Grief Ritual Integration and Resources


Grief Ritual After Care

Below is a list of resources for your community grief ritual integration. We wish you much support, resource, gratitude, and joy in your continued journey. May these poems, music, and more from our time together continue to nourish and hold you.

Breathe & Connect with Nature
Create a reminder to take a full, deep breath into your abdomen regularly throughout your day (place your hand on your abdomen to see it actually move), count to 4, exhale, repeat 3 times, and only then resume what you’re doing.  Commune with nature as often as possible. Let the wild ones hold you in your grief journey.

Presence and Attention
Pay attention to your thoughts, dreams, feelings, synchronicities.  Be open to insights and messages from ancestors, higher self, Spirit by slowing down, taking time in nature.  As a co-creator of your life, set intentions, make prayers. Remember the ancient way of giving offerings to the earth, ancestors and the spirits as reciprocity for your life.

Home Altar Creation
If you feel called, build a home altar honoring your sacred grief, ancestors & compassion/forgiveness. This will be a sacred container to visit, honor what you love and the tender places within yourself. Let your intuition guide you towards colors and objects to be placed on your altar that speak to your soul and heart’s longing. For example - a deep red candle to connect with the wisdom of your ancestors. This can also be a place in nature you go to on a regular basis, a certain tree or river or spot at the beach.  

Be Gentle With Yourself
Know that you have moved a lot of energy and it will continue to flow if given the opportunity.  Being gentle with yourself and willing to move slowly will allow any insights and/or further resolving and/or revitalizing your passion/purpose to be integrated.

Epsom or Sea Salts Bath
To release all forms of old or stagnant energy (physical, emotional, energetic), it is helpful to take an Epsom salt bath. Sea salt/Epsom salt is used for continued clearing and balancing of your physical and energetic systems. Use 1-2 cups of Epsom or sea salts in your comfortably, very warm water. Soak 15-20 minutes and try to submerge as much of your body as possible. Keep a glass of cool, (not cold), water close by to drink. If diabetic, use baking soda rather than Epsom or sea salt.

Create Good Grief Inspiration Reminders
Use post-it notes, write on your bathroom mirror, hang things on the computer screen or fridge, create a screen-saver on the computer, or leave yourself phone messages to keep welcoming grief to flow. (Suggestions: To grieve is to say ‘Yes’ to life”, “Every moment we are mourning and/or celebrating what we love”, “Grief is a movement- let is flow”, “I can share my grief”, “My grief shows me what I love”)

Reach Out & Share Your Experience
Connect with your grief partner from the circle in the way you both agreed. It can be as simple as "How is your heart? How is your grief today?"We are learning how to be with grief, and trust it has intelligence on its own. It doesn’t need to be solved or fixed. Ask others if they would be willing to listen, to hold, offer touch while refraining from giving advice (unless you ask for it). Consider sharing your own experience of the grief ritual with your families, extended community and friends, as the time feels right. You have been initiated into sacred grief work, and may feel called to be a sacred grief soul-activist by inviting others to join you and others in befriending their personal and collective griefs.

Drink Water
Make a goal of drinking half your body weight in ounces (ex: 250 lbs of weight = 125 oz. of water) throughout your day. If you’re thirsty, you’re already dehydrated! Increasing your intake of fruits and vegetables, (water-rich, live foods) helps a lot.

Cleanse Ritual Clothing 
To cleanse clothing worn in ritual, add intention and gratitude when washing and if possible add a handful of salt (Dagara tradition to help cleanse energy).

Listen to Your Body
Remember that after gathering and ritual your communication with your body will be more clear than it has been. So try to listen for its requests or suggestions, such as additional rest, drinking more water, journaling, guidance for rituals, solitude, connection, movement, dance, singing, art, and time in nature. These may reduce mental pressure and thereby ease the strain on your body. There are many physical changes that take place in our brain, nervous system, and body as we grieve. Listening to your body is a good habit to form, and especially important after going through ritual and deep transformative work!

Track Your Questions and/or Experiences Between Gathering
Keep track of what allows grief to flow and/or what impedes it. Make the most of our next gathering by bringing any questions that have come up or experiences you’ve had.

Our Integration Circle will be held on Zoom, April 5th at 9:30 am pdt

Poems

  • Bird Wings 

    by Rumi

    Your grief for what you've lost holds a mirror
    up to where you're bravely working.

    Expecting the worst, you look and instead,
    here's the joyful face you've been wanting to see.

    Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
    If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
    you would be paralyzed.

    Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding
    the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
    as birdwings.

  • Those who will not slip beneath the still surface on the well of grief,

    turning down through its black water to the place we cannot breathe,

    will never know the source from which we drink, the secret water, cold and clear,

    nor find in the darkness glimmering, the small round coins, thrown by those who wished for something else.

