Community Grief Tending Ritual

Community Grief Ritual

December 13th, 2025

Time: [10am- 7pm]

Location: Orange Grove Friends Meeting

What is grief, and why do we come together to grieve?

Grief is not a casualty of the human experience, it is our birthright. If we live and love—a person, animal, idea, place, the planet, our mortal bodies—then we live with loss. Grief does not only exist at the funeral altar, but it is carried in our bones every day as we move through the world. Whether that grief is felt as a wail or a whisper- none of us are exempt from knowing the pain of loss, and hopefully, the gift of having loved.

But do we know how to live with grief?

In the West our grief is sequestered, shamed, buried—hidden from others and even from ourselves. Francis Weller (The Wild Edge of Sorrow) says: “When our grief cannot be spoken, it falls into the shadow and re-arises in us as symptoms. So many of us are depressed, anxious, and lonely. We struggle with addictions and find ourselves moving at a breathless pace, trying to keep up with the machinery of culture.”

A Community Grief Tending Ritual is a time to come together with others, in our shared and our unique losses, for the purpose of connection and healing through the expression of grieving. This grief ritual is inspired by the wisdom of the Dagara Tribe of Burkina Faso of West Africa, by way of teachers Malidoma and Sobonfu Some', who taught Westerners for many years how to grieve together with reverence and respect. We also honor the work of Joanna Macy and Francis Weller who each have dedicated their lives to understanding the necessity of grief in community, not just in isolation. We as your guides are grateful to have been students of each of these teachers over the years.

We invite you to join us for a potent day of connection, story-telling, and healing ritual space. We have been through a lot this year as a community, Los Angeles, and we need each other now. All are welcome for this daylong event.

We’ll start our day by getting to know one another, interspersed with singing, poems and a bit of movement. There will be a brief teaching on the gates of grief, as taught by Francis Weller in The Wild Edge of Sorrow. We’ll do several small group exercises to befriend and move our grief, as well as speaking our truths in the large group. The day will end with a grief ritual, inspired by Sobonfu and Malidoma Somé, followed by a light dinner and sharing.

Sliding Scale Payment Options

No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

We believe everyone should have access to this offering, regardless of financial situation. To make this possible, we use a sliding scale model. Please choose the tier that best reflects your current circumstances.

Supporter Tier – $150 (Full Price)

Helps sustain and expand this work. If you are financially stable, have access to income, savings, or discretionary spending, this tier covers your cost and helps support others who need to pay less.

Sustainer Tier – $100

Balances access and sustainability. If you can meet your basic needs but paying full price feels like a stretch, this reduced rate helps keep the program running while making it more affordable.

Community Tier – $50

For those with limited financial access. This tier is for those who would otherwise be unable to participate. We welcome you to choose this option—no explanation needed.

❤️ Need further support?

We are committed to accessibility. If $50 is still out of reach, please contact us — we will make sure you can join until we are at capacity.

Ritual Support Team

Shana Kale is a licensed psychotherapist who has dedicated her professional life for the last 20 years to the service of helping others develop self-compassion and attend to their wounded places. She practices integrative psychotherapy-- blending mindfulness, ecotherapy, Gestalt, evidence-based EMDR, and transpersonal psychology. Her background is in ecopsychology and wilderness therapy, and she believes that our relationship to the natural world is our greatest teacher. She is cerified in EMDR and Perinatal Mental Health. She is a radical humanist at heart, and thrives in ritual spaces. Shana has been honored to sit in ritual with Sobonfu Somé, Joanna Macy, Francis Weller, Laurence Cole, and Therese Charvet, and many other wise teachers who believes that community grief rituals are a needed balm to our aching cultural wounds and isolation.

www.shanakalemft.com

Marilyn Hunt is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Certified IFS Therapist whose calling is to hold sacred, compassionate spaces for individuals and groups navigating the deep terrain of loss. She is especially drawn to the transformative power of grief rituals, as taught by Malidoma and Sobonfu Somé of the Dagara tribe in West Africa. Through these ancient practices, Marilyn helps people move beyond isolation into connection, helping to restore vitality, meaning, and belonging in the wake of sorrow. With decades of experience as a therapist, Marilyn weaves together professional training with a heartfelt reverence for communal healing. Her work honors the innate wisdom of the soul and the collective need to witness and release grief in safe and intentional ways. Whether guiding individuals or groups, she creates environments of trust and courage where grief is not a burden to be hidden, but a sacred passage toward wholeness. Marilyn has been mentored in leading grief rituals by Francis Weller, Therese Charvet and Laurence Cole.

www.marilynhuntlmft.com

Amy Ma, M.Ed., is an educational leadership guide who is wildly inspired to creatively explore with youth and adults on how they can fully express their gifts in the world. She is also enthusiastic to immerse many to more play and curiosity through the natural world connection. She is a founder of SOL Gratitude Village, a multi-generational living & learning village. She currently runs wilderness apprenticeship and mentorship journeys in Mount Shasta and San Diego, CA. She is also a naturalist and holds rites of passage for youth and adults as well as wilderness immersion retreats for corporate leadership development worldwide. She is also a grief tending facilitator who holds communal grief circles and rituals through the teachings of Malidoma Somè, Sobonfu Somè, Francis Weller and Martin Prechtel. Through guiding communal grief tending experience, we humbly witness the healing transformation through our courage and compassion in exploring our journey of truth, expression, connection, vulnerability, healing and honoring each other's bundle of medicine.

IG: @amymacatalyst
FB: AmyMaHK