THE WELL OF GRIEF
Those who will not slip beneath
the still surface on the well of grief,
turning down through its black water
to the place we cannot breathe,
will never know the source from which we drink,
the secret water, cold and clear,
nor find in the darkness glimmering,
the small round coins,
thrown by those who wished for something else.
David Whyte
~~~~~~~~~~~~
THIS IS THE FRAME OF THE JOURNEY WE WILL GO ON to COURT and FEED a STATE of DEEP BELONGING
through the Composting of grief and be initiated and ripped through it. :
Six Gates of Grief, Initiation and Belonging
Invitation and guidance into our Grief Composting Circles
ACTIVATED VISION by AZUL THOME
From a point of SEPARATION,
we come through a GATE OF GRIEF,
into a space of INITIATION of maturing practices
to come back through our GRATITUDE to our natural state of BELONGING.
with Love and Cœurage
Azul Thome
a very Warm Welcome to the GRIEF COMPOSTING CIRCLES they are part of SOULand vision of Making the World of our Longing one Maturing Soul at a Time.
What are the Grief Composting Circles?
An ongoing, monthly Grief Composting Circles for women and men. For our returning to love, passion, courage, participation, reconnection and health by sharing and releasing our grief in a safe, held, transformative and mature space. The Grief Compositing Circles are communal rituals of 4 hours in darkness infused with beauty and connection with all beings, humans and all others.
Grief in this context is the welcoming of anger, fear, sadness, despair, numbness and the mystery of all these emotions as we welcome them in a collective safe space. The Circles hold an important part that happens in total darkness as if in a compost heap, a womb or a kiva. Sounds and wailing is freely used to encourage our wild and sensuous selves to be present. Wild means of nature, not feral or out of control!
These Monthly Circles are inspired by an indigenous village in Africa, the Dagara people, who hold a collective Grief Ritual every week. There is not need for any particular crisis or event. It is there for the health and well being of their community of humans and non humans. Each person expressing there grief is witnessed, held and thanked for the soul work they are doing for the whole. Can we bring this practice and wisdom to our communities?
The Grief Composting Circles started in Nov 2015 in Totnes, England inspired by Sobonfu Some.
The Circles are held monthly in Dartington in a Black Yurt inside our Village Hall . It is a regular, deeply held and supportive ritual space for Women and Men who experience grief. Each Circle last a round 3-4 hours and cost a minimum donation of £15.
Grief can be experienced as anger, fear, sadness, guilt, apathy or numbness for what/who we love and have lost, for what we long for but never had, for the unloved part of ourselves for our Earth's sorrow and for what we have inherited from past generations.
Grief can be shared collectively like it has been done for 1000s of years for the mending, the health and the well being of ourselves and of our communities.
" Grief is not a feeling, but a skill and the twin to grief in life, is our ability to praise life". Stephen Jenkinson
“Communal grieving offers something that we cannot get when we grieve by ourselves. Through validation, acknowledgement and witnessing, communal grieving allows us to experience a level of healing that is deeply and profoundly freeing.” Sobonfu
'Grief is subversive, undermining our society’s quiet agreement that we will behave and be in control of our emotions. It is an act of protest that declares our refusal to live numb and small. There is something feral about grief, something essentially outside the ordained and sanctioned behaviours of our culture. Because of that, grief is necessary to the vitality of the SOUL'. Francis Weller
“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.” Rilke
‘Wherever there is Love there is Grief’
All held in gratitude for the preciousness of Life Thank you to our teachers: Joanna Macy, Stephen Jenkinson, Sobonfu, Francis Weller, Mary Oliver, scribes, poets, artists, Gaia, Mother Earth, Pachamama…
What are the Grief Composting Circles?
An ongoing, monthly Grief Composting Circles for women and men. For our returning to love, passion, courage, participation, reconnection and health by sharing and releasing our grief in a safe, held, transformative and mature space. The Grief Compositing Circles are communal rituals of 4 hours in darkness infused with beauty and connection with all beings, humans and all others.
Grief in this context is the welcoming of anger, fear, sadness, despair, numbness and the mystery of all these emotions as we welcome them in a collective safe space. The Circles hold an important part that happens in total darkness as if in a compost heap, a womb or a kiva. Sounds and wailing is freely used to encourage our wild and sensuous selves to be present. Wild means of nature, not feral or out of control!
These Monthly Circles are inspired by an indigenous village in Africa, the Dagara people, who hold a collective Grief Ritual every week. There is not need for any particular crisis or event. It is there for the health and well being of their community of humans and non humans. Each person expressing there grief is witnessed, held and thanked for the soul work they are doing for the whole. Can we bring this practice and wisdom to our communities?
