Speaker Series: Stepping Into Grief Ritual Leadership - Apprenticeship & Imposter Syndrome

• Tuesday, March 3rd at 6:30 - 8:00 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 Mentoring 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: Stepping Into Grief Ritual Leadership - Apprenticeship & Imposter Syndrome

with Siena Tenisci

How do we know when we’re ready to step more fully into holding communal grief work? What does it mean to apprentice ourselves to a practice that once relied on elders, intact cultural lineages, and communities fluent in grief? And how do we navigate the self-doubt, fear, and vulnerability that inevitably arise when we step more fully into our calling?

This talk offers a grounded exploration of the path into grief tending today. We’ll look at the historical role of apprenticeship, why so many people called to this work struggle to step into it, and what a modern, ethical, and sustainable pathway can look like.

Siena will share pieces of her own journey apprenticing this work over the past ten years and the lessons learned along the way. She’ll also offer several grief-tending formats and entry points that make stepping into this work more accessible for both emerging facilitators and community members wanting to build local ritual spaces.

Presenter: Siena Tenisci

Siena (she/her), 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, Mary Hart, 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.

Organizers:

Siena Tenisci, MA, LMHC (Senior Facilitator)

Siena Tenisci is a Senior Facilitator for the Grief Tender Mentoring 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 Tender Mentoring 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 Tender Mentoring 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 Tending 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