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Good grief with Jill Rivers and Debra Goldsmith

Welcome to The Nugget, a 24k gold newsletter about Castlemaine's people and events

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The Nugget
February 28, 2025

★ HOW TO GRIEVE WELL ★

Debra Goldsmith and Jill Rivers

Jill Rivers began exploring the concept of "good grief" as more people around her began to die.

"I'm aging, and my friends and family are falling about me," she says.

Grief is a highly individual experience, but psychologists agree that there is a wrong way to do it. Trying to numb or avoid grief will only hurt you more.

With that in mind — that it's better to face grief and we might as well do it together — Jill has developed Good Grief gigs for the Castlemaine Fringe Festival.

They include art workshops, a Community Cairn and a Remembrance Rave.

“My children said you can’t do that without drugs!” she laughs.

"It's about feeling your grief and letting it come,” Jill says.

“So many people are closed. We're trying to give them a chance to change that."

At her Forget-Me-Not Good Grief workshops, people can make a flower from up-cycled materials in celebration of a loved one or something they have lost, while in the company of others who are experiencing grief.

The workshops, running on Saturdays in March at the Northern Arts Hotel, are for all ages. Anyone who has loved and lost.

Local artist, Debra Goldsmith, will guide the sessions helping people “bring the subconscious into the material world as a way of processing it.”

People are welcome to bring clothes, photocopies of diaries, letters or photographs to make it personal.

Debra says that expressing grief through art can help people move out of a frozen or stuck state that can be so debilitating.

Debra will incorporate the flowers in a ceremonial Community Cairn art installation that will be unveiled on Sat, 22 Mar, in Victory Park. The installation that will stand for the duration of the Fringe Festival.

This is exciting because Debra is known for creating stunning art installations. Her intricate, Versailles-inspired chandeliers made of hundreds of plastic bottles have graced art festivals across the Goldfields.

Jill says she is looking forward to making a flower for Debra to place in the Cairn.

"My former husband died at the end of last year and I also lost a sister, the youngest of our family, quite a lot younger," she says.

"I feel quite frustrated that there was no real way to mourn my former husband, so I'm going to make a flower." (Family politics and preferences got in the way).

"There's so much denial and there's so much fear around grief and death. It's a matter of celebrating the fact that it's actually part of life and bringing it into your daily existence and feeling comfortable with it," she says.

Psychologists say that giving yourself opportunities to grieve is freeing. It allows people to engage in restorative activities that provide a break from grief.

It's a constant see-saw from one to the other: active grieving, restorative breaks. A life-long adaptation process that is best shared with others because we are all going through it in different ways.

Good Grief work will continue in Castlemaine beyond Fringe. Jill will be running Good Grief Lounges every month at the Northern Arts Hotel.

"We'll talk about the ways different cultures celebrate and experience grief. We will also be talking about practical things, end-of-life matters like making a will and palliative care — things that so many people don't arrange in their lives."

The idea is that engaging with death and planning ahead can encourage openness and a more relaxed attitude around the truth that everyone dies.

See you there? We can sew our shrouds together!

❀ POOR WAFFLES! ❀

Little Waffles, the shop dog at the Good Op Shop, has had The Operation.

Let’s all send the boy some love! Those pain meds can be very discombobulating for pups.

The Nugget’s OG dog, Magic, stood facing the wall and crying for ages after her Operation.

♡˖ EVENTS ˖♡

𖥔 TALK TO MOI PLOISE 𖥔

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