Grief Tending Gathering

About this event

We live in a time when so much of what we carry is experienced alone. Grief is often treated as something private, something to manage, move through, or overcome. Yet grief is not a problem to be solved. It is a natural response to love, loss, and the things we care deeply about.

Drawing from the work of Francis Weller and ancient ancestral wisdom of communal grief traditions, this gathering offers a space to come together and tend to what we carry. Through story, ritual, reflection, silence, movement, and shared witnessing, we will explore

grief not simply as personal sorrow, but as a doorway into connection with ourselves, each other, our communities, lineages and the Earth.

During this sacred time together while the veils are thin we'll delve into the depths within as well as the threads of grief connected our ancestral lineage with reverence, exploring what has shaped us as well as our personal grief. We will release the burdens ready to be acknowledged, through the power of witnessing and alchemize it by the power of sound inviting transformation into our lives. By acknowledging and tending to the stories that are ready to be seen, we create space for growth and understanding, both for ourselves and for our Ancestors.

If you are deeply called to this work and financially in a place where you need a partial scholarship, please reach out. Its important that this work is accessible for those who are ready.

Grief moves at its own pace and cannot be rushed.

In a culture that often asks us to contain our grief and quickly return to everyday life, this six-hour gathering offers something different: time and spaciousness to be with what is asking to be felt.

Deeper grief tending takes time. Time to arrive, feel safe and supported, soften the protective layers we carry, move beneath the surface, and allow what has been held within us to emerge naturally.

Our six hours together are intentional, allowing space for reflection, ritual, personal and ancestral grief tending, witnessing, sound, rest and integration.

Grief is not something to fix or complete. It asks to be felt, witnessed, honored and tended.

We gather slowly because some things cannot be hurried.

ABOUT YOUR FACILITATORS

About Shawna "Mama Fish"

About Shawna: Shawna 'Mama Fish' is a ceremonialist, certified Usui Reiki & Energy Medicine Master Practitioner Teacher, trauma informed holistic sound healing practitioner, herbal alchemist, the founder of Mama Fish Botanicals & Wellness and the Great Spirit Healing Drum Circle. Dedicated to weaving deeper relationships between humans, the Elements, the Earth, and cosmos and helping you align in sovereignty and wholeness. Passionate about supporting ways to cultivate a deeper connection and meaning to yourself, the world around you along with creating intentional space for yourself through the Art of rituals.

About Jen:

Jen Mairi is a degreed ecologist, certified full spectrum doula, an avid student of life and wisdom ways, a mother walking a healing path, indigenizing & ancestralizing; most at home in threshold space. Jen currently resides on the traditional homelands of the Puyallup people under the eye of Mother Mountain Tahoma. Jen was introduced to community grief ritual in the Dagara lineage initially through Francis Weller during Covid. Deeply inspired by the book “The Wild Edge of Sorrow”, Jen attended multiple workshops, lectures and online short course grief rituals during Covid; completing the grief mentorship program with Laurence Cole, Mary Hart and Therese Charvet in 2023. Jen attends and tends in person Grief ritual and retreat as often as she can, honoring this work as soul-long relational and communal dedication, as a most wild & wise beloved friend.