  • The Healing Time   

    by Pesha Joyce Gertler

    Finally on my way to yes
    I bump into
    all the places
    where I said no
    to my life
    all the untended wounds
    the red and purple scars
    those hieroglyphs of pain
    carved into my skin, my bones,
    those coded messages
    that send me down
    the wrong street
    again and again
    where I find them
    the old wounds
    the old misdirections
    and I lift them
    one by one
    close to my heart
    and I say    

    holy
    holy.

  • Kindness 

    by Noami Shihab Nye


    Before you know what kindness really is

    you must lose things,

    feel the future dissolve in a moment

    like salt in a weakened broth.

    What you held in your hand,

    what you counted and carefully saved,

    all this must go so you know

    how desolate the landscape can be

    between the regions of kindness.

    How you ride and ride

    thinking the bus will never stop,

    the passengers eating maize and chicken

    will stare out the window forever.

    Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness

    you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho

    lies dead by the side of the road.

    You must see how this could be you,

    how he too was someone

    who journeyed through the night with plans

    and the simple breath that kept him alive.

    Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,

    you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

    You must wake up with sorrow.

    You must speak to it till your voice

    catches the thread of all sorrows

    and you see the size of the cloth.

    Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,

    only kindness that ties your shoes

    and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,

    only kindness that raises its head

    from the crowd of the world to say

    It is I you have been looking for,

    and then goes with you everywhere

    like a shadow or a friend.

  • Black Water Woods

    by Mary Oliver

    Look, the trees
    are turning
    their own bodies
    into pillars

    of light,
    are giving off the rich
    fragrance of cinnamon
    and fulfillment,

    the long tapers
    of cattails
    are bursting and floating away over
    the blue shoulders

    of the ponds,
    and every pond,
    no matter what its
    name is, is

    nameless now.
    Every year
    everything
    I have ever learned

    in my lifetime
    leads back to this: the fires
    and the black river of loss
    whose other side

    is salvation,
    whose meaning
    none of us will ever know.
    To live in this world

    you must be able
    to do three things:
    to love what is mortal;
    to hold it

    against your bones knowing
    your own life depends on it;
    and, when the time comes to let it go,
    to let it go.

  • Love Dogs 

    by Rumi

    One night a man was crying,
    “Allah, Allah!”
    His lips grew sweet with the praising,
    until a cynic said,
    “So! I have heard you
    calling out, but have you ever
    gotten any response?”
    The man had no answer for that.
    He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep.
    He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls,
    in a thick, green foliage,
    “Why did you stop praising?”
    “Because I’ve never heard anything back.”
    “This longing you express
    is the return message.”
    The grief you cry out from
    draws you toward union.
    Your pure sadness that wants help
    is the secret cup.
    Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.
    That whining is the connection.
    There are love dogs no one knows the names of.
    Give your life to be one of them.

  • All of You

    by Maya Luna

    You.
    Yes You.
    All of you.
    Your chaos and your madness
    Your foolish nonsense
    Your fearless magic
    You are welcome here
    Your passion and your eros
    Your red fever dreams
    Your resistance
    Your doubt
    Your power, wild and uncontained
    You, yes, you
    Your fist of rage
    Your bottomless grief
    Your heart break bursting out at the seams
    Spilling out in messy floods of Inconvenient feelings
    You.
    Yes, you.
    Your oceans of confusion
    Your terror running deep
    Your river of longing
    Your precious illusions
    Even if it makes you look foolish
    Even if it makes you go mad
    All of you is welcome here
    Your brain tangled with neurons Firing wild impulses
    From the dark forest of your unconscious
    You are Welcome Here
    The twisted vines and purple fog of melancholy in your heart
    Your bloody messy crazy love
    Your fears
    Your Desires, wet with unrequited lust
    Pushing and stretching to be expressed
    The lies you told yourself
    Your deepest regrets
    The mess of never getting it exactly as you had planned
    You. Yes. You.
    Your awkward stumbles
    Your shakey knees
    Your hunger for some meaning
    You are welcome Here
    Your flaming hatred
    Your tender broken faith
    Your need for control
    You are welcome here.
    Your untainted innocence
    Your will to rise again
    The pain you try to hide.
    You are welcome
    Here.
    I want every part of me touched and seen
    I want to be as big as the universe and
    As tiny as an insect
    I want every contradiction
    Every disproportionate feeling
    Every chaotic thought to be met
    Right Here.
    I want to writhe and howl and groan with the deep root of Life
    I want to be held with such soft sweetness that
    This fragile ache finally opens and lets go.
    I want to be known as a depraved and holy animal
    As consciousness, as infinite
    As flesh and bone and skin
    I want to roll on the ground and slither
    I want to scream
    I want to kiss where my feet have been
    I want to cry and need and feel
    Right. Here.
    I want to explode and hold
    This ancient pulsing groan of ocean that lives in me
    Right Here.
    Meet me here
    Where the paint touches the canvas
    Where the past is dead and dangling
    Where the future is a vacant space
    Right Here
    Where this unfolding moment is the refuge of the heart
    Right Here
    Come with me
    You are welcome here

