Two Classrooms I Didn’t Know I Was Growing

Registration opens March 4.

There was a season when the garden became my sanctuary.

Not in a dramatic way.
Not in a “transform your life in 30 days” way.

But in the quiet, kneeling-in-the-soil kind of way.

In the early days of acute grief, when everything felt unsteady, I found myself returning again and again to small, ordinary rituals — watering, planting, noticing what had pushed through the soil overnight. The garden did not rush me. It did not ask me to be different than I was. It simply mirrored back what I was learning: that growth and grief can coexist.

Where plants grow, stories do too.

Around that same time, I also began writing more intentionally.

Not polished essays.
Not carefully crafted narratives.

Just honest pages.

I wrote to make sense of what had happened. I wrote to remember. I wrote to feel less alone inside my own experience. Slowly, I began to see how giving language to loss was its own form of tending — shaping something wild and painful into meaning.

I didn’t set out to create classes.

But over time, I began to notice that the practices that steadied me — gardening, reflective writing, gentle somatic awareness — were the same practices that were supporting others in my workshops and circles.

And so this spring, two classrooms are opening at Portland Community College:

🌿 Gardening for Presence and Healing
✍️ Writing Through Loss for Healing

Both are rooted in the same belief: that resilience doesn’t come from pushing through, but from tending — to the body, to memory, to the small rituals that keep us connected to ourselves.

The gardening class is not about mastering soil types or plant science. It’s about using the garden as a metaphor and sensory doorway back into presence.

The writing class is not about literary perfection. It’s about honoring lived experience and discovering how story can hold both sorrow and strength.

These classes feel like an extension of something I’ve been cultivating quietly for years — in my own life, and in the spaces I hold with others.

If you’ve been craving:

• a slower way to reconnect with yourself

• a place to let your story breathe

• or simply a structured container for reflection

I would be honored to welcome you.

Registration opens March 4.

And whether you join or not, thank you for being part of this growing season with me. 🤍

Dawn M. Geoppinger, Trauma-Informed Grief & Embodiment Coach

Dawn M. Geoppinger is a Trauma-Informed Grief & Embodiment Coach based in Portland, Oregon, with a strong foundation of over two decades of professional experience in public administration, education, and the nonprofit sector. She specializes in grief education, somatic movement, breathwork, and mindfulness, integrating evidence-based approaches such as somatic practices, post-traumatic growth and woman-centered principles to help clients reconnect with themselves, regulate their nervous systems, and honor the full spectrum of loss and healing. Through her practice, The Embodied Grief Journey™, Dawn provides compassionate, expert support both in person and online—creating safe, nurturing spaces for individuals to explore grief, resilience, and embodied healing.