Samhain Community Grief Tending Ritual

Agenda

Our time together will include guided embodiment practices, small group heart shares, and a ritual with drumming and chanting to invite full-embodied sound for guttural grief and exultant praise to come through. We set agreements about how to be with each other for a tight, safe, respectful container that honors our individual differences.

We are courting both grief and praise in the arms of community and re-weaving a sense of mattering to the cosmos, community, ancestors, and our earth. This practice can be ecstatic for some people.

We will be serving a cup of ceremonial grade cacao in partnership with Nikko Miyatake (CacaoBreath.com), for those who would like to partake.

What to Bring

We will have a potluck dinner, so please bring a dish to share. Please eat a good breakfast and pack yourself a lunch or adequate snacks to get you to dinner time.

You may bring something to sit on, like a blanket, back jack, or camping chair if you need one, but there will be plenty of seating available as well. Bring layers so you have options with the weather. We will be indoors or outdoors, weather permitting.

Bring items sacred to you for placing on the altar. You might also bring a photograph or another object which symbolizes the grief you would like to tend, which you can keep with you or place on the altar we create together.

Bring your drum or a rattle if you have one. Bring flowers for the altar if you have easy access to them. But most importantly, just bring yourself in a state of readiness to co-create this ritual with the others who attend.

Philosophy

I honor the Dagara people of Burkina Faso who have carried and shared the wisdom of community grief tending ritual with us, including Malidoma and Sobonfu Somé, the teachers of my teachers.

“The village is the place where you go to be seen.” — Sobonfu Somé

“Grief expressed out loud for someone we have lost, or a country or home we have lost, is in itself the greatest praise we could ever give them. Grief is praise, because it is the natural way love honors what it misses.” ― Martin Prechtel, The Smell of Rain on Dust

“Grief and love are sisters, woven together from the beginning. Their kinship reminds us that there is no love that does not contain loss and no loss that is not a reminder of the love we carry for what we once held close.” ― Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow

Cancelation Policy

When you sign up for this event, think of it like buying a ticket to a concert or an event. You reserve a spot that is then yours. As such, this ticket is nonrefundable. This invites you into a whole-hearted YES commitment to co-creating this container with us and to respect our time, your time, and the other people who will gather with us. We love it when you show up. Magic happens! To full embodied Yeses!