“Any time a feeling of loss arises, there is an energy that demands ritual in order to allow reconciliation and the return to peace. Grief must be approached as a release of tension created by separation and disconnection from something that we love.” -Malidoma Somé

“All War is unmetabolized Grief” -Martin Prechtel

We are living in a world of so much un-metabolized grief causing war, causing divide from ourselves, our communities and the path to co-liberation for all beings.

It is time for our grief to be metabolized to be a revolutionary tool of breathing healing into what we are fleeing from and come back to what we love. Grief is one of the biggest acts of love because its an honoring of what we hold most dear, what we miss and what we want to call into being again. We welcome this ritual to come together, heal and vision as a community, how to meet these times!

When we grieve deeply, we create a clearing, an allowance for us to hold what feels unbearable. To let our grief and emotions flow, so that something else can grow from the compost of intergenerational trauma that is not ours to hold alone, it's too much for just one nervous system. This kind of work must be done collectively and with ritual to properly transform it.

Sobonfu taught grief as a collective field that needs tending in any community. Grief accumulates and must be tended on a regular basis. Whales grieve, hummingbirds grieve, it is an innate ability to grieve. We all remember how to do this as a community, its in our bones and dna.

We are the seeds of generations of love and the wildest dreams of our ancestors. We call upon all their resilience, and our guides, the elementals, and earth spirits to let our grief flow and be an offering to feed what we love.

This one-day ritual event will be held on the coast near Bodega Bay, CA, at a sacred spot at the feet of our majestic Grandmother Ocean. The ritual will be held in the healing lineages taught to Coby and Madeleina by Sobonfu Somé, Malidoma Somé, and Martín Prechtel.

We are committed to offering a safe and open-hearted space for witnessing and letting the waves of grief express themselves as they need to, while tending to the collective community. This is a space that centers the experience and liberation of marginalized communities and those that are most deeply affected by the oppressive structures of racism, capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, the gender binary. We all need each other to do the collective work of metabolizing grief. This is a mixed identity and ancestral heritage space that centers creating a safe space for marginalized communities. That said if you are seeking a specific affinity space, i.e. BIPOC or Queer affinity spaces we are happy to connect you to other circles.

We will mostly be expressing our grief somatically, letting the body lead us to what needs to move its way through so that we have a deeper ability to feel and to love. There will be many guided practices in the morning to help us approach our grief, We will be holding some embodied movement practices, song, writing and ancestral practices to loosen the grief in our systems.

After lunch we will move into the community grief ritual space for about three hours and close gently around 5:30pm.The grief ritual technology is a tremendous gift from the Dagara to meet the insanity of our world and it comes from long lineages of intact cultures and shrines that know how to work with intergenerational grief and trauma.

We always offer back to the source of this ritual magic and the indigenous communities that have taught us these tremendous gifts with 15% of proceeds from our rituals going back into these communities. For the Dagara community, we recently were able to fund a third well for fresh water in the village. It was created with the support and direction of Dagara elders and in collaboration with the Sonder Project. Thank you to all of you that have supported! We are continuing to fundraise for two more wells in neighboring Dagara villages.
Link to the project here. https://support.thesonderproject.org/fundraiser/4625276

There are very few grief ritualists with a direct relationship and ongoing conversation with the Dagara people. A lot of ritual power and magic comes from being linked to these shrines and councils. It is a tremendous gift to heal our ancestral lines and our world with this ritual technology!

Community Grief Ritual Event date:
September 27th arriving at the ocean by 9:45 am, going until 5:30ish

Detailed workshop information and directions will be sent once registered.

To Register:

Pay by ticket here or Venmo to @Coby-Leibman*** We require email communication to confirm Venmo payment sent to:
communityritual@gmail.com

Please also confirm in an email to communityritual@gmail.com that you have watched/listened to the video and youtube links below as a pre-requisite to attending this Grief Ritual. A one-day event, especially at the ocean where it can be difficult to hear, isn't adequate time to share the traditions and context of the lineage of this ritual. We care deeply about honoring our teachers and their ways. Sharing their voices with you is both an offering of resources and an essential pre-requisite for attendance.

We ask that you please share with us any ways that we can support you during the grief ritual and if you feel you’re navigating a large grief, what type of current support you have in place. Please kindly let us know if you believe yourself to be in a mental health crisis. Grief Rituals are tremendously healing, but are not a replacement for therapeutic treatment. We care deeply that this is an appropriate choice for all who attend.A confirmation and preparation email will be sent once payment and communication affirming the pre-requisite is received. Please register as soon as possible if you are planning to attend. We will not accept registration requests after Sept 25th. Scholarships and reduced rates are available for BIPOC and other marginalized communities.

Please contact us directly for inquiries at communityritual@gmail.com.

15% of the proceeds will go to The Sonder project for Dagara wells.

Empowerment Water Project-

https://support.thesonderproject.org/fundraiser/4625276

Grieving Resources and Ritual pre-requisites:Sobonfu on Grieving:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtUqMwRXvhY

Grief Ritual Lineage

https://m.soundcloud.com/siena-at-nw-grief-tending/dagara-grief-ritual-teaching-lineage-panel

Sobonfu on community: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R56s7KymWTk

Malidoma on prayer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHbmbTk9-lY

Martín Prechtel on Grief
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUwewfPPSbE&t=22s

From the book 'The Smell of Rain on Dust, Grief and Praise' by Martín Prechtel: (available on Audible, highly suggested)

Contact the host of Community Grief Ritual