Grief Ritual Mini Retreat

Guided by the four elemental spirits and ancient wisdom, we will co-create various rituals to commune with grief. We will open the pathways to honor, release, and alchemize the sorrows that live within our hearts. These rituals will be both a sacred moment in time for deep healing and also provide support tools as grief revisits throughout one’s life. This one-day grief ritual will allow for deep healing in the community as we lean on one another through the magic of gathering in a circle.

Who is this for?

Grief manifests in many ways and for many reasons. This retreat is for you if you have experienced grief over the loss of a loved one, the loss of a lived experience (such as health or a job), the loss of a relationship, and more. Living in connection to the world around us, we may also feel grief over the world´s sorrow, the harm towards the Earth, and the threads of grief woven in our ancestry. Grief is also not linear. No matter when you have experienced loss in your life, if grief is present in your heart, you are welcome to come move through this experience. All grief is welcome here.

What to expect?

Discussion on the immense experience of grief and how to navigate in our modern world.

Rituals guided by the four elements (air, fire, water, earth) potentially including but not limited to creating a grief mandala altar, cleansing plant baths, devotional journaling, sound healing, transformative fire ritual

Tools that you can take home to help you navigate grief as it surfaces throughout your life

Communal and professional space holding to guide a safe and sacred space

Retreat Schedule (Subject to change):

10:00 Arrive, settle in

10:15 -11:00 Open circle, grief talk

11:00 -12:30 Ritual

112:30 - 2:00 Lunch, with special grief food ritual

2:00 - 3:00 Break/ Integrate

3:00 - 5:00 Ritual 2

5:00 - 6:00 Closing

Please bring:

Journal and pen, items for our community altar that represent your grief (photos of loved ones, sacred items, etc), and comfortable clothes to move freely in. For our healing plant baths, bring a towel and a bathing suit or a change of clothes that can get wet. Plant baths are a ritual that includes pouring warm water that has been cooked with specific plants over the body. This plant bath’s purpose is to purify the spirit and aid in moving energy based on the recipient’s intention. For our retreat, these plant baths will be made with herbs that aid in grief and support the heart.

Shaina Bio:

Shaina Garfield, a Death Doula, Grief Guide, and Ceremonialist, is the founder of Leaves With You. She has dedicated her life to supporting healing processes in our cultural relationship with death. She founded Leaves With You to help others feel more connected to one another and the Earth during their life and at the end of it. She offers group rituals and 1:1 sessions on the use of creativity and ancient Earth practices to reclaim ourselves through transmuting grief. Shaina also designs biodegradable macrame coffins to honor the end-of-life process and provide options aligned with her client’s desires.

Stefanie Frank Bio:

founder and director of ESKFF Nest, healing Arts refuge and retreat center in Woodstock, NY. Visionary retreat, community builder & collaborator and single mother of 3 adult children. Stefanie approaches healing arts through music, sound healing, flute, dance, breathwork. She creates & guides nature based, spiritually diverse trasnformational experiences, ceremony & rituals. 

Stefanie is a master gardener, herbalist and gourmet mushroom farmer.

She is currently a coordinator with the Hudson Valley Psychedelic Society and holds position on multiple boards of directors including COSM (Alex´s Grey Church of Sacred Mirrors).

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