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.
Grieving Our
Beloved Dead
a community grief ritual for us all
April 27, 2025
Whether it be loved ones, health decline, masses of innocent strangers in a far away place, expired relationships, wanted or unwanted pregnancies, losses due to climate disaster, or old versions of ourselves, turning toward what has died and honoring it with our grieving supports us to keep moving forward.
No living being is untouched by death; this is a grief ritual for us all.
Read the full invitation to Grieving Our Beloved Dead 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.
Sobonfu Somé once said during a talk she was giving about grief that when someone very close to us dies, they give us a one-way ticket to our destiny. If we are able to turn toward the heartbreaking work of grieving the people, pets, places, and experiences (enriching or harmful) most impactful to us; we allow ourselves to be upended and transformed in the process.
Grieving Our Beloved Dead is an invitation to turn toward this sometimes, excruciating, sometimes equanimous, sometimes pleasant, always productive practice of moving grief out of the body. We are called together to honor what has been taken, lost, or just met its inevitable end. Death comes for us not just at the end of our lives, but again and again throughout our lives as we change and our relationships become ill-fitting and must be shed, or as we lose beloved ones to mortality or drifting apart, or as we realize that our old coping mechanisms are no longer helpful and we must wiggle out of old skins. Death is a constant, and we can sturdy ourselves in the face of change and loss by regularly turning toward death in all of its forms and offering it our sacred grieving.
This grief ritual is for every one of us. Whatever the past, current, or impending loss or big change, we must find ways to adapt to the pervasive personal and collective losses of our time. We cannot become accustomed to the unnatural and unjust casualties we endure, but we must become skilled grievers in the face of it all. If you have ever lost someone or yourself, if you have experienced significant change, if you have nearly died, if you have had miscarriages or abortions, if you have lost ability or experienced changes in your health, if you have survived climate disaster, if you have ever been betrayed or assaulted and lost your sense of safety, if you’ve lost a home place or language or culture ways— this grief ritual is for you.
“Communal grieving offers something that we cannot get when we grieve by ourselves. Through validation, acknowledgement and witnessing, communal grieving allows us to experience a level of healing that is deeply and profoundly freeing. Each of us has a basic human right to that genuine love, happiness and freedom.”