Spring 2023 Grief Retreats
Day-Long: March 25, 2023
Full Weekend: May 19-21, 2023
In-person, facilitated retreats designed to introduce participants to the embodied and communal work of grief.
Grief is an integral part of life that requires our attention if we want to be fully available to life. In our culture, however, we have forgotten how to share our grief with one another. In addition to our personal losses, given the emergent climate crisis and its impacts – the extinction of species, the COVID pandemic, and the unrest and turmoil within human societies – the burden of grief that we are carrying as individuals can begin to feel unbearable. There are very few spaces where we are invited to experience and express this complex grief in community. This retreat will utilize Francis Weller’s “Five Gates of Grief” to connect participants to their distinct and multifaceted experiences of grief in the context of a “sudden village.”.
The retreats will be facilitated by experienced grief mentors who have apprenticed in the grief ritual tradition of the Dagara tribe as brought to the U.S. and shared by Malidoma and Sobonfu Somé. We have been oriented to this tradition through mentorship with Francis Weller and others. All participation is invitational; nothing is “required” beyond being present with and sharing the griefs you are carrying, to the best of your ability.
Honoring Our Grief
March 25, 2023 @ College Club on Lake Union in Seattle
Registration Deadline: Saturday, March 18 / Click to Register
Participants will be guided through chanting and movement, poetry, teaching, periods of solitude, small group sharing, and micro-rituals.
Fee: $75. If this presents a barrier to your participation, please let us know.
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Leaning Into Grief: Personal and Planetary Sorrows
May 19-21, 2023 @ St. Andrews House on Hood Canal
Registration Deadline: Friday, May 5 / Click to Register
Participants will be guided through chanting, poetry, teaching, writing exercises, small group sharing, and the creation of a grief shrine. Our time together will culminate in a communal grief ritual.
Fee: $350 – Early Bird Registration by March 15th; $385 after March 15th. If the fee presents a barrier to your participation, please let us know.
COVID Policy
All participants are asked to rapid test the first morning of the respective retreats and communicate negative results to the organizers. Masking is welcome, for those who would be more comfortable with such additional precautions, but not required.
Facilitators
Peter Jabin, M.Div., LMHC, Pastoral Psychotherapist
Jean Berolzheimer, MS, Interfaith Buddhist Chaplain
Cristina Manzoni, MA, CCC, Palliative Care/Hospice Chaplain