Root Story: A Grieving Ritual
Wild one, is it safe to come home?
Root Story ~ A Grieving Ritual
Wild one, is it safe to come home? Has the war ended? Can the wounded child come out from hiding, the outcast, the master of escape, the long forgotten shadow of myself, can she play, sing, get dirty under the late Summer rain? Those precious protective parts of ourselves that grew strong and loyal, holding up the necessary masks, keeping us safe, can we release them of their duty? Can the ugly, wyrd, laughed-at, shunned, red-cheeked, stone-cold, trembling parts come out to play?
Come out to dance in rain?
I could blame my mother for being too strong, or her mother for being too weak, I could blame the fathers for being absent, going to war, drinking too much, for being too soft, or too hard. I could blame the patriarchy, or money, or Christianity...I mean I'm angry, can you feel it? The anger? Perhaps your wild child went numb, perhaps your parents were already stone people, their wild knowing long-severed.
Root Story ~ Longing to come home, longing to belong, to trust, to be held, to hold your inner child, sweet beloved treasure that is your one wild life, oh to be held thus. Longing to to come home to trust, to village, to partnership even perhaps: imagine that. Longing to hold your own child while the village sings. Tears are falling, like the early Fall rain, as I ponder this Root Story.
Root Story is a weekend to call us back home to kinship through movement, the mythopoetic, and the alchemy of ritual.
This ritual asks the question:
Where is home for the outcast, the wild child, the weird one, or the dark mother?
Root Story ~ A Grieving Ritual
November 1-2nd, Beaver Point Hall, Salt Spring Island
We live in a crisis of unbelonging. So many of us unworthy, cast out, or disconnected from a sense of home and wild belonging. Some say this is a root story, a primeval severing, a wounding that began as far back as early childhood, perhaps even farther back in the human journey.
"What if some of the emptiness or longing we feel inside us is not a failure of our own personalities, but instead comes from the absence of birdsong, the smell of sweet grass, the melancholy call of the loon, our wild mother?"
Francis Weller - The Wild Edge of Sorrow
As the veil thins and the long nights stretch out before us mirroring the dark places within, our sorrows and sadness naturally rise up for release, for weeping, wailing and witnessing.
Remember your way home with us: the opening that comes with laughter and movement, the aliveness that arrives on the other side of deep release. Breathe in fresh air and silence, breathe in kindness among kin who wrestle with similar losses and sorrows, these same cast-out and grieving inner ones.
Will you Join us..? Will you come dance in the rain, in the water and fire, stones and bones of your own heart?
Event Details
November 1-3, 2024
Friday: 2:00 pm - 10:00 pm (soft arrival from 2-5pm)Saturday: 9:30 am to 10:00 pm
Sunday: 9:30 am to 2:00 pm
Location: Beaver Point Hall
Cost
Early early bird: $350 (by Oct. 1st)
Early bird: $395 (by Oct. 20th)
Full price: $425 (after Oct. 20th, registration closes Oct. 30th)
We are a large facilitation team and I wish to both honour our time and heart-full efforts as well as offer scholarship and work trade spots at a reduced rate. If you have the means to pay the full price of $425, please do so. Thank you!
Please reach out to inquire about reduced rates and work trades if needed. Payment plans are also an option.
For more information, contact Cat at saltspringislandgrief@proton.me
Apply
Root Story ~ A Grieving Ritual
"Grieving, by its very nature, confirms our worth." - Francis Weller
Curious to know more?
Friday
We will beautify the space, share a meal, gather together around the fire and receive the eldership of an old story.
Saturday
We will court our grief through several pathways: nature connection, sensory awareness, movement, play, sit-spot, poetry, handwork and togetherness.
Saturday evening
We will work with ritual, drumming and cathartic expression of grief.
Sunday
We’ll connect with the land, share food, circle up and integrate.
Friday supper, Saturday evening pre- and post ritual meals, and Sunday brunch will be included.
What is Grief?
Grief touches all of our lives. Many of us have lost someone we loved, experienced loneliness, felt the weight of ancestral burdens or struggled to face the harsh realities of this world. Grief can take many forms; sorrow, anger, shame, fear. The expression of grief has become a taboo in our culture, and so we have become alone with it. In exiling grief, we also exile its innate intelligence, its ability to point us towards healing. As Martin Prechtel puts it, “Grief is praise, because it is the natural way that love honors what it misses.” Love and grief are two sides of the same coin. In regaining our ability to grieve we also regain our ability to live and love fully. Here is a great talk that elaborates further on these ideas. Please listen before attending:
This work is inspired by the work of Jon Young, Malidoma & Sobonfu Somé, Randy & Rowena Jones, Joanna Macy, Francis Weller and Michael Meade.
What is Ritual?
Ritual is an opportunity for us to come together in a manner we may have forgotten but know deep in our bones. It's a space for verbal and non-verbal conversation with the unseen in its myriad of mysterious forms and expressions. A grief ritual invites us to freely and fully express our grief in conversation with the unseen, to experience the eldership of story and to become more wildly ourselves.
"Even the simplest of rituals is a way of acknowledging the unseen, the unspoken-about, the holy, which feeds our lives with its inexhaustible generosity. Ritual restores us to one another and to that grander coherence to which we all belong. Devoting your time to a ritual is like tending to a living bridge between the seen and the unseen, keeping that reciprocity alive."
Toko-pa Turner from Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home
Root Story: Courting our grief through the alchemy of togetherness and ritual
Salt Spring Island Grief
Cat Gibbs
Hummingbird Ears with Nothing to Offer
Cat did not come easily to the path of grief ritual holding. Her response to wounding as a young girl…
Belinda White
A passionate storyteller who lives and breathes the art and magic of weaving with image and word…
Stevie Chernish
Stevie’s winding journey has taken her on many walks of life, wearing many faces. And so, she welcomes those folks who live apart…
Robyn Fila
The map is not the territory.
Who am I? A traveler, a mother, a teacher, a learner, a mentor, a weaver of tales, a disciple of life, a speaker of tongues…
Sequoia Lesosky
Following his cry for village, Sequoia has become an embodied specimen of a human devoted to be in service to the collective health…
Li Samadhi
Li is a compassionate and intuitive space holder for grief rituals. She co-creates a safe, grounded environment for people to express…
Check out the application form and please feel free to reach out to Cat with any questions at all at saltspringislandgrief@proton.me
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We’d be honoured to share this grieivng ritual process with you.
warmly and wildly,
Belinda White, and Salt Spring Island Grief
"Grieving, by its very nature, confirms our worth." - Francis Weller