Dead Good Legacies

12/04/2026

Where do we go with our grief? Back to the land, the earth, to community, with kindred spirits. Held with story and song, ceremony and ritual, art, craft and mutual inspiration.

If you grieve at this time; whether for your own sorrows or the sorrows of the world; Ash & Seed is for you.

22-25 May 2026, Herefordshire, UK.

A weekend of creative collective space for grief and mourning on the gentle hills of Ruthlands Farm in Herefordshire. The pics & videos give you a taste of the location. It is so, so peaceful.

Half an hour west of Hereford. An hour north of Cardiff. An hour and 15 mins north of Bristol.

Check out the Ash & Seed team (tap link in bio). These people are to be the hearth tenders of a co-creative ceremony over 3 nights; nourishing with stories, talks, song, music, lamentation, dance, embodiment, workshops, ritual, film-showings, arts, crafts, great food, sauna and time spent in silence.

Me and LV have designed a self-led 'wander map' of the Ash & Seed land as one of our contributions to the weekend. This map will invite embodied wandering and wondering during the event. You'll be peeping in hedgerows, following the stream, winding through the woodland and meandering in the meadows. All whilst connecting with and tending to your grief.

We're really looking forward to camping in our rainbow bell tent and spending time in community with other like-minded grievers. And we LOVE storytelling, live music, and saunas so we're going to feel very at home.

A ticket costs £295. This fee covers 3 nights camping with your own tent or van, full catering and all the incredible sessions, story, song, art and workshops.

If you need time to pay for your ticket contact sacredcirclecic@gmail.com.

Do let us know if you're going. We'd love to see you there.

And please share with others who might enjoy/need this.

We've added the link to our bio so you can find out more.



Love you bye

11/04/2026

Our dad is called Peter. We inherited pea seeds after his death. I (LV) call them Peaters.

I planted mine on KV's bday in empty toilet roll middles.

I hardened them off this week and planted them out on Friday in a planter I have borrowed from our mum (MV). This planter was a gift from our mum to our dad on his last birthday.

All of this is joyous and soothing to me. I tend not to be a sentimental person but I love these connections and continuing bonds. They keep me in the present as well as the past.

Love you bye

Image descriptions:
1. Close up of young pea plants in a chonky ceramic planter, supported by natural pea sticks made from windfall neighbourhood twigs
2. Blue planter in its full messy glory in LV's front garden. Nothing was purchased in the making of this pea planter. All recycled, gifted, repurposed and borrowed
3. The planter is tucked away at the side of lv's house where the afternoon sun shines.
4. Tiny film of LV walking from the pavement over to the front lawn, showing her pink trackieBs and multicolour crocs, to the final growing position of the pea plants. She heard a curlew while planting and was incredibly grateful to acknowledge the peace and safety of where she lives.

10/04/2026

We are both growing Dad's legacy peas this year.

Harvested from the six seeds our aunt surprised us with 12 months ago.

Just six seeds turned into 300 seeds.

Most of which we swapped with you for donations to The Sameer Project.

Have you planted yours?

I (KV) planted mine three days ago and already they are waking up on the kitchen windowsill.

Waving their green tips at me.

A stunningly simple way to keep Dad's seasonal rhythms alive.

The peas are coming! They're on their way.

Little living legacies can help us tend our grief.

How will you tend your grief this week?

Love you bye

09/04/2026

Supporting a group of family and friends with a green burial is one of our favourite things to do.

Woodland burials somehow soften and hold the sadness people carry.

That is the power of nature.

I know that sounds glib, but it's really true.

Would you consider a green burial for you or yours?

Where is the nearest natural burial ground to where you live? Have you visited?

Tell us what you think.

Love you bye

08/04/2026

This is one of the ways we support families at funerals.

Helping them come up with meaningful, personal acts that involve everyone.

I spent this morning with three generations of a family in their back garden.

The young grandchildren won't be at the funeral tomorrow, but today, they chose and picked flowers for their grandma from her garden.

I'll be turning these flowers into little posies for the woodland burial tomorrow.

The family will add the posies to the top of the coffin during the committal.

A final act of love.

The grandchildren will be present through the handpicked posies.

Love you bye

06/04/2026

My six year old got his first book of Sudoku puzzles yesterday.

This is a little legacy in action.

My dad (his grandy) always had a Sudoku book on the go.

The books, however, were always two-thirds empty because Dad started at the Level 3 section.

When Dad died, he was halfway through a Sudoku puzzle.

I took that puzzle book home with me and started to teach myself Sudoku from puzzle no.1 until I eventually met up with Dad's unfinished one. It took me about six months!

I now do a Sudoku puzzle everyday.

And it felt terrific to pass this onto my child who was only 2 when Dad died.

These little legacies are really important.

