Let’s grieve together.
Join me for a virtual community grief ritual.
My monthly virtual community grief rituals are an opportunity for us all to have a shared space to grieve together. I offer an inter-cultural space where everyone is invited, as well as a less frequent affinity space for Black people.
Grief Ritual to Restore the Erotic and
Heal the Collective Womb
This grief ritual is prayer for the healing of all beings and the earth from the widespread effects of patriarchal violence. It is also a gesture towards a return to the empowered state of full embodiment through practice.
Read the full invitation to the Grief Ritual to Restore the Erotic and Heal the Collective Womb below.
if you’re thinking about attending
Please only come if you can be relatively on time and plan to stay for the entire flow. The full duration is 2 hours and 30 minutes. Arriving 10-15 minutes late is okay.
Please allow yourself to slow down to meet this work. If possible, don’t make plans for directly before or after the grief ritual. Allow yourself to move spaciously through the remainder of your day to allow for deep after care, or for more grief to arise and be released.
Space is limited. Please register in advance.
suggestions for how to prepare
I invite you to do what resonates and be rooted in your own practice.
gather a large dish of salted water to grieve (direct your grief energetically, cry, spit, cough, yell) into
bring a lot of water to drink
wear lighter colored or earth toned clothing
set up your grieving space near an altar for your elevated ancestors or near a lit candle for them.
bring tissues or a handkerchief
bring grounding crystals
bring cleansing herbs to burn
bring a sound bowl, drum, bell, rattle, or other percussive instrument
bring a soft blanket for comfort or other comfort items
bring a pillow to yell into
situate yourself on the floor, or have some floor space accessible so you can move around
if possible and desirable, you can situate yourself outside on the earth and/or near moving water
if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
If you would like to make a donation to support the attendance of grievers who are not able to pay, please do so here. Your support is much needed and greatly appreciated.
Audre Lorde teaches us that the erotic is a source of power and information. Not to be confused with simple sexual gratification or “the pornographic,” we engage the erotic when we are able to feel and express the full, wild, unimpeded spectrum of our emotions in the body.
The erotic is our connection to the spiritual and creative force from which all life originates, and it is inherently feminine in a way that is not gendered, but deified.
As a result of all interconnected systems and modes of oppression, especially cis-heteropatriarchy, the erotic is flattened and twisted into depraved shadow misrepresentations, expressions of being (like gender) are reduced to stark binaries, and all measures are taken to suppress the power inherent in full present embodiment and free creative expression. The outward expressions of these blights on humanity are experienced as gender based violence against women and all marginalized genders, child sexual assault and molestation, sexual violence and rape culture in general, intimate partner violence, emotional abuse, womb dysfunction, sexual dysfunction, the extremely high Black maternal death rate, the casual accepted nature of sexual harassment, the devaluation of care and care work, the devaluation of art and artists, creative blocks of all kinds, the targeting of trans and gender expansive people, especially Black trans women, the gender pleasure/orgasm gap, the gender pay gap, painful menstruation, infertility, forced sterilization, infanticide, femicide, misogynoir, institutional rape and sexual assault in Sudan, DRC, Palestine, and wherever there is war, the trafficking and murder of indigenous women, gender based violence as a weapon of war and colonization across time, and all manifestations of patriarchy in all forms, especially domination and war.
My response to these grave ongoing injustices in this present time of unveiling and revelation and my invitation to us all is a Grief Ritual to Restore the Erotic and Heal the Collective Womb. We can harness our grieving towards the restoration of the erotic, for the elevation of those lost to patriarchal violence, and for the healing of us all. We can be vessels for these big collective griefs to move through us, and this can be a varied emotional experience, not only sorrowful, but perhaps even ecstatic. You can come with grief on any topic, related to any loss. Come and grieve for loved ones who have suffered, for yourself, or for us all.
This ritual is for the healing benefit of us all, all genders, all races and cultures, all ages no matter our direct experience with these kinds of traumas. All humans are cultivated in a womb and are thus impacted by the disfunction of the collective womb. This ritual is a prayer in dedication to the healing and elevation of the many victims and survivors of these personal, collective, and systemic traumas especially all wartime victims and survivors of rape, every child who has experienced sexual violence including my child self, and all of the ones in my lineage.