The Grief Composting Circles started in Nov 2015 in Totnes, England inspired by Sobonfu Some.
The Circles are held monthly in Dartington in a Black Yurt inside our Village Hall . It is a regular, deeply held and supportive ritual space for Women and Men who experience grief. Each Circle last a round 3-4 hours and cost a minimum donation of £15.
Grief can be experienced as anger, fear, sadness, guilt, apathy or numbness for what/who we love and have lost, for what we long for but never had, for the unloved part of ourselves for our Earth's sorrow and for what we have inherited from past generations.
Grief can be shared collectively like it has been done for 1000s of years for the mending, the health and the well being of ourselves and of our communities.
" Grief is not a feeling, but a skill and the twin to grief in life, is our ability to praise life". Stephen Jenkinson
“Communal grieving offers something that we cannot get when we grieve by ourselves. Through validation, acknowledgement and witnessing, communal grieving allows us to experience a level of healing that is deeply and profoundly freeing.” Sobonfu
'Grief is subversive, undermining our society’s quiet agreement that we will behave and be in control of our emotions. It is an act of protest that declares our refusal to live numb and small. There is something feral about grief, something essentially outside the ordained and sanctioned behaviours of our culture. Because of that, grief is necessary to the vitality of the SOUL'. Francis Weller
“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.” Rilke
‘Wherever there is Love there is Grief’
All held in gratitude for the preciousness of Life Thank you to our teachers: Joanna Macy, Stephen Jenkinson, Sobonfu, Francis Weller, Mary Oliver, scribes, poets, artists, Gaia, Mother Earth, Pachamama…
Testimony of a trainee: Azul brings her bundle of medicine and weaves even trainings into ritual space. A true emissary of Water, she moves fluidly through a depth of knowledge, sharing the wisdoms of her teachers as well as her own gorgeous gifts to the sacred work of grief: the alchemy of compost, the generative nature of darkness, the beauty of art. I felt such gratitude for this offering and how fully she embodied each moment as both guide and participant.
Grief Composting Circle allowed me to step into an experience of what a true village might be like. I felt held by the sacred container meticulously tended by Azul and the group. I was able to melt into the sweet holding of darkness, witnessing and embodying how grief, allowed to emerge fully, inevitably flows and swells, becoming so much blessedly bigger than any one of us alone. With each wave of sorrow, it became apparent how personal grief was never entirely personal—it was always recognized, deeply felt and moved by each member of the circle and by the Earth herself. And the joy and gratitude that naturally erupted at the end of the ritual was so cleansing and honest. I now know in my bones how truly we are needed to bring our grief to each other to be metabolized for the health of community and the world. Kristinha M. Anding a trainee in the sacred work of Grief Composting from San Diego Feb 2018
Grief Composting Circle allowed me to step into an experience of what a true village might be like. I felt held by the sacred container meticulously tended by Azul and the group. I was able to melt into the sweet holding of darkness, witnessing and embodying how grief, allowed to emerge fully, inevitably flows and swells, becoming so much blessedly bigger than any one of us alone. With each wave of sorrow, it became apparent how personal grief was never entirely personal—it was always recognized, deeply felt and moved by each member of the circle and by the Earth herself. And the joy and gratitude that naturally erupted at the end of the ritual was so cleansing and honest. I now know in my bones how truly we are needed to bring our grief to each other to be metabolized for the health of community and the world. Kristinha M. Anding a trainee in the sacred work of Grief Composting from San Diego Feb 2018
Monthly Grief Composting CIRCLES
because we love, we grieve, we live and we die very often...
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TESTIMONY from Francis Weller who was my mentor and friend for the MA (Ecological Design Thinking) Azul Thome did at Schumacher College (UK) in 2015-16 titled : the eARTh of Collective Grief as if Life and Death really Mattered’.
‘Azul has been cultivating continuity with her grief ritual offerings, enabling participants the possibility of deepening their skills in the work of grieving. This was her field work as she gathered reflections and a deepened understanding of what it is we require to stay human in our times. These ongoing rituals are an essential practice, as Azul points out, in order for our hearts to stay open to the suffering of the world and to enable us to dream new ecological designs into being to help heal from our state of disconnection with the earth and with living community. Her work exemplified the context for the psychological and emotional work required for our times. Her understanding of the essential role of beauty and art in the recovery of soul is clear. This reflects an ancient knowing, something carried deep in the bone memory and a central element: we must recreate meaningful ritual processes, rooted in beauty, to address the rips and tears in our daily psychic lives so we may be capable of responding substantively to the needs of our times. One of Azul’s contributions pertains to her ability to extend the perspectives on the current thinking around grief work and bridge it into the context of initiation and belonging. Her insights and imagination have opened up the understanding of grief work into new areas of thought. My work on the 5 Gates of Grief have been extended by Azul to now envision these Gates as Gateways into a newly extended sense of identity. Her intuition in this area is invaluable as we currently lack meaningful initiatory practices as a culture. Re-visioning grief as an initiation into wider and more mature arcs of identification, allows us to approach grief work more openly. Knowing there is a deeper, soul purpose to our sorrows—the ripening of the individual into an elder capable of serving the community—provides a meaningful reclaiming of grief as essential to our maturation. The complexity of her work reflects the depth of Azul’s analysis of the critical conditions we face as a species. By incorporating darkness, art, ritual and community into her design elements, she was able to offer a meaningful response to the psychological and spiritual dimensions of this crisis. ‘ |
'Very deep powerful work. A beautiful opportunity to connect with our grief, in connection with others. A safe space. You are held. beautifully held by Azul'.
