Friday, September 5    .   10AM – 6PM

Open Sky Retreat Space, Sebastopol, CA

Bring your tears and feed your Ancestors.

Let your heart be replenished through this traditional

African community healing ritual.

Discover true resiliency and experience transformation

while dancing to the Drum-Heartbeat of the Village.

Awaken your authentic forgiveness and open into

grounded JOY.

About the Dagara-inspired Community Grief Ritual, in my own words…

(Interview with Maria by Willi Paul – Planetshifter.com, 2016)

Define grief?

What is grief? Grief is a human experience that I think opens us more into our humanity when we express it. Feeling our

grief softens us and the walls around our hearts. We become accessible to our loved ones in the most beautiful ways.

Recall a time when you or someone you knew was grieving the loss of a loved one, how there was a transparency and

grace surrounding you/them. Grief activates when we go through a real loss or a perceived loss. When things are

changing, and will never be the same again, such as the death of a loved one, divorce, abortion, bankruptcy, losing one’s

home, losing physical health or ability, injustice being done to us or our community that results in losing inalienable

rights, … And it doesn’t just look like tears, sobbing and collapsing in sadness. Grief can very well look and feel like anger,

numbness, confusion, anxiety, fear, frustration, overwhelm… Every person on Earth has a unique expression of grief and

it doesn’t serve us to compare our expression to others.

What can happen if we hold onto grief too long?

Grief is a pattern of emotional energy; it has a very distinct signature. When Grief arises in us, our human “natural body”

needs to move the energy organically – like a river flowing stronger after a huge rain when all the tributaries are

emptying into it and maybe even overflowing it. Can you imagine what would happen if we tried to dam that river? The

water would pour out over the banks into surrounding areas. That’s what grief does when it is suppressed. It leaks overinto other areas of our life, into our relationships, our work, our self-esteem, our trust in others, for example. Instead of

allowing the natural flow of tears, anger, and revelation, we lock these emotions up then blame others for the

discomfort we feel.

When we let the river flow, and honor our Grief, we allow the full expression of Joy, Revelation, and the other feelings

on the opposite side of the spectrum be felt too. This is unexpected for most. When I lead Grief Ritual I see people come

in with such despair and through the ritual process they open to a place of spontaneous joy and connection that

surprises them. Grief is an energy, like water, and like water if it is controlled through containment it will become

stagnant and unable to support life. Grief energy that is not moved can manifest imbalances in the physical body

eventually, because it’s not being allowed to support life, so it degrades vitality. I’ve seen that a lot at Grief Ritual’s too –

people having sudden relieve from physical pain and discomfort, even chronic allergies have dissolved. I’ve also seen

healing happen psychologically, meaning, persistent negative thought patterns will be gone after the ritual completes. I

am always in such awe at the people who attend Grief Ritual work, because I know the courage this takes.

I never showed my grief publicly until I was 25 and started my self-healing journey. I cried privately and the result of this

was a pervasive feeling of “not being known”, not even by my friends. “They don’t know who I really am and what I’m

really going through”. But the choice to show them my vulnerability was too scary for me. I thought if I showed my grief,

it would explode out and never stop. And then my friends wouldn’t want to be around me because I was such a mess.

I was 20 when I discovered Earth-based ritual work. First through Vision Quest and then through initiating onto the Red

Road with a Lakota spiritual teacher from Yankton, South Dakota. Since those days, I have done ceremony and ritual

with over 15 different traditional cultures and across the board what I have learned from them is that Community

Healing rituals/ceremonies are POWERFUL! And used all the time as a tool for individual and community health,

resiliency and balance with the Natural World.

In 2003 I was introduced to the Dagara tradition of Grief Ritual work, through attending events with Sobonfu Some and

Francis Weller, and I was hooked. This particular approach to community healing was so profound, intelligent, and

connecting, that I adopted it into all my programs and classes, and still do.

Today, when I experience grief, I acknowledge it as a wise teacher visiting me and I sit down to listen. Sometimes this

energy invites me to dance, sometimes to call a friend, sometimes to ask for a ritual, and sometimes to write. I listen and

I respond. I feel my resistance, because that still comes up, but I know the healing power of releasing grief, so I respond

with trust. This is what gives me such a large capacity to hold the grief that moves at a Community Grief Ritual. I see my

sisters and brothers in tears, or anger or numb… and I celebrate, because they made it to the ritual and I know they will

get healing.

“They give us a focus (the grief altar) and a container (skilled facilitators) within which to safely relax our hearts…”

(MOG) Please tell us about the alter. Where does this come from? What does it facilitate?

At Grief Rituals the container is held by many concentric circles of support. There are the skilled human facilitators, the

shrines (or altars), the Ancestors, our own larger Spirits, and Creator (Source) in and through everything. As the hours

pass during the ritual day, I see the attendees start to get it… How held they are, how loved they are, and they start to

soften into a sense of safety.

