Where there is love there is grief
and where there is grief there is love
"...The real madness of our world is that we are not on our knees daily, clawing at the earth and howling to the stars in our grief. Instead we carry on business as usual as though nothing is wrong..."
Celtic Keening grief ceremony & the Gathering of the Bones
With open arms we warmly welcome you in all your grief, whatever you are grieving about your welcome here. Personal, planetary or otherwise.
Keening is the way of our deep time ancestors for England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
It goes back many thousands of years and is a way to honour grieve and loss that is embodied, non- judgemental, it welcomes all expressions of grief and allows space for each person to grieve in their own way. The space itself is also a traditional earthen dwelling which in and of itself creates a powerful holding field. Deep inside the round EarthLodge dwelling into the side of the hill with the firelight to see and sheepskins for comfort, we will find our way into the beauty of the darkness and the treasures it holds.
We are in troubled times and there are not many of us who are not being touched by loss in one form or another. Loss of loved ones, the destruction of the natural world, cultural systems that do not support and care for life in a balanced way, war and poverty in so many ways, spiritually, physically and emotionally.
It takes courage to feel grief and it is one of the deepest forms of soul work we can do. It is more than therapy and working with the psychological wounds, it is work that goes beyond what makes much sense and cannot be organised. It is feral and wild like moving water. most of us would rather turn away and find instead ways to avoid it or numb it out. Like shopping, eating, recreational drugs, medication, distracting activities, social media etc, the list is long. How can we find the courage to grief without collapsing into guilt or shame or turn away from it for fear we will drown and never come back. And more importantly how can we find the courage to allow others to hold us in our grief. When we can let the river of grief within us flow and experience others as banks to our river something alchemical happens as it takes us further than we can go by ourselves.
Love is the much needed medicine of our time and a return to the wisdom of the heart and to the intelligence of our feeling nature. Love and grief are like the 2 wings of the bird, their collaboration and balance is how it flies with grace and power. If we want to find the freedom to love without fear we must find the courage to grieve.
“….There are many ways grief is felt. It is not just the sorrowful tender tears that come in those quiet moments. Grief is feral and it asks us to lay our soul bare, to strip back to the bones, to surrender control, she will not be negotiated or tamed. It can arrive as anger, fear, sadness, guilt, apathy, despair, numbness, powerlessness and hopelessness. And when we are witnessed and validated, acknowledged and held in loving empathic heart presence a level of healing occurs that is deeply and profoundly freeing……”
Stephen Jenkinson
The 6 Sacred Gates of Grief
There are many ways and reasons that grief enters our life. All grief is welcome in our ceremonies. Below is Frances Weller’s 6 gates of grief as described below are a potent teaching of how grief can come from any aspect of our experience of life, all gates lead to others, it’s just about which gate we are most feeling and stepping through, there we may well discover that once in the river many of the flood gates open.
GATE 1: Everything we love we will lose
This grief is the one that many of us enter grief through, when we lose a loved one, whether that be a person or a pet. It is the only grief culturely that is ‘permitted’ and then only for a short while, until we can ‘get back to normal’
GATE 2: What we expected but did not receive
Arriving into an already broken world, our soul knew we where meant to arrive into a family and wider circle of people who’s task it was to lift us up and keep us safe and help us find our unique shape in the world and bring our gifts. To not shame us in any way. To know we are of the land and from the land.
GATE 3: Sorrows of the natural world
The is about the wider field of grief for all that has and still is happening to our earth, whether that is close in our lives or something far away that is hard to connect to. We feel it anyways, but might not realise it. Some of us feel it accutely.
GATE 4: Places that have not known love
The places within us that have been exiled and unloved due to how we where raised. The parts of us that we feel shame about that do not feel loved or accepted.
GATE 5: Ancestral grief
Feeling the grief that exists within our bodies of the hurt and harm in the lines of our ancestors behind us, that the pain we feel is not only from our own lives but from the lineage of harm in cultures across the world.
GATE 6: Harm we have caused
The grief is connected to the inability to love ourselves, for the inner critic within us. Also for the regret we may feel about having hurt others, intentionally or otherwise in the course of our lives.
An online grief ceremony that was held in the EarthLodge during lock down.
The tradition of keening
I have been holding grief ceremonies for many years and have trained with Joanna Macy, Sobonfu Some and Frances Weller. Other inspirations and teaches that I seek to learn from in Martín Prechtel and Steven Levine.
These traditional keening ceremonies are held in the EarthLodge on the land here at EarthHeart. This is a natural building sitting low to the ground, made of earth and wood. There are sheepskins on the floor and firelight for vision. The ceremonies are held in virtual darkness and allow space for people to grieve in their own way.
Sometimes the ceremonies will be from the keening traditions of these lands and some will be with an alter and space to be held in the arms of the circle.
There is no prescribed way to grieve, each person will be honoured in their unique way.
This is not a space for political debate or debate of any kind about what is or is not happening in the world.
This is a space where we will be invited to feel
and allow grief to flow.
There may be sounds and words from the heart but it is essentially a non speaking space.
