Thursday, Jan 8 at 6:00 - 7:30 p.m PT
Location: Online | Zoom
Free | By Donation

Speaker Series Description:

This talk is part of the Speaker Series offered through the Grief Tender Mentorship Program — a six-month learning community focused on cultivating grounded, community-based grief ritual leadership. The program is guided by elders Thérèse Charvet and Laurence Cole and is now in its fifth year, with more than 150 alumni and 56 participants in the current cohort.

The Speaker Series offers a space for members of the mentorship program and the wider grief tending community to gather, learn, and strengthen our shared capacity to meet the grief of these times.

This series is designed for grief tenders with experience in Dagara-inspired grief ritual lineages and related teachings from Malidoma Somé, Sobonfu Somé, Laurence Cole, Thérèse Charvet, Francis Weller, and others. It is especially suited for those actively holding community grief spaces or deeply invested in supporting them.

Speaker Topic: Grief & Eros

How grief & eros are connected
The film Z & team created on Grief & Eros
What Z has learned guiding Grief Eros Rituals on 4 themes: race, gender, secure attachment & eros
Honoring both Dagara tradition & innovation

Presenter: Z Griss (aka Zahava)

Z Griss (they/them, aka Zahava) is the founder of Embody More Love, a spiritual kinky dance community for personal & cultural liberation. Z has been guiding community rituals since 1999. Z was deeply inspired by Grief Ritual with Sobonfu Somé. Once Sobonfu became an ancestor, Z started to guide Grief Ritual in the Dagara tradition. Z created a film on Grief & Eros that uplifts Sobonfu’s life & legacy while weaving innovations around dance & sacred intimacy. Z guides a local Play Village in Sebastopol, CA (on the land of the Southern Pomo, Graton Rancheria, & Coast Miwok) centering kink for cultural liberation & meeting regularly for grief rituals around the themes of race, gender, secure attachment & eros. Join Z for their 4 Day Grief Eros Ritual in June, & learn more about them at EmbodyMoreLove.com.

Organizers:

Siena Tenisci, MA, LMHC (Senior Facilitator)

Siena Tenisci is a Senior Facilitator for the Grief Tending Mentorship Program and organizer of the Speaker Series. She is also a mother, therapist, and founder of Northwest Grief Tending, a practice dedicated to offering accessible grief rituals and supporting community-based healing.

Thérèse Charvet (Program Director & Guiding Elder)

Thérèse Charvet is the Program Director and a guiding elder for the Grief Tending Mentorship Program, and land steward of the forrest sanctuary Sacred Groves, where she has hosted grief rituals and retreats since 2002. She trained for many years with her mentor, the late Sobonfu Somé.

Laurence Cole (Lead Facilitator & Guiding Elder)

Laurence Cole is a lead facilitator and guiding elder for the Grief Tending Mentorship Program. A song elder and ritualist, he trained extensively with Malidoma and Sobonfu Somé and has supported grief rituals since the late 1990s. He joined the Sacred Groves grief retreat team in 2009 and continues to share ritual and group singing widely.

Grief Tender Mentoring Program Team

The program is supported by a core team of six members—Thérèse Charvet, Laurence Cole, Siena Tenisci, Alex Eisenburg, Jordan Lyon, and Sarah Jackson—along with 10+ program alumni serving as pod leaders and elders in training.

Questions? Please email Siena at nwgrieftending@gmail.com

Contact the host of Speaker Series: Grief & Eros

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