Grief Tender Mentoring Program 2025-2026

with Guiding Elders Therese Charvet and Laurence Cole, with support from our grief tender team

For those already hosting grief rituals and those who aspire to do so

NOTE: Registration for the 2025-26 cohort is now closed. If you want to be notified when applications are open for the 2026-27 program, please submit this form.

This mentoring program welcomes applications from people who…..

  • Have done their own personal grief healing journey (e. g. have attended several grief rituals/retreats, done grief counseling etc) continuing to access and release personal grief as it arises
  • Have a yearning and intrinsic motivation to provide support to and walk with others in their grief journey, to be in service.
  • Have involvement/experience in communities and/or professional work where the skills of grief tending can be utilized
  • Seek to learn the specifics of what we are offering (see below) and to connect with others who are called to grief-tending
  • Are committed to prioritizing participation in the entirety of the program

OVERVIEW:  This mentoring program involves an in-person grief retreat at the onset of the program (Oct 31-Nov 2, 2025), required monthly zoom meetings in November through March 2026, and an in-person closing retreat in mid-April (April 9-12). In addition, there will be optional zoom meetings on specific topics and for networking.

About our Teachings: Our specialty is the kind of group grief ritual/ceremony that has been held at Sacred Groves for over 20 years. We are not therapists nor grief counselors. Rather, we were blessed to learn about grief rituals from Sobonfu and Malidoma Some’ from Burkina Faso, Africa, who adapted their Dagara Tribe village grief rituals into a week-end workshop model for the people of North America.. They believed that many of the issues facing Western culture are a result of unprocessed grief.  We continue to adapt our grief ritual format to this culture, while still honoring all the teachings we received from Malidoma and Sobonfu.  We have personally and repeatedly experienced the transformative power of Grief Ritual for healing and re-weaving belonging in community.

Topics for this grief mentoring include:

    • The importance of “Agreements” for creating a vulnerable and courageous space
    • The basics of holding ritual space and the importance of ritual for transforming grief
    • The importance of grief being witnessed
    • The basic bones of grief rituals
    • Reflective listening as a vital skill for holding space for grief
    • Skills & Qualities needed to be a grief tender
    • Exploring the Five Gates of Grief as described by Francis Weller

Dates: Dates for the in-person retreats are Oct 31, Nov 1-2, 2025, and April 9-12, 2026, held at a retreat center near Olympia, WA. In addition, there will be five required zoom meetings with the elders, scheduled monthly on Saturday morning from 9:30am-12:30pm pacific time (Dates: Nov 22, Dec 20, Jan 17, Feb 14 and March14). In addition we will offer one or two optional on-line gatherings each month when guest teachers will present on other topics of interest to grief tenders and the community will have time to weave deeper bonds with each other. 

Fees:  The program fee is $1700 plus $100 application fee which includes teachings, food & lodging at both in-person retreats, participation in zoom meetings, participation in our on-line forum on Mighty Network, and connection to a network of grief tenders across the county.   BIPOC scholarships, installment payment plans and a limited number of “pay what you can” options are available upon request. (Note: Once accepted into the program an application for scholarships etc will be available)

To apply: Registration for the 2025-26 program is now closed. 

History: This Grief Tender Mentoring Program began as a one day in-person retreat in March 2020, prompted by many requests for mentoring fielded by the Sacred Groves grief retreat team over the years.  In 2021 it was held on zoom because of the pandemic shut-down. It has since evolved as a hybrid of zoom meetings and in-person retreats. To date, over 140 people have participated, mostly from the Washington, Oregon and California, but many from across the country. In October 2025, our 7th cohort will be launched and we have added a second in-person retreat: one at the beginning of the program and one at the end in addition to five 3 hour zoom meetings in between.

The facilitators:

Thérèse Charvet has been hosting grief rituals and retreats at Sacred Groves since 2002.  She attended many ceremonies (grief retreats and others) with her mentor, the late Sobonfu Somé through the 1990’s and 2000’s. Therese began offering Grief Rituals with the blessing of Sobonfu. Read more about Therese here.

Laurence Cole, a song elder and ritualist from Port Townsend, Washington, has a gift of helping groups of people rediscover the healing power of grieving communally, bringing his special gift of group singing to everything he leads. He and Thérèse  met at a Grief Retreat in 1997, held by Sobonfu Somé. He participated in many rituals with Malidoma and Sobonfu Somé through the 1990’s and early 2000’s.   Laurence joined the Sacred Groves grief retreat team in 2009.  A few years later he began offering grief rituals at various song circles, conferences and gatherings.  Over the years he has become a much loved facilitator of grief rituals and group singing, traveling far and wide.  Guided and inspired by the teachings of Malidoma and Sobonfu Somé, Angeles Arrien, Michael Meade, James Hillman, Francis Weller, Joanna Macy and many others, Laurence and his songs create a safe and brave, non-judgmental space for folks to rediscover their natural human capacity for belonging.

Thérèse and Laurence and the program are being supported by several others who have been through the Grief Tender Mentoring Program and are dedicated to being part of a thriving network of grief tenders across North America and beyond.

Honoring our Teachers

Thérèse and Laurence want to acknowledge and express deep gratitude to Sobonfu Some and Malidoma Somé, their most significant teachers as regards grief ritual.  Although neither of them continue to walk on this earth, their books and their work that brought teachings from the Dagara tribe in Burkina Faso live on. The development of this grief work has also been inspired by the 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 our own personal journeys with grief.