Central Texas Grief Retreat

Ritual and Regulation Amidst Personal and Planetary Sorrow

Fri, Apr 25th 9:30 a.m. - Sat, Apr 26th 7:00 p.m.

Location: San Gabriel Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (Georgetown, TX)

Description:

In many traditional cultures, grief rituals are considered the “glue” that binds a community together. They offer us one of the most powerful ways to reconnect with ourselves, each other, and the world around us. These rituals remind us of our shared humanity and help us find belonging in times of loss.

Join us as we honor the sacredness of grief and gratitude through talking circles, singing, poetry, movement, sacred listening, ceremony, sharing food, and creative expression. At the heart of our time together, we will engage in a sacred ritual inspired by the work of Sobonfu Some and Malidoma Some of the Dagara people of West Africa.

This retreat is also inspired by Francis Weller’s Five Gates of Grief, which help us to welcome in all forms of grief we carry, including, but not limited to:

The grief of all we love and will lose
The parts of us that have not known love
The sorrows of the world (e.g. environmental, racial, political, cultural)
The loss of village and belonging
Intergenerational and ancestral grief

Communal grief rituals are about coming together as a group to be witnessed in our sorrow. By listening to others, we learn to articulate what often feels inexpressible. In this space, we aim to destigmatize grief, metabolize it, and move away from the idea that grief is pathological. This is a chance to co-regulate our nervous systems in the village and be reminded that we are not alone.

This offering is not a typical workshop or talk therapy. It is designed to be highly experiential and embodied, helping us move away from intellectualizing grief and instead stay rooted in our hearts and bodies as we navigate the unprocessed grief within us. Here, we create a space where grief can take any form—whether it’s numbness, shame, rage, trembling, stillness, wailing, or something else. There is no grief too big or too small to be welcomed. We invite you to lean in with us as we remember how to grieve in community.

The spiritual framework for our ritual includes earth-based practices that honor the power of drumming and song, the natural world as a web of interconnectedness, and the unseen realms, including our ancestors.

You can listen to a 1-minute video of Sobonfu Some speak on Grief Recovery and Ritual, or learn more about community grief work at Northwest Grief Tending.

Retreat Schedule:

Friday, April 25 from 9:30 a.m. - late evening

9:00 - 9:15 a.m. - Arrive and settle in
9:30 a.m. - Circle opening
Early evening - Community grief ritual
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.

Sat, April 26 from 9:30 a.m. - 7:00 p.m. (ish)

9:00 - 9:15 a.m. - Arrive and settle in
9:30 a.m. - Circle 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

Friday: We’ll begin by slowly building our community container—sharing, creating agreements, calling in support, and crafting beauty together. As Martin Prechtel reminds us, “Spirit eats beauty” – so when we grieve together, we get on our knees to create a feast. We call in help through beauty offerings of song, poems, altars, flowers, tears, and other creative expressions. In the afternoon, we’ll sit with whatever is alive in our hearts, connecting in small groups and spending time in nature. The flow of the day will guide us deeper into our hearts and community connection in preparation for the evening grief ritual.

Evening Grief Ritual: The evening will be dedicated to a community grief ritual, where you’ll have the opportunity to express with the support of drumming, chanting, and dancing. We will create a ritual container capable of holding deeply embodied expressions of grief. You will be invited to explore a variety of ways to use your voice, body, and support to express what’s moving through you. This includes permission to keen, wail, scream, and rage—expressions held within the containment of song, drumming, and ritual structure. For some, this may be a new experience—witnessing and expressing grief and anger as sounds of healing, especially if grief was expressed in your past in uncontained or unsafe ways. We will offer teachings and exercises to help you engage with these energies in a grounded, supportive, and healing way. Please know you always have the choice to decide how deeply you wish to participate and to ask for support if needed.

Saturday: On Saturday, we’ll share our experiences of the ritual and offer more time at the grief shrine. In the afternoon, we’ll engage in reintegration practices to help ease our transition out of the retreat, and we’ll close with a community potluck.

Meals & Lodging:

Please note that meals and lodging are not included. Attendees will be responsible for their own overnight accommodations and for bringing personal meals, a dish for a community potluck, and community snacks.

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.

$500 - Supporting Tier - This tier supports your community by allowing more need-based and BIPOC scholarships to be offered. Additionally, it helps cover the holistic 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 and have the means to contribute towards greater economic and racial justice in this way. Thank you for supporting this work!

$410 - Sustaining Tier - 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 register at this tier if you are able to comfortably meet all of your basic needs. If you have the means to contribute more towards greater economic and racial justice by enabling more need-based and BIPOC scholarships to be offered, please consider registering at the Supporting Tier above. Thank you for your support.

$350 - Supported Tier - This tier covers the direct, but not full 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. If you are able to comfortably meet your needs, please register at the Sustaining or Supporting Tiers above, which covers the full costs of running our retreat.

Scholarship Tier - We offer a limited number of scholarships to help make this work accessible to those who otherwise could not afford to join us. 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/or have no or very limited expendable income. This registration option is available to participants who have completed the Scholarship Application Form in the event description and received an email confirmation to proceed with the Scholarship Registration option.

Reciprocity Gift: A portion of facilitator compensation will be gifted back to the Dagara community through two initiatives led by community elders, as a way for Western communities to give back for the gifts shared by Malidoma, Sobonfu, and other Dagara elders. The Sonder Project provides sustainable drinking water through well construction, addressing a critical need, while the Lawn Ta Council, consisting of elders representing over 500 people, distributes emergency aid to combat food insecurity, housing instability, and medical shortages exacerbated by the climate crisis.

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 ask that all participants take 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 flu-like symptoms on the days of the ritual, please stay home.

25 participant minimum and 34 participant max

Questions?

For general questions, please contact Aaron at aaron@mensworktx.com

If you’re not sure this retreat is right for you and would like to connect with organizer to learn more about the retreat details or explore fit, please contact June at JUNE WILLIAMS june@balancementalhealthcounseling.com or Ashley at ablackwelllpc@gmail.com

Facilitators:

Siena Tenisci, MA, LMHC, is a therapist and founder of Northwest Grief Tending, a practice dedicated to the facilitation of grief rituals and community healing. As a descendant of Abruzzese and Celtic lineages, Siena has been working to revive ancestral keening traditions, where women once held central and respected roles in helping communities metabolize grief through vocal and communal rituals. With over ten years of experience, her approach to grief work has been shaped by many teachers, including Sobonfu and Malidoma Somé, Joanna Macy, Therese Charvet, Laurence Cole, Francis Weller, and Vince Horan. Siena’s work is also grounded in her MA in Counseling from Antioch University in Seattle, integrating Internal Family Systems, body-based methods, and anti-oppression frameworks to support clients on their healing paths.

Peter Jabin, M.Div., LMHC is a pastoral psychotherapist in private practice in Seattle. He is also a Diaconal Minister in the Pacific Northwest Conference of the United Methodist Church. Peter has been involved in the work of communal grieving since 2017. His approach is informed by the legacy of Sobonfu and Malidoma Somé, and his teachers who include Francis Weller, Therese Charvet, and Laurence Cole. Currently, Peter’s clinical work is focused on the intersection of the climate/ploy-crisis, the legacy of colonialism & systemic racism, and grief. Peter has facilitated group spiritual direction and grief process groups, in addition to his work with individuals.