grief tending – Grief Tending in Community

Honouring Joanna Macy

I was first inspired by Joanna about 20 years ago, at a Work that Reconnects workshop led by her in London. I had come across her work during my therapy training. The Work That Reconnects was one of the two really powerful elements of that course. The other was Family Constellations. Both look at the collective healing of pain, as a symptom of systemic rather than individual problems.

I feel blessed to have met Joanna on several further occasions when I was working for the Transition Towns movement, creating community scale responses to the multiple crises of our time. My role was to anchor practices which brought depth, emotional understanding, curiosity about shadow and unconscious dynamics and more into a movement that could often be focused on material issues. Joanna’s clear and powerful teachings were a key part of what I shared with groups around the world.

Grief tending in Community – 1 day workshop 29th Sept

Take a day to honour and tend grief with others, in beautiful surroundings. Make a deep journey of building banks, stirring and expressing grief, and witnessing others. Return safely with time for soothing and integration.

August 2021 update

To see workshop news, reflections on summer events and more, see our latest August update.

Climbing mountains is easy

…and somehow very related to tending grief..

When I was younger I wanted to run a workshop called “Climbing Mountains Is Easy”. I had realised that if I push myself up a mountain, trying to get to the top or wanting to go faster, I would get exhausted. If I walk in the way that suits the most tired, injured or aching part of my body, walking becomes effortless and enjoyable. Listening to the most weakness in my body transformed walking up hills from a struggle to a joy. I could end a day of walking for hours still feeling energised. There was an obvious parallel to how I was living my life and why I was sometimes close to burnout or breakdown. And how those around me were living theirs. I wanted to share this practice with others who might be overriding the voice of vulnerability, driven by themselves or the culture around them. And to share the wild beauty of mountain landscapes with people who might believe them to be out of reach.

February Grief tending update

Read the full update here, including ..