is certain…change!

I have to have surgery. It’s big. Life altering.

We’re moving house.

I started a new job in December.

I’m writing creatively less than ever.

Assignments roll around faster than I could have imagined.

I’m needing more sleep than ever.

I’ve not been all that happy. In fact, panic is rising through my body which; in this intensity, is a first for me.

I have been forced to stop by my body in the most inconvenient ways.

My days are being hollowed. I’m being hollowed. I’m being realigned, once more, to the thrum of the earths pulse.

Tomorrow I vow to you, therefore holding myself accountable, to get my bare feet into the earth. My hands into the soil.

What do I come back to over and over? The story of the Chinese Farmer.

‘Maybe yes, maybe no’, has become my affirmation.

There’s glimmers of ease but mostly there’s fear. There’s a thread of the joys of the next chapter but mostly there’s pain and grief and sadness. There’s moments of the purest connection but the fight to stay is hard.

Please pray with me for love to remain, to expand and for the flourishing to be oh, so beautiful, in its own time.

🍃

I am recruiting volunteers for Shropshire Grief Tending CIC. We are presently looking for 2 volunteers to run our Telfor...
27/02/2026

I am recruiting volunteers for Shropshire Grief Tending CIC. We are presently looking for 2 volunteers to run our Telford (Leegomery) Grief Cafe and 1 volunteer to support in the running of Ludlow Grief Cafe.

Full training is given but skills in deep listening is essential. We ask for 1.5 hours per month commitment to run the grief cafe itself which are both on a Monday and additional time as and when needed to debrief and for social gatherings to maintain moral within the team.

If you think this may be for you, please email merryn@merryntenalach.com and we can book in a Zoom call or a coffee

Address

Moss Farm, Lower Road, Harmer Hill
Shrewsbury
SY43QX

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