Dakini speaks
My friends, lets grow up.
Lets stop pretending we don’t know the deal here.
Or if we truly haven’t noticed, lets wake up and notice.
Look: everything that can be lost, will be lost.
It’s simple – How could we of missed it for so long?
Lets grieve our losses fully, like ripe human beings,
But please, lets not be so shocked by them.
Lets not act so betrayed,
As though life had broken her secret promise to us.
Impermanence is life’s ONLY promise to us,
And she keeps it with ruthless impeccability.
To the child in us she seems cruel, but she is only wild,
And her compassion exquisitely precise:
Brilliantly penetrating, luminous with truth,
She strips away the unreal to show us the real.
This is the true ride-lets give ourselves to it!
Lets stop making deals for a safe passage:
There isn’t one anyway, and the cost is too high.
We are not children anymore.
The true human adult loves everything even though it’ll be lost
So lets dance the wild dance of surrender
– Jennifer Welwood
The Shape of the Offering
Arrival : Friday 4-5pm
On Friday at dusk, in the liminal space between day and night, we will enter the ceremonial EarthLodge and gather in circle just as our deep time ancestors did before us. We will light the fire and open the space with a ceremony of the elements and the ancestors. The fire and the sheepskins layed around the harth will create a cosy and holding nest for us.
We will open the space with chanting and prayers, calling forth our ancestors and guides.
Landing : Friday 5-10pm
Throughout the evening, we will gently and slowly, step-by-step, enter into the landscape of tending to our grief… culminating in an ancient Celtic keening ritual designed to carry us beyond our fears of letting go into the river of our holy and beautiful grief. A space for our grief to move in all the ways it needs.
The Celtic keening ceremony will hold us, letting the waters flow down like a mountain stream, following the path of least resistance. This is about us holding each other in grief, allowing its collective power to deepen and free us. This part will end at around 10pm and from there we will settle down to sleep for the night, in liminal space as we feel best support us individually.
Saturday Dawn through to 2pm
From dawn until 2pm, we will enter a space where we can continue our grieving ceremony but in our own autonomous flow… entering into silence (sounds are always welcome) as we continue letting the waves of grief rise and fall as they do within us.
In this time, you can be in nature, be on the land, walk in the forest, sit by the fire or walk by the lake. Moving between sitting in the EarthLodge, being in contemplation by the fire, or journalling about what’s moving through you. Doing what feels most supportive for you to let grief fully have its time to flow without rushing or forcing.
The land and the ancient forest that surrounds EarthHeart will be here to hold us.
The lake will be here to guide us.
Feasting : Saturday 2pm
We will break our silence to gather together for hot, homemade yummy vegan meal.
Gathering of the Bones medicine circle with Jewels : Saturday 3pm
We will come together, sat around the fire in the EarthLodge, where we can share what is unfolding in our hearts after our grief journey, and to give gratitude for our life and to all life. Most importantly, we will remember to Love.
Each person will have space to be seen and to be appreciated in a way that mean something to them.
Completion and journeying home : Saturday 7pm
We will close our circle, ground the elements, and give thanks to our guides.
You can either begin your journey home, or you are welcome to stay an extra night if you feel called to remain in this tender space. There will be an add-on in the ticketing options to stay until 9am the following morning.
A NOTE : Food and fasting
We are inviting you into the possibility of light fasting for the main section of the grief ritual.
This is optional of course. Grief and the moving of deep emotions through the body is much easier when we do not have a full belly. Here is the invite:
Eat a hearty meal last thing before you arrive so that from 5pm on Friday to 2pm on Saturday you are fasting. If this feels too much of a stretch you are of course very welcome to bring food with you that is simple to eat and would not disturb others who may want to fast. We suggest things like nuts and seeds, fruit fresh or dried, bread and butter, hummus, tinned stuff vine leaves. If not veggie: pre boiled eggs, cheese, tinned sardines etc.
Please note there is no kitchen to prepare food or store in a fridge.
There is a tea urn for constant hot drinks with herb teas provided.
Sleeping arrangements
There will be the option to sleep in the main indoor heated temple space with your own sleeping bag and mat or you are welcome to bring a campervan if you have one or stay in a local Airbnb.
On occasion it’s possible to sleep in the Earthlodge but this will be decided on the night and this is not assumed.
There are toilets and showers available for those staying on-site
“…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
Jewels speaks to Interfaith Minister Reverend Helen James about her work at EarthHeart.
Logistics
Date
2-4 Oct – bookings now open
Future Ceremonies
13-15 Nov (Bookings open 4 October)
15-17 Jan (Bookings open 15 November)
19-21 Feb (Bookings open 17 January)
26-28 March (Bookings open 21 February)
Timings
Arrival is from 4pm on Friday and at the latest 4.45pm. The doors will close at 4.50pm sharp and there will be strictly no entry after this point for ANY reason and no refunds.
We will complete by 7pm on Saturday.
Venue
EarthHeart Forest of Dean, GL14 3JQ.
Booking policy
Please read our cancellation and booking policy before booking your place
so you are making an informed choice.
