Bellingham Grief Retreat

Community Grief Retreat

Honoring our grief and gratitude with rituals of renewal

Sat, Oct 12th 9:30 a.m. - Sun, Oct 13th 7:00 p.m.

Location: Full Bloom Sanctuary (15 mins north of Bellingham)

Description:

In many traditional cultures, grief rituals are considered the “glue” of connection that holds the community together. They offer us one of the most powerful means for reweaving our connection and belonging to ourselves, each other, and all our relations. We were never meant to carry this all alone. 

Join us as we honor the sacredness of our grief and gratitude through talking circles, singing, poetry, movement, practice in sacred listening, ceremony, sharing food, and quiet time in nature. 

​The ritual rides the ripples of the footprints from Elders/Ancestors Sobonfu + Malidoma Somé.  along with the wisdom gifted by teachers and lineages such as the professional mourning women of Greece & Italy, the keeners of Ireland and Scotland, the Mikonenet from the Jewish lineage, Joanna Macy, Francis Weller, Martin Prechtel, Stephen Jenkinson, the immense amount of compounded grief of our times, Whales & so many more. 

This retreat is also inspired by Francis Weller’s Five Gates of Grief, which help us to welcome in all forms of grief we may be carrying, including:

• Everything we love we will lose
• The places within us that have not known love
• The sorrows of the world (e.g. environmental, racial, political, cultural)
• The loss of village and belonging
• Intergenerational or ancestral grief
• The harms we have caused

We invite you to lean in with us as we remember how to grieve in community. There is no grief too big or too small to be worthy of welcome here. 

Retreat Schedule:

Sat, Oct 12 from 9:30 a.m. - late evening

• 9:00 - 9:15 a.m. - Arrive and settle in
• 9:30 a.m. - Ritual opening
• Late evening - Please plan to stay into the evening. We will end when our ritual time comes to a close, which may not be until late in the evening.

Sun, Oct 13 from 9:30 a.m. - 7 p.m. (ish)

• 9:00 - 9:15 a.m. - Arrive and settle in
• 9:30 a.m. - Ritual opening
• 5 p.m. (ish) - Closing circle followed by a community potluck
• 6-7 p.m. (ish) - Clean up - we aim to complete clean up by 7pm

Meals & Lodging:  Please note that meals and lodging are not included. Attendees will be responsible for finding their own accommodations and bringing sack meals, a dish for a community potluck, and snacks for the community table. Limited tent or car camping is available upon request at no extra charge. 

Registration & Fees: 

We offer sliding scale pricing in support of economic justice, which requires your active participation in determining where you fall on the scale. We ask that you be as generous as you are able in order to increase accessibility and support facilitator well-being. Please read the tier descriptions closely as a guide for selecting the tier that best fits your resources and/or limitations.

• Supporting Tier $500 - This tier supports your community by allowing more need-based and solidarity scholarships to be offered. Additionally, it helps cover the full costs of running this retreat by supporting fair wages for the facilitators and greater program accessibility through sliding scale options. Please select this tier if you are able to comfortably meet all of your basic needs. 
• Sustaining Tier $410 - This tier covers the full costs of running this retreat by supporting fair wages for the facilitators and greater program accessibility through sliding scale options. Please select this tier or the Supporting Tier if you are able to comfortably meet all of your basic needs. 
• Community Tier $350 - This tier covers the direct costs of running this retreat. As a guide, this tier may be right for you if you stress about meeting your basic needs (food, housing, etc.) but still regularly achieve them, and have access to income, transportation, financial savings, and health care. If you are able to comfortably meet your needs, please register at the Sustaining or Supporting Tier above, which covers the full costs of running our retreat. 
• Supported Tier $280 - This tier falls short of covering the costs of running this circle. As a guide, this tier (or our scholarship tier) may be right for you if you frequently stress about meeting basic needs (food, housing, etc.) and don’t always achieve them. This may mean you are unemployed or underemployed, rent lower-end properties or have unstable housing, have limited access to a car, qualify for government assistance (health care, food stamps), and have no or very limited expendable income. If you are able to comfortably or regularly meet your needs, please register at the higher tier to help cover the costs of running our circle.

Scholarships: We offer a limited number of scholarships to help make this work accessible to those who otherwise could not afford to join us. This registration option is available to participants who have completed the Scholarship Application Form and received an email confirmation to proceed with the Scholarship Registration option.

Facilitator Note: We are committed to economic class transparency (to increase awareness of class impacts) and redistributing funds to move towards reparations for People of the Global Majority, or BIPOC folks. As a team of self-employed white facilitators we are holding the complexity of supporting our families with our work and recognizing our economic privilege within the structures of capitalism. We fundshift 10% from our facilitation fees to the Sonder Project.

Refund policy: Partial refunds of 50% are available up to 30 days prior to the event date. After this period, refunds are no longer available. This policy helps to hold us all accountable and creates some protection for the facilitators and organizers. We ask that you notify as soon as possible if you are no longer able to attend.

COVID Protocol: We suggest taking a COVID home test the day of our event. Once gathered, each participant will be at choice as to what feels good to them in terms of masking, distancing, contact, etc. If you are COVID positive or showing any cold/flu-like symptoms on the days of the ritual, please stay home.

20 participant minimum and 28 participant max

Facilitators:

Siena Tenisci, MA, LMHCA, is a therapist, community organizer, and founder of Northwest Grief Tending. She is a descendant of Abruzzese and Celtic peoples - lineages where keening women once held dedicated and respected roles in society as vocal rituals who midwifed collective grief within their communities. Siena has been facilitating grief rituals for over a decade and has been inspired by the work of many teachers and mentors, including Sobonfu & Malidoma Some, Joanna Macy, Therese Charvet, Laurence Cole, Francis Weller, and Vince Horan. She completed her Masters in Counseling at Antioch University in Seattle and is committed to a lifelong practice of dismantling systemic and internalized oppression.

ahlay (alexandra blakely) is an artist, singer-songwriter, and community organizer deeply committed to breaking cycles of intergenerational trauma through authentic relationships, song, storytelling, ritual, and spell casting. Descended from Ashkenazi, Scandinavian, and Celtic ancestors, she emphasizes our symbiotic relationship with the natural world. An ardent student of decolonization and anti-racism, ahlay has trained with generative somatics, Education for Racial Equity, Holistic Resistance, Animas Valley Institute, The Work that Reconnects, Francis Weller and Laurence Cole. Her community singing projects, including the upcoming 2024 album WAILS: Songs for Grief, aim to inspire cultural metamorphosis and collective healing. You can learn more about her lineage with grief ritual here. 

Questions? Please contact Siena at nwgrieftending@gmail.com