Grief Tending

“Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break.” Shakespeare

WHY DO WE NEED TO TEND TO OUR GRIEF?

As a culture, we’re death phobic and grief illiterate. Grief not tended to – not given the space to be expressed and witnessed – can show up in our lives as anger, depression, numbness, exhaustion and unhealthy patterns. If our hearts are constricted by the weight of grief, it can be hard to find our joy. When we deny grief, we deny the full spectrum of our emotional experience, and the ability to live with joy and sorrow, grief and gratitude, and the other paradox’s life holds.

WHY GRIEF NEEDS COMMUNITY?

Grief needs a safe and sacred space to be witnessed. When we come together with the intention to see and hear each other’s stories of love and loss, we create that space. We welcome the many faces of grief – anger, emptiness, fear, sorrow, regret and more – and give permission for our whole selves to be present, which is healing. We’ve lost the practices and spaces in our communities that facilitate this expressing of healthy emotions.

RELEASE AND RENEWAL

The purpose of the workshop and ritual is release and renewal. This comes from expressing and being witnessed in our grief, in a safe and communal space. As we let go of some of the weight of our grief, we’re left with a deep sense of compassion and connection, and belonging to each other and the mystical web of life. Most people say they walk out lighter than they walked in.

TESTIMONIALS

“This was my first grief tending ceremony. It was powerful right from the start. Just knowing that these other people valued tending their grief and were therefore willing to be vulnerable with other people in community and ceremony, gave a great sense of safety right from the beginning. The main thing I have come away with from this, is how impossible deep feeling is to do without community and it’s left me longing to have more ceremonial community in my life. Thank you!” L, Brighton

“It is often deeply moving and very powerful. I come away tired, unburdened and thanked for the work we did together. The legacy of these rituals of release and renewal echo long after the event. So does Gail’s deep care. ” E, Brighton

THE FORMAT OF THE WORKSHOP

• building the banks of the village, for the river of grief to flow
• stirring the grief, with exercises in writing, movement and active listening
• time to express grief at a grief altar
• integration time with song and meditation
• harvest and close.