The Medicine of Mourning
…an extensive online course
for learning to facilitate
trauma-sensitive spaces for grief and mourning
Over twelve years ago I was a desperate mother of a toddler, nearing a divorce, deeply troubled by the stage of the world and humanity, hungry to contribute something of value – and looking for some way to process all of my overwhelming emotions in order to just stay sane.
It was then that I met my future teacher and friend Sobonfu Somé, a keeper of rituals from the Dagara people in Western Africa.
Learning to mourn was a life saver!
„In the years that followed I learned how to mourn my grief (it did keep me sane!) – and I had the great luck to experience, host and co-facilitate mourning rituals with Sobonfu that served hundreds of people over the years.
I have become an avid admirer of the natural and inherent superpower that mourning truly is, and that we as human beings are gifted with from the moment we are born.
A kind of super power available for all of us
Because of these rituals I could witness first hand the truly miraculous effects that well held mourning space can have even on people that were burdened with complex and compounded forms of grief and emotional pain caused by severe traumata and extremely painful losses.
I got plenty of opportunity to taste and feel the incredible relief and sense of full aliveness (in myself and many many others) that can come with free grieving in it’s natural forms, and the feelings of delight and even bliss that return to life because of it.
It changed my personal and work life profoundly
The medicine of mourning has been changing my whole work life as a teacher, course facilitator, counselor, mentor and coach tremendously, as well as my relationships to all of my loved ones.
Understanding grief and grieving truly has become one of the most important ingredients for the effectiveness of my work as well as for my personal wellbeing and all of my relationships – as a mother, a life-partner, a friend, a neighbor and colleague.
It helps me every day to not shrink back from waves of emotions rising (like I used to), but to create and facilitate safe spaces where mourning can easily and naturally happen, following a rhythm and flow in a sacred process, that can look and feel like some kind of miniature birth of a healthier, happier, renewed human being.
A journey of creating authentic grieving culture
After Sobonfu passed away in 2017 my own grief of losing her and everything that she had brought to our community, became a fuel for developing our own grief rituals:
The „Grief Fire“, through which we continue to re-create a healthy mourning culture on a larger scale, many dozens of people at a time as well as with smaller groups. By now we have facilitated small and large Grief Fires for more than 500 people, outdoors as well as indoors (with candle fires).
We also developed our method of „Grief Councils“ or „Grief Circles“ – a shorter way of holding space for mourning, that is centered on witnessing each other in our pain, and that requires much less preparation, skill and experience than Grief Fire rituals, and thus will be especially easy to integrate into your own context.
We have been teaching more than 60 people (and growing) in year-long trainings in Germany, in how to facilitate spaces for mourning and for grief tending and each year we are confirmed in manifold ways, that holding space for grief seems like the most natural human thing to do – so most likely you will be able do it as well!
(C) Circlewise Institut 2022, Creative Commons Lizenz CC-BY-NC-ND, Illustration von Lara Schmelzeisen https://kontur.be
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