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Wednesday, June 27, 2018 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Kiwanis grant comes full circle in Sisters
By Katy Yoder
Correspondent
Terri Daniel arrived in
town 12 years ago after
hearing about Sisters from
a friend who suggested it
would be a great place to
heal from the recent death of
her 16-year-old son. Living
in a remote cabin, Terri
grieved — but also began
to cobble together a new
life, which would ultimately
lead her in unimagined new
directions.
She quickly recognized
that her healing process had
ignited a passion for building
a positive relationship with
death and grief. With mini-
mal resources, she immersed
herself in preparing to sup-
port others on the grief jour-
ney. She began as a hospice
volunteer, and went on to
spend the next nine years in
academia, pursuing degrees
in comparative religion and
counseling while studying
multi-cultural approaches to
death and grief through South
American and African ritual
traditions.
“It didn’t take me long
to notice that people bring
a lot of religious issues to
the experience of dying and
grieving. I wanted to be qual-
ified to address those issues,
so I enrolled at Marylhurst
University for a bachelor’s
degree in religious studies,”
said Daniel from her new
home in Northern California.
“I couldn’t have imagined
that this journey would take
me all the way to a doctor-
ate — with a lot of inter-
esting side trips along the
way.”
When she began her stud-
ies at Marylhurst, she was
able to remain in Sisters,
taking classes online and on
weekends, but classes that
required her to be on cam-
pus — along with hospice
and hospital internships —
forced her to move to the
Portland area in 2012. When
she entered a clinical chap-
laincy training program at
Good Samaritan Hospital in
Corvallis, she applied for —
and received — the Kiwanis
Community Scholarship
Service Grant to pay for the
program.
“That grant really helped
get me started as a chaplain,
which, I should point out, is
not a religious designation,”
Daniel explained. “I don’t
identify with any particular
religion or belief system, but
to provide spiritual support in
clinical settings, chaplaincy
training is crucial. It helped
me to develop an interfaith
language so I could help peo-
ple with their spiritual issues,
regardless of their personal
theology.”
As she continued to gain
experience working with the
dying and the bereaved, she
observed that some theo-
logical systems were causing
undue stress and pain during
the grieving process, which
is the subject of her doctoral
dissertation.
“I frequently encounter
people who are struggling
with the suicide of a loved
one, and they believe suicide
is a sin punishable by an eter-
nity in hell. Or if they lost a
child, they believe the death
is punishment for a ‘sin’ the
parent(s) may have commit-
ted in the past,” Terri added.
“The grief process is diffi-
cult enough without adding
unhelpful concepts that do
nothing but promote guilt and
shame.”
Daniel is returning to
Sisters this summer to ful-
fill the final phase of her
Kiwanis Club grant, which
asks recipients to bring
their skills back to the
community.
“I offer my deepest
gratitude to the Kiwanis,”
Daniel said. “Because of
that training, I’m better able
to give bereaved individu-
als not just the benefit of
my personal experience,
but access to a body of
knowledge about spiritual-
ity, psychology and grieving
practices from around the
world.”
To share that knowledge,
Daniel teaches classes and
facilitates workshops that
offer unique bereavement
tools that are not ordinarily
found in traditional counsel-
ing or support group settings.
In addition to interactive
group work and art therapy
processes, she incorporates
powerful rituals from cul-
tures that have deep respect
for death and the power of
community to support the
bereaved.
“Many grievers find that
our culture’s basic rituals
around loss – funeral customs,
grief support groups, prayer,
counseling, etc. — lack per-
sonal meaning, and don’t go
deep enough,” Daniel said.
“In order to advance our
wisdom and develop more
skills in this area, we need to
borrow from other cultures.
The workshops incorporate
ceremonies from Peruvian
shamanism, sacred singing
from Celtic pagan traditions,
African community grief
rituals, and teachings from
Gnostics, Buddhism and
Judeo-Christian mysticism.”
Daniel is offering several
workshops in Central Oregon
between July 8 and 15. In
Sisters, HarmonyHouse will
host “Conscious Grieving:
Turning Loss into Light,” a
mini-workshop on July 10.
The evening includes expe-
riential practices for work-
ing through loss and grief
that are of interest to griev-
ing individuals as well as
bereavement professionals
seeking insights into sup-
porting clients. For informa-
tion and tickets, visit www.
spiritualityandgrief.com or
call 503-957-7419.
PHOTO PROVIDED
Terri Daniel is coming back to Sisters offering a workshop on conscious
grieving. Her studies were assisted by a Kiwanis Community Scholarship
Service Grant from the Sisters chapter of the service organization.
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