Community Grief Circle August 16

Postponed due to facilitator sickness.

A simple and soft place for us to collectively welcome, witness, and befriend our sorrows. 

Grief touches all of our lives yet our culture shuns and banishes our sorrows to unspeakable places. Grief is bad for business. We are taught to get back to work quickly after the death of a loved one, our friends want us to cheer up quickly after a breakup, and climate catastrophe is left out of mainstream news. Grief builds and has few places to go. Left un-metabolized, grief causes war, divide from ourselves, our communities and the path to co-liberation for all beings.

Community Grief Circles are a monthly container to connect to our grief in community. We will practice slowing down and simply being with what is present, to see the beauty in our shared humanity, and to give and receive the profound gift of loving presence. 

We will co-create a container together for the following:

• Grief practices from varying lineages

• Embodiment and somatic exercises

• Writing prompts and journaling

• Utilizing ritual to honor our losses

• Begin to nurture the timeless bond between grief and gratitude

Dates:

Sundays from 10am-1pm at a private location in Occidental

June 7

July 12

August 16

Sliding scale $35-$85

EVENT FACILITATORS

Hunter Franks (he/him) is a facilitator, grief tender, and artist based in the Bay Area. He is passionate about creating communal spaces for feeling, for belonging, and for falling apart. His practice encompasses community-based public art, happenings, visual work, writing, nature quests, and installation. His apprenticeship with sorrow began in March 2020 when his Mom died, and it has radically rewritten how he interacts and connects with the world around him. He is a trained facilitator in the Ways of Council and in the Work That Reconnects and recently completed a Grief Tending Mentorship program through Sacred Groves in the Pacific Northwest.

Coby Leibman is a Somatic experience practioner (SEP), ritualist, diviner and youth mentor. He was trained directly for over 15 years by the wise ancestors, Malidoma Somé and Sobonfu Somé (Dagara indigenous spiritual teachers, authors), and indigenous elder Martín Prechtel (carrier of Mayan Tz’utujil tradition, author of bestselling: The Smell of Rain on Dust). Coby has also trained directly with Peter Levine and Gabor Maté. He has been leading group rituals for over ten years. He carries his teachers’ teachings with integrity and reciprocity with the peoples they come from. He is descended from a mix of European and Central Asian peoples, including Ashkenazi Jews.

WHAT TO BRING

• Cozy items (ex: shawl, blanket, pillow)

• Water and a light snack

• Offering for our communal grief altar…let us make beauty together!

• Personal items of significance that might help you connect to what you are currently grieving

*No prior grief literacy, experience with grief practices, or community ritual is necessary. We recognize that this three-hour container is a small drop in the deep wellspring of what it truly means to tend to grief in community. 

**We care deeply about your wellbeing, and we recognize that being with grief can sometimes expose deep wounds. We ask that you be honest with yourself and with us about your current mental state, ask for what you need, and about support systems available outside of this container. This grief space is not a substitute for therapy.