Tide Marks: Walking Together with Loss
Credit: Davina Bambrick
Grief doesn’t follow a linear path nor a timetable. Month by month, year by year, loss reveals new layers of nuance, memory, experience and reflection.
This September 2026, Tide Marks a free monthly community walking practice for people living with loss, steps towards strengthening Byron Shire’s ecologies of care.
Emma Beattie of Before & After | Life, says Tide Marks offers a simple invitation: walk together, without trying to fix grief.
“Grief can be isolating. There are surprisingly few places where it feels safe or comfortable to be with what we carry in the way of loss - or simply to acknowledge the changing terrain over time,” says Emma.
“Tide Marks isn’t about being healed. We walk to move with not moveon. We walkto honour, remember, celebrate, venerate, companion and tend.”
Meeting at 7.30am on the first day of each month at Clarkes Beach car park, the group will walk along the coast noticing environmental elements, and what grief might bring.
There is no expectation to talk, share or listen.
Participants can walk fast or slow, quietly or mindfully, or choose to share or not. At Tide Marks, no one will be asked, “Are you over it yet?” or “Are you still sad? The purpose is to really observe the changing tides, weather, seasons, memories, feelings and the company of others.
“Walking gives grief a rhythm,” says Emma. “It gives us somewhere to go together, while allowing grief to be exactly what it is. We get to practice being in relationship with this place, with our grief and with each other.”
Tide Marks invites people living with loss to walk together along Byron’s coastline, making space for grief without pressure, expectations or the need to fix it.
Tide Marks
When: First day of each month, 7.30am 2026
Tue 1 Sep
Thu 1 Oct
Sun 1 Nov
Tue 1 Dec
Where: Meet at Clarkes Beach Car Park, Byron Bay
Cost: Free / By donation
Who: Everyone is welcome
Participants are asked to bring suitable footwear, a water bottle and sun protection.
Tide Marks is a community practice, not group or clinical therapy. Professional therapeutic referrals can be provided where appropriate.
Further information:https://www.facebook.com/events/1687234679244382/1687240072577176
About Emma Beattie
Emma founded Before & After | Life to work in community across the landscape of caring, dying and grieving. She offers practical tools, support, education and facilitation for individuals, families, groups, workplaces and communities.
Emma also hosts Regard on BayFM 99.9, a weekly program exploring caring, death, dying and grief, Mondays from 11am–12noon.
beforeandafterlife.com.au
bayfm.org/regard