'Grief met with Love'
'Healing through revealing life's wounds into the light&dark. Blessings and many thanks.'
'Thank you Azul for the gift of an open space for grief to release. And this ~ in love and universal hope and care. I feel hope for us- hope for humanity'
'Such an amazing space and opportunity to share each other's grief making it so much more human to experience the same depth of grief that I have previously only felt alone. Feeling so much lighter and more hopeful as we came out of the tent. So much self forgiveness and love directed inwards and outwards. Thank you for this magical Circle '
'Thank you for an amazing opportunity to free myself from my grief. I'm feeling lighter, with more room for joy and light in my life. Amazing'
This is the harvest of our last Grief Composting Circle
In awe and gratitude
Azul
My first encounter of the Grief Composting Circle was the one where Azul presented the five doors in physical form outside the tent. Having experienced deep grief from having lost my father last Christmas - what was stark for me was that the feeling of grief in the room was genuine and heartfelt. Each of the doors explained - through words and objects all doors that I had experienced in my grief process and therefore they were familiar - and real. I could nod my head in recognition at all of them. I found the connection with other people valuable too. Knowing Azul was attending put my mind at ease. as I knew that she - more than anyone - would be capable of holding whatever came up into the room. I felt it to be a safe space my heart of grieving to be open while she held that space. I don't know how this space would have played out if someone else was holding it - perhaps I may not have gone to find out. |
Surrendering to your sorrow has the power to heal the deepest of wounds. Sobonfu Some Grief composting circle reminds me that our experience is shared - each of us that comes together in a circle, as a small tiny world, where empathy and wholeness show themselves easier and more obvious than in a bigger crowd, family, city or the worlds community |
'Conversations with Grief and Water' What do Grief and Love Tenders/Workers/Composters say to the message of Water...
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This is a short trailer of that day of SOULand launch and of the 5 Gates of Grief, Initiation and Gratitude that are part of my Masters in Ecological Design at Schumacher College, Devon , England
"Grief is subversive, undermining our society’s quiet agreement that we will behave and be in control of our emotions. It is an act of protest that declares our refusal to live numb and small. There is something feral about grief, something essentially outside the ordained and sanctioned behaviours of our culture. Because of that, grief is necessary to the vitality of the SOUL. " Francis Weller the 5 GATES of Initiations in collaboration with Francis Weller : ~The first GATE of GRIEF: What we love we will loose - calls an INITIATION into the mystery of death and into the gratitude of our capacity to love within that mystery. ~The second GATE of GRIEF: The Places That Have Not Known Love - calls for an INITIATION into the mystery of adulthood and into the GRATITUDE of being able to welcome back home to our Soul all that has been outcast and sent into exile. ~The third GATE of GRIEF: The Sorrows of the World - calls for the INITIATION into the immutable bond with all of creation and with deep GRATITUDE that we Belong to our Living World ~The fourth GATE of GRIEF: What We Expected and Did Not Receive - calls for an INITIATION into our Deep Time lineage and into the GRATITUDE of Remembering Who we are and Where we come from. ~The fifth GATE of GRIEF: Ancestral Grief - calls for an INITIATION into Elderhood and into the GRATITUDE that we can Restore and Renegotiate our family tree. |
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‘Grief has always been communal, always been shared and consequently has traditionally been regarded as a sacred process. Too often in modern times our grief becomes private, carrying an invisible mantle of shame forcing our sorrow underground, hidden from the eyes that would offer healing. We must restore the conversation we need to have concerning the place of grief in our lives. Each of us must undertake an apprenticeship with loss’. Francis Weller |
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We are capable of suffering with our world, and that is the true meaning of compassion. It enables us to recognize our profound interconnectedness with all beings. Don't ever apologize for crying for the trees burning in the Amazon or over the waters polluted from mines in the Rockies. Don't apologize for the sorrow, grief, and rage you feel. It is a measure of your humanity and your maturity. It is a measure of your open heart, and as your heart breaks open there will be room for the world to heal. That is what is happening as we see people honestly confronting the sorrows of our time. Joanna Macy |