The shrines work in two ways:

1. They are a place for attendees to focus their releasing and receiving.

2. They are “telephones” or amplifiers that open to our helpers in the Spirit world.

Let me talk more about #1: The shrines are communally created by the group. There are three: The Grief Shrine, The

Ancestor Shrine, and a Gratitude Shrine which anchors us to what we LIVE FOR. We each put our meaning into them as

we help build them. By the time we are in ritual space, there is a common understanding of how the shrines support us.Attendees approach the Grief Shrine know that they can give all their grief there, whatever it looks or sounds like.

Attendees approach the Ancestor Shrine and connect with the timeless wisdom and love there, knowing that these

Ancestors also experiences great losses and there is a lesson there about being human, humble, and present. The

Gratitude Shrine holds photos and objects that represent our joy for being alive.

Attendees approach this Shrine with a desire to feel the balance in life – yes, we have sorrow and pain, but we also have

great joys and tremendous love.

Now, #2: The Shrines are “telephones” between the worlds. Traditionally speaking, when a ritual or ceremonial leader

invokes the helpers at the beginning of spiritual healing work, if that leader is in integrity with those relationships, the

helpers will respond with love and the doorway between the worlds will be opened. When I lead Grief Ritual, my

colleague, Mike Shea, and I invoke the “elevated” Ancestors to support us, hold us and give us courage to feel our grief.

Because Mike and I have daily practices of tending to our relationships with our Ancestors, these bonds are clean, clear

and strong. We can feel the portals opening. We know how to create a strong container that allows in only healthy

Ancestors. And I have to say, I know this is how so many people receive such deep healing at the rituals we facilitate.

Workshop folks are asked to bring photos of Ancestors. Why?

The Ancestor Shrine and singing to the Ancestors throughout the main ritual is a big and important part of the Grief

Ritual. This is why participants are asked to bring photos of their Ancestors. These photos are placed on the Ancestor

Shrine. It is so moving to see this Shrine fully built, with flowers, candles and dozens of photos. Most moving are the

photos of loved ones who have recently entered the Ancestor realm. The love between living and dead is palpable. And

that supposed barrier that keeps us from continuing a relationship dissolves. I know from my own experience that to

create a healthy relationship with our Ancestors makes life incredibly more joyful and rich.

What should we know when watching someone grieve versus experiencing grief ourselves?

What I love about honoring my grief is that it gives me the capacity to compassionately witness another’s. At Grief Ritual

we explain to the attendees how to be there for each other. We tell them, “This is not a time to give advice or have an

agenda for how another’s grief moves or doesn’t move. We are simply here to honor their process.” Often when we

allow ourselves to truly witness another’s grief, our own grief that has been left unattended will stir up. At Grief Ritual

we say, “This is a Community Healing ritual. When you go to the Grief Shrine you aren’t just going for yourself, but for

everyone here and for your families and communities. In fact, our releasing contracted grief liberates energy in the

collective human consciousness, so the whole world benefits.”

At Grief Rituals, during the main ritual work, attendees go to the Grief Shrine to release, but they no one goes alone.

Everyone has a supporter who simply sits at their back. This compassionate and non-invasive support is very new to

most people. I know my experience in the past has been that people were either scared of my grief and didn’t know

what to say, or they co-opted my grief and made it all about them. So this neutral, compassionate container and way of

holding others actually invites attendees into a new relationship with the grief of others. People leave feeling more

empowered around grief and holding space for others in grief.

“Grief for the world?” Good, Grief! How do we get at our huge, complex and slippery global sources of grief?

According to one of my mentors in this work, Francis Weller, there are 6 Gates of Grief. And each one to some degree

exists in each one of us. They are:

1. Everything we love we will lose

2. The places that have not known love

3. The sorrows of the world

4. What we expected and did not receive

5. Ancestral Grief

6. TraumaWhen we begin to explore one of these sorrows, we inevitably find it is linked to the others.

“The sorrows of the world” category, for me includes Grief for the World, for Gaia – our Mother Earth and the Other-

than-Human-Beings. My other mentor and teacher Joanna Macy focuses her life’s work on this category, which she

named “The Work that Reconnects”.

I would have to write a hundred pages to do this topic justice. So, for the purpose of this interview, what I’ll summarize

is:

Gaia needs us to feel our grief about what’s happening here – to the ecosystems, the oceans, the animals, and our own

“Indigenous Souls”. If we succumb to complacency for fear that this grief and rage will overcome us, then we are just

contributing to the problem; to the big dam blocking liberation of creative energy and genius, rather than being a part of

the change.

I am so grateful for those who bring this Grief for the World to Grief Ritual, because I know through their courage to feel

their hearts break wide open, these participants will leave with a more open and alive heart from which to take action.

REGISTER HERE WITH OUR THREE-TIERED PAYMENT SYSTEM, BASED ON INCOME.

Upon receiving your contribution, we will email you a Welcome Letter with directions to Open Sky and a list of what to bring.

You are blessed to earn more than enough than you need each month.

With love and respect to my mentor,

Sobonfu Some.

Thank you for gifting

this beautiful ritual to the West,

that we may heal.