What is Hummingbird Ritual?

Hmmm. An exercise in nest building? A kind of anti-disciplinary recipe box? I try to think through an answer to this question in my first letter.

But here’s what I can tell you. My name is Monica and I am a death doula. I am also reformed academic with a PhD in ethnomusicology, a designer of grief cakes, and a writer. Like most of what I do, this newsletter inhabits the cracks between other more definable, easily-recognizable categories. It’s a space where I explore connections among food, death, grief, loss, time (cycle, season, ephemerality, becoming), and the meaning of hospitality and care in a more than human world. This might look like a recipe, a playlist, a meditation…most likely an essay. It’s a good time. I promise. I mean, what’s more death-positive than cake?

Anyway, here’s how it started. I’m hoping it will all make sense in the end. —M.