Drinking from the Well: The Sacred Work of Grief

Grief enters our lives through many gateways, including the death of loved ones, relationship endings, intractable conflicts, chronic illness, cultural loss, ancestral trauma, major life transitions, or from the overwhelming concerns and social injustice and ecological collapse in our devastated world. Throughout time many traditional cultures have understood the healing and transformative power of grieving in ceremony and within community as a sacred way to honor, metabolize, and transmute the energy of grief.​ Sharing our sorrows in a healing circle of deep remembrance, praise, mourning, and celebration of life strengthens our capacity to respond to the challenges of our lives and our world with courage, compassion, and wisdom.

This daylong event is inspired by the traditional grief rituals of the Dagara tribe of Burkina Faso brought to the West by Sobonfu Somé, the ancient cross-cultural tradition of lamentation, and the work and teachings of Francis Weller, Michael Meade, Martin Prechtel, and Joanna Macy. Through the original technologies of ritual, rhythm, movement, storytelling, poetry, and song, we will co-create a brave, alchemical container to travel deeply into the dark river of grief, welcome all our emotions, and open to the mystery of transformation. Metabolizing our grief into gifts of beauty enables us to cultivate the clarity, vitality, and resilience that we need to be present to ourselves, with each other, and for our world in these turbulent times.