Join us for a Community Grief Ritual at the beautiful Delight Flower Farm!
"Communal grieving offers something that we cannot get when we grieve by ourselves. Through acknowledgement, validation and witnessing, communal grieving allows us to experience a level of healing that is deeply and profoundly freeing." -Sobonfu Somé
Come back to a greater sense of aliveness through tending your grief in community on the land!
Melanie Sheckels of Threshold Doula will be joined by Kelsey Langley of KOOP Adventure Play and Lola *Glow* Pittenger, M.Ed. to facilitate this all ages healing space.
Community grief ritual offers tools and connections to help us cope with the multitude of complex losses of this chaotic time. It’s an opportunity to feel, express, and integrate the intense emotions of grief in a compassionate, immersive community space.
All grief is welcome here. We come together to witness one another and be witnessed in whatever grief is present during this intense and historic time. Whether it shows up as something collective or as mourning a very personal loss, we will carry it together.
What to expect at the community grief ritual
Grounding & Resourcing meditation: This is an opportunity to anchor into what your authentic capacity for presence, connection and vulnerability is as we land in shared space together.
Community Agreements: Together, we will explore the conditions of welcome for our grief. Topics such as privacy and choice will be up for discussion as we learn to cultivate safe and brave space of connection and care.
Reflection & Journaling: Time to engage with what’s on your heart.
Altar Creation: We will weave all that each of us carries together through building a grief altar.
Exploring the Land: This is time to enjoy nature and have self reflection. In the spirit of knowing that the land is bigger, older, and more powerful than each of us, we will invite the land to hold our grief with us.
Art project: Art and creation help us channel what feels too big to put into words. It can help move energy from the head space back into the body through the heArt. We will weave all that we’re carrying in our spirits, grief and love, into our art and creations and offer it in gratitude to the earth.
Group Sharing: This is an invitation to share what’s on your heart with the group.
Song and Movement: We will complete our ritual with these powerful tools to help us move the stuck energy of grief from the head space through our voices, hearts, and bodies. In the words of Joni Mitchell, the more out of tune voices the better!
“...To carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and to be stretched large by them. How much sorrow can I hold? That’s how much gratitude I can give. If I carry only grief, I’ll bend toward cynicism and despair. If I have only gratitude, I’ll become saccharine and won’t develop much compassion for other people’s suffering. Grief keeps the heart fluid and soft, which helps make compassion possible." - Francis Weller
Co-Facilitators:
Lola *Glow* Pittenger, M.Ed., Reiki and Moon Ceremony Master is a 200 Hr. Certified Yoga Teacher, and Intuitive Life Coach. After spending ten years as a bilingual classroom teacher, she embarked on her own spiritual calling and has spent the last ten years developing her 'energy medicine' craft and brand.
Kelsey Langley has been a playworker at KOOP Adventure Play for 7 years and has had the privilege of witnessing the joy, healing, and integration that grows out of self-directed play. Currently completing her Masters in Counseling & Play Therapy, Kelsey now supports people of all ages in their pursuit of therapeutic healing and self-discovery. Kelsey finds play, ponders the complexities of life, and connects to her truest self through exploration in nature, photography, and gardening.
On the subject of play and grief, Kelsey offers, "I often think of play as the most authentic way we show up in the world... a time and space where we sink into ourselves and the outside world fades away.... a time where we plug into the life force inside us. Play isn't always happy or fun, and often looks like the "working out" of what's happening inside us. Because of this complex intersection between joy and grief, I see play as a vital bridge between our past experiences, our current reality and the future we're dreaming of. Through play I see children process the world on their terms and return to themselves day after day."
May we be deeply and fully held in love and care as we express our holy outrage and grief.
May we know just how much we are in this together.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
May this care surround us for as long and as deep as our mourning takes us.⠀
May our grief feed our ancestors and the spirits of all those we’ve lost.
May the unfulfilled dreams and potential of those we have lost become fuel for our lives and for our communities.
May our time here together be for the highest good of each one of us, for the highest good of those we love, and for the highest good of the collective.