Mens Grief Tending and Grief Ritual

Full series: Five online sessions Monday evenings March 31st-April 28th plus daylong ritual

Daylong ritual: Saturday, April 26th 10am-6pm

Tickets available for full series as well as just daylong ritual

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“Be a man. Man up.” Patriarchy has taught men to hide our feelings, that crying is a sign of weakness, that grief is bad for business. But sadness is a necessary emotion and left stuck in the body, grief leads to violence, anger, and war.

Bell Hooks names in her book Will to Change that “the first act of violence that patriarchy demands of males is not violence toward women. Instead patriarchy demands of all males that they engage in acts of psychic self-mutilation, that they kill off the emotional parts of themselves. If an individual is not successful in emotionally crippling himself, he can count on patriarchal men to enact rituals of power that will assault his self-esteem.”

It is time. Time to do the beautiful hard work of creating space for grief. To welcome tears, to address the trauma and grief lodged in our bones. It is time to end cycles of pain and war perpetuated by men. To be with the ancestral patterns of our lineages that caused hurt. We will gather to use grief as a tool to welcome greater connection and healing between men. To plant the seeds of healing and wholeness in our lives, our relationships, our communities, and our world. We will gather to offer our tears to replenish the well of masculinity. To reimagine how men can relate to one another. To create space for our sorrows to be welcomed, witnessed, and befriended in service of belonging, community, and kinhood. 

We will have five online sessions exploring different layers of grief held in male identifying bodies.

And a daylong grief ritual on April 26th

Online sessions Mondays March 31st, April 7th, April 14th, April 21st, April 28th

 The online sessions will create the foundation for our daylong ritual together and provide space to begin to dive into the deep complexities of patriarchal programming, masculinity, and ancestral patterning.

We invite you to join us on this journey and reimagine male culture as one that holds grief and pain together in community and with deep reverence and honor of creating a new paradigm of healing and masculinity.

The space will be held by Coby Leibman, Ophir Haberer, Hunter Franks, Ty Blair, Steven Encinas.

FACILITATOR BIOS
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 fifteen 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.

Ophir (he/him) is a Jerusalem-born facilitator, educator, somatic therapist & guide, massage practitioner, culinary artist, ritualist, poet, and organizational consultant. He has been guiding men’s work for over 6 years, co-founded the organization kinhood and has facilitated for numerous organizations all over the country. He is passionate about working with clients to move trauma through the body. He studied with the Hakomi institute and the Esalen Institute. He has led ritual in the Earth-based and Sephardic Jewish tradition, and facilitated a few series on rewilding Judaism.

Hunter Franks (he/him) is a father, artist, poet, and builder 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, rituals, visual work, writing, nature quests, and installation. His apprenticeship with sorrow began in March 2020 when his mom Andrea 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.