I like Dad being part of everyday mundane conversations.

What little legacies do you have? Or could you start?

Love you bye

05/04/2026

In our own family, we often take a creative and playful approach to grief and legacy. It really works for us.

Dad had a woodland burial and doesn't have a plaque or gravestone. So we honoured him a bit differently by hiding a stone sculpture that he made along a regular walking route of his in the Manifold Valley.

We hid it four years ago.

LV turned it into a geocache - an online international treasure hunting community - for others to seek and find.

This is one of the ways we remember our dad.

By retracing his footsteps.

And by getting strangers to find his weird little sculpture.

Love you bye

04/04/2026

It's been a year since my aunt sent me six of my dead dad's historic purple podded pea seeds.

They produced hundreds of pods and we saved over three hundred seeds. Most of which we swapped with you for donations to 🍉.

If we sent you seeds, it's time to get them planted!

Let's grow them together

Love you bye

03/04/2026

Have you heard about the Afterlives Art Festival?

It's coming to Newcastle City Library on 8+9 May.

We are part of the festival's programming and will be offering 8 readings to families of The Midnight Moth, followed by some interactive death education activities.

Afterlives Arts Festival is a free, family-friendly arts festival coming to Newcastle City Library, Exeter Library and Redbridge Central Library in May and June 2026, supported by Arts Council England.

Brought to life by a nationwide collaboration of libraries, artists, academics and community partners, Afterlives transforms your local library into a vibrant creative hub, a place where art, storytelling and community come together to make conversations about death feel natural, joyful and deeply human.

Across 36 events and six festival days, people will have the chance to explore life's biggest questions through hands-on workshops, stunning installations, live performance, film, virtual reality and community art — all free or low cost, and open to absolutely everyone.

Afterlives is the culmination of nearly a decade of pioneering work. In 2017, Redbridge Library Service became the UK's first Death Positive Library using books, art, film and community events to help local people engage openly with death and dying as a health and community issue.

Newcastle City Library joined the collaboration in 2019, extending this ground-breaking model from east London to the north east. Together the two services have won national awards for social innovation, health and wellbeing, and digital engagement via our co-designed Tickets for the Afterlife project. They inspired libraries across the UK and Northern Ireland to follow their lead, and reached hundreds of thousands of people with creative, compassionate programming around end-of-life choices.

The Death Positive Library movement is rooted in a simple but powerful belief: that libraries, as trusted, independent and genuinely open public spaces, are uniquely placed to hold these conversations, free from commercial interest, and open to everyone regardless of background, belief or experience.

See you in the library?

Love you bye

03/04/2026

We're part of the Afterlives festival in Newcastle on 8 + 9 May. We'll be in the Children's Library giving readings of The Midnight Moth and running mini ceremony workshops with families. All sessions are free thanks to funding by Arts Council England. WE LOVE LIBRARIES.

📚 What if talking about death could feel more joyful, creative — even community-owned?

This May and June, Dr Stacey Pitsillides from our School of Design, Arts and Creative Industries is bringing the Afterlives Arts Festival to public libraries in Newcastle, Exeter and Redbridge — using events involving art and storytelling to open up conversations about death, dying and end-of-life choices.

Stacey has spent nearly a decade helping to build the UK's Death Positive Library movement, a growing national network that uses books, art, film and community events to help people engage openly with death and dying as a health and societal issue.

The Afterlives Arts Festival takes this work to a national stage with 36 events across three cities, featuring public artwork, workshops, film nights, virtual reality experiences and much more.

💡 Follow the link in the comments to read more about the festival and explore the full programme.

The Death Positive Library
Newcastle Libraries
Vision Redbridge Culture & Leisure
Libraries Unlimited
Arts Council England

03/04/2026

We are running an in-person afternoon event at Grave Expectations in Matlock (Derbyshire) on Saturday 25th April.

We'll be creating DIY zines (small creative booklets - pronounced zeeeeeens) about meaningful places in your life.

It's also a chance to create a personal 'memory map' or 'treasure hunt' for others to follow.

The session offers a creative, imaginative way to explore legacy and personal story whether as something to share now, gift to loved ones, or leave behind.

We're really looking forward to hearing your stories and helping you turn them into something tangible. Personal zines are an act of story keeping.

Make one about your life. Or make one about someone else's.

Come and spend the afternoon with us, Midlands friends!

https://www.tickettailor.com/events/graveexpectations/2135345?utm_source=ig&utm_medium=social&utm_content=link_in_bio&fbclid=PAb21jcAQ8Sg9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZA81NjcwNjczNDMzNTI0MjcAAacrCDvE1cJOW-6L62kOvc-oUTqpRaEm3zUueRv2bdFM7PENieZh2L2CkQMQiw_aem_avCrh8yGb7aOhHC2n8XbvA