Unashay Home - a Grief Sanctuary in the Desert
An Accessible Sanctuary for Grievers is being born in the high desert of Northern New Mexico.
'Unashay' means 'singing river', and Unashay Home is a living village that offers those who carry unmet grief the space to meet it, hear its song, and move with it.
Unashay will provide a dynamic web of presence and resources for unmet grief in localized community, and beyond. It will be a space for ones carrying grief to spill, fall apart, be held and connected; a live meeting point, vast enough to be with the rupture of our times. It won’t just be a space for crying or doing what one might associate with grieving, but also one for traveling and courting the live edges of heart, of life, and death.
Whether one's grief is compelled by death-related loss, loss of traditional lands and lifeways, loss of family, identity, estrangement from former worlds, climate grief, or any form of collective and personal loss, we want to give attention to where it is needed most.
"Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity."
- Simone Weil
The sanctuary will offer residencies and community programming for grievers to take a break from their daily lives, to rest, soak in healing waters, create art, music and performance, and to share traditions; it will provide spaces to engage in relationship building, conversations with grievers, holding vigil (if one chooses), and to deepen in presence with the Earth.
"Sometimes it amazes me to know intuitively that the grieving are all around us yet we do not see any overt signs of their anguished spirits. We are taught to feel shame about grief that lingers. Like a stain on our clothes, it marks us as flawed, imperfect. To cling to grief, to desire its expression, is to be out of sync with modern life where the hip do not get bogged down in mourning."
- Bell Hooks
"Grief offers a wild alchemy that transmutes suffering into fertile ground." - Francis Weller
It will take the village to build the village.
We need your financial contributions to nurture this vision.
PLEASE READ ON! 
Unashay Home consists of ten acres with a seasonal creek flowing from the tsąmą' ǫŋwįkeyi or Rio Chama, in Abiquiu, New Mexico -- unceded territorial homelands of the Tewa peoples. The land is humbly stewarded by Aimee Wilson and a growing body of co-visionaries and board members from many walks of life. Unashay consists of several private habitations, a yurt gathering space, an outdoor community kitchen, and an emergent permaculture garden.
Your contributions will support the important next stage of infrastructure: The Bathhouse and Group Soaking Tub.
The Bathhouse is already under construction and will grow into a vital healing space with a private hot tub for solo soaking, a group soaking hot tub, a cold pool (all seasonally fed by rainwater catchment), and a wood-fired sauna.
On June 19, 2021 grievers, artists and members of the community gathered to perform a "digging" ritual at Unashay with only their hands and bodies-of-grief to literally and symbolically break ground, digging a hole where the group soaking tub will be, thereby creating a living well in which grievers can replenish.
"...grief is generative. She opens up things that were once bound up and secure, exposes them to the elements, and therefore facilitates change."
- Bayo Akomolafe, Unashay Board Member 
Your contributions will directly support construction of the Bathhouse. This cost breakdown represents the entire cost of construction, however any amount raised will allow for the project to bloom in phases.
Local and volunteer labor, natural and reclaimed building materials, and educational workshops will be utilized as much as possible towards construction.
BATHHOUSE COST BREAKDOWN:
Electric and Propane - design, installation and materials - $6,000
Plumbing - design, installation and material cost for plumbing 3 pools, 2 showers, composting toilets, sink, and footwashing fountains - $8,000
2 Wood-fired stoves - heat sources for hot pools - $1,200
3 Pool vessels - materials and labor - $5,000
Light fixtures - $1,000
Windows, wood framing and insulation - $4,000
Earth bags and labor for private pool - $6,500
Plaster materials and labor - $7,000
Tadelakt process and labor, finishing plaster and water-proofing - $8,000
Tile work/ surface finishing labor - $3,000
Cedar wood, wood-stove and all materials for wood-fired sauna - $7,000
Faucets, shower heads, and footwashing fountains - $2,000
Rain Catchment and gutters, materials and installation for rain harvest - $2,000
Gardening/ landscaping for a stone garden surrounding the spaces - $4,000
Stone work and decking, materials and labor - $4,000
Bathhouse Construction Total $55414
+ GoFundMe Transaction Fees, estimated $1586
= FUNDRAISING GOAL $57,000
~ This is our ask: ~
If this work resonates with you, please CONTRIBUTE and SHARE this fundraiser.
Every contribution, of any size, helps this vision to move forward.
"Grief has always been communal, always been shared and consequently has traditionally been regarded as a sacred process. Too often in modern times our grief becomes private, carrying an invisible mantle of shame forcing our sorrow underground, hidden from the eyes that would offer healing. We must restore the conversation we need to have concerning the place of grief in our lives. Each of us must undertake an apprenticeship with loss."
- Francis Weller
WITH IMMENSE GRATITUDE!
- The Unashay Home community
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www.unashayhome.com