We say that we want to become resilient, but we continue to shut off the heart as if resilience is something that gets engineered in the head. In fact, if resilience doesn’t begin with the heart, we can never become authentically resilient. What do we do about this? So how do we become bigger people now, How do we allow grief in our bodies in a milieu that counters every attempt to do so? First, we need to understand that grief is already present within us and all around us. All we need to do is open to it. However, we need to consciously attend to our grief and create the conditions necessary for feeling it safely and thoroughly. …Create with your grief even as you commune with it. Express it in art, music, dance, storytelling, and ritual. Contrary to the model of industrial civilization, grief has never been and never will be “private.” In indigenous and ancient cultures, grief was a community issue, and people understood that the processing of accumulated sorrows was necessary for the tribe. They viewed grief as a toxin that is meant to be regularly emptied out because if it isn’t, collective grief harms the community whereas grief openly expressed heals the community. Grief softens our hearts. Carolyn Baker |
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Stephen Jenkinson Orphan Wisdom -
Stephen is a teacher, author, storyteller, spiritual activist, farmer and founder of the Orphan Wisdom School, a teaching house and learning house for the skills of deep living and making human culture. It is rooted in knowing history, being claimed by ancestry, working for a time yet to come. Die Wise Die Wise – A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul, is Stephen Jenkinson’s new book about grief, and dying, and the great love of life. Published by North Atlantic Books (March, 2015). About Die Wise Die Wise does not offer seven steps for coping with death. It does not suggest ways to make dying easier. It pours no honey to make the medicine go down. Instead, with lyrical prose, deep wisdom, and stories from his two decades of working with dying people and their families, Stephen Jenkinson places death at the center of the page and asks us to behold it in all its painful beauty. Die Wise teaches the skills of dying, skills that have to be learned in the course of living deeply and well. Die Wise is for those who will fail to live forever. Dying well, Jenkinson writes, is a right and responsibility of everyone. It is a moral, political, and spiritual obligation each person owes their ancestors and their heirs. It is not a lifestyle option. It is a birthright and a debt. Die Wise dreams such a dream, and plots such an uprising. How we die, how we care for dying people, and how we carry our dead: this work makes our village life, or breaks it. |
About Grief Composting CirclesThe Grief Composting Circles are a response to our turbulent world and our collective human nature that is to love and protect life. The Circles are informed and supported by the remembering that to meet collectively, to share, be held and witnessed in our grief can mend and strengthen our communities. The circles are held monthly, a supportive space for Women and Men who experience grief. All are held with the active vision of bringing us back to love, gratitude, creativity and beautiful actions towards the world of our longing. The Grief Composting Circles were born in Dartington Village Hall inspired by Sobonfu Some describing how in her African village they have a weekly grief ritual for the well being of their community. Last Dec 2015 we started meeting every months in a beautiful Black yurt we call the Listening Tent. A song was created called : 'All is Welcome here' that we sing before entering the tent for a three hours journey in the depth of our heart and soul. Grief can be experienced as anger, fear, sadness or numbness for what/who we love and have lost, for what we long for but never had, for our World’s catastrophic suffering, for all the unreleased traumas and for what we have inherited from past generations. Grief can be shared like it has been done for 1000s of years for the mending, the health and the well being of ourselves and of our communities. All held in gratitude for the preciousness of Life Thank you to our teachers: Pachamama, Joanna Macy, Elephants, Stephen Jenkinson, Sobonfu, Francis Weller, Mary Oliver, Cows, Martin Pretchel, scribes, poets, artists, Gaia, Mother Earth… |
The vision was activated by Azul-Valerie Thome who holds the Circles with the support of Christina Cordes.
our Facebook Group will inform you of our monthly circles . It is also a good place to share and read articles of other people interested by the medicine of grief tending.. |
Teachers and inspiration for our Grief Composting Circles held each month for the well being of our community in Dartington, England.Francis Weller http://www.wisdombridge.net www.francisweller.net
Stephen Jenkinson http://orphanwisdom.com/Writing practice and grief work Natalie Goldberg http://nataliegoldberg.com/ Active Hope by Joanna Macy – how to face the mess we’re in without going crazy – a book, and online resources. Joanna Macy’s website – www.joannamacy.net Sobonfu Some R.I.P : www.sobonfu.com Megan Hollingsworth’http://www.extinctionwitness.org/home Martin Pretchel http://floweringmountain.com/boladskitchen/index.html Grief and Praise: Martin Pretchel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6h3JNOCTYc |