Grief Retreat

July 6-7  2024    An outdoor ritual offered at Sacred Groves

Co-Facilitated by Thérèse Charvet, Laurence Cole, Mary Hart with support from Tere Carranza, Jordan Lyon & others

This gathering is an opportunity to support each other to feel and express our emotions deeply, while being witnessed and held in the basket of community ritual.  Because there are so few places in this culture where we can release our strong emotions, many of us find ourselves alone with our grief all too often. At this ritual, your tears and heart-ache are welcome.

The week-end will include establishing our sacred space, talking circles, singing, poetry, movement, ceremony, sharing food and quiet time. The heart of the retreat is a grief ritual, accompanied by African drumming and chanting, a tradition brought to the West by Malidoma and Sobonfu Some.  Therese and Laurence were both blessed to experience a number of grief rituals with them, healed and inspired by the teachings and ritual they brought from their village in Burkina Faso. Their influence is an important foundation for our grief rituals, but we have adapted and integrated other modalities as well. 

The spiritual framework for this ritual includes time-honored and earth based modalities such as invoking the energies of the 7 directions, utilizing the power of drumming and chanting, the belief that the natural world is a rich place of inter-connection with “all our relations,” and the importance of prayer and working with the unseen realms, including our ancestors.

We invite you to ‘lean in’ with us as we remember how to grieve in community.

Venue:  The meadow at Sacred Groves.

LODGING OPTIONS:

  • Indoor lodging is not available at Sacred Groves…….please make arrangements through a local motel or Airbnb.  Summer is a busy time on Bainbridge Island, so book soon.
  • Walk-in tent-camping is available. Folks will need to carry tent and bedding on footpaths a short distance. There is no extra charge for camping.
  • Van/Vehicle camping:  We have space for a few, first come, first served.  Note: Parking is limited so we cannot accommodate trailers or RV’s nor do we have the option of electricity hook up. No extra charge for sleeping in your vehicle.

Registration:  To register for this retreat, please follow this link and submit the registration form and your payment as instructed.

Fees:  $300 which includes lunch and dinner Saturday, breakfast and lunch on Sunday,. A limited number of scholarships and installment plans are available upon request on a first come, first served basis.

Refund Policy:

  • If you cancel anytime before 2 weeks prior to the retreat for any reason, we retain $50 handling fee and refund the balance.
  • If you cancel less than 2 weeks prior to the retreat, we cannot guarantee a refund due to the low likelihood of someone from the waitlist being able to fill your spot.  If we are able to fill your spot, we will offer a 50% refund.

For other options for Grief Support, check out this webpage. 

Facilitators: Our “Grief Tending Team” includes several of us who have been involved in grief  rituals here at Sacred Groves and elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest for many years.  Each brings unique gifts to the group.

Thérèse Charvet is the founder of Sacred Groves and has lived on that land since 1977. She began leading grief rituals in 2002 after attending several rituals, including grief rituals with her mentor Sobonfu Some.     A former midwife and Program Director of Seattle Midwifery School, she has been hosting ceremonies, rituals and womens groups at Sacred Groves for over 20 years.  Read more about her here. 

Laurence Cole is a well-known song leader and respected elder with long involvement in grief work, men’s work, and many other aspects of healing and enlivening the human spirit. He and Thérèse met at a grief retreat held by Sobonfu Some in 1997. He has been co-facilitating Grief Retreats with Thérèse and Tere since 2009. In addition, he has been offering a ritual called “Grief Song,” at singing events and facilitating grief rituals at various places around the country for the past 8 years.

Mary Hart is a trained workshop facilitator, personal coach and has participated in many healing rituals over the years. She was introduced to Grief Tending in 2014 and began mentoring with Therese Chavret, Tere Carraza and Laurence Cole in 2016.  Since then, she has helped to create and facilitate many healing rituals.

Honoring our Teachers

Thérèse wants to acknowledge and express her deep gratitude to Sobonfu Some who was her most significant teacher as regards grief ritual. Thérèse was blessed to drum with and participate in a number of rituals with her between 1993 and 2013.  Although Sobonfu no longer walks on this earth, her work and her teachings from the Dagara tribe in Burkina Faso live on in the grief rituals held at Sacred Groves (and elsewhere.) The development of this grief work has also been inspired by the ‘Despair and Empowerment’ work of Joanna Macy, strengthened and supported by the writings of Frances Weller (who also learned about grief ritual from the Some’s) and from my own personal journey with grief.