  • Clean

    By Mike Schaupp

    Clean 
    Why is it always so?
    I don’t realize 
    Where the hell I’m going 
    Until I’ve gone and come back home

    So let the moonlight 
    Let the starlight 
    Let these hot tears 
    Wash me clean

    We spent last night
    Spilling our guts
    Crying in each other’s arms
    Remembering why it is we love

    We let the moonlight 
    We let the starlight 
    We let these hot Tears
    Wash each other clean

    So when next it starts to rain
    And there ain’t a cloud in sight
    I hope that you’ll remember
    I never left your side

    We let the moonlight
    We let the starlight 
    We let these hot tears
    Wash each other clean

  • Weight 

    by Mikyö Black-Wangmo

    Yes the weight is heavy

    Yes the subterranean rivers run deep

    Yes the mystery of the Unknown lies in darkness

    Awakening through embodiment is no light matter

    Right relations cannot be found in transcending form, worshipping comfort, and ignoring the impact of interdependence. 

    Tear those colonized ways of being from your cells.

    Be humbled.

    Let the heartbreak bring you to your knees 100,000 times.

    Let the utter confusion of the mind discombobulate all you thought you knew to be true.

    Bring your womb, heart, and forehead to the cool dark earth. 

    Let the weight of it all crush you to oblivion. 

    Breathe in the soil with your last breaths and pray to be delivered Home.

    Let the magnitude of grief quake your very bones till they rattle your soul awake.

    In death you are reborn.

Music

Artists

  • Sarah Songbird is a singer and songwriter based in Santa Cruz, California. Her music honors the beautiful multidimensionality of the human experience and invites her listeners to feel right along with her. Sarah draws inspiration from both her inner and outer landscapes, spinning lyrical metaphors that point to the parallels between the cycles of nature and life. She offers music in rituals, celebrations, ceremonies of birth and death, and in one-on-one healings.

    sarahsongbirdmusic.com

    YouTube: 

    https://youtube.com/@sarahsongbirdmusic

    IG @sarahsongbirdmusic

Playlists

Grief Support

Mikyö Marie Black-Wangmo Mikyö offers Empowered Living Grief Work, one on one sessions to continue to integrate and deepen in our journey with grief. They will be opening to receive 2 new clients mid April. Email Mikyö at SubrosaSanto@gmail.com if you would like to claim one of the new client openings for 2025.

You can subscribe on their website to receive information on upcoming offerings: www.SubrosaSanto.com Phone: 575.224.6611 / IG: @mikyo.black.wangmo

Bio: Mikyö Black-Wangmo lives their life in devotion to holding and tending grief medicine as a pathway to freedom and Essence. The wild, beautiful Red Willow lands known as Taos, New Mexico is their beloved home.

As a facilitator, educator, death doula, and somatic practitioner Mikyö brings deeply cultivated presence in service to the empowerment of those they work with. They are a student of the Elements and Natural world, their indigenous mexican and more-than-human Ancestors, of Grief and Death, and of their esoteric teachers and lineages. 

Their positionality as a queer, 2 spirit, indigenous PoC, transracial adoptee allows them the privilege to exist and work outside of and beyond the systems of oppression we all live in and are affected by. Mikyö is dedicated to becoming more and more joyfully alive and free in service to love and life, and in supporting others to do the same.  

Dr. Jane Hansen

Dr. Jane is an Ivy-League educated psychologist and personal coach, with a background in AcroYoga and Thai massage. Her approaches are grounded in the wisdom of the body, as well as Internal Family Systems (IFS), and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT).

Jane works both online and in-person. She lives with her husband and son in Sonoma County, CA. Hilarious and warm, she is an ideal companion for all that unfolds on an embodied voyage of healing, creation, and transformation.

drjanehansen@gmail.com

Sirena Andrea

Sirena Andrea is a Master Storyteller, Ritualist and Trauma Release Breathwork Practitioner supporting clients from around the world to release grief and  live into the next creative chapter of their lives. In addition, Sirena  is an initiated Diviner in the Dagera tradition and brings ancient technology to open paths for participants to connect with their ancestors for love and healing.

Sirena’s Tending Grief Offerings

Jill Clifton

Jill Clifton: I work with moms who are dedicated to a healthy family culture that nourishes relationships between family members, even if that's not how they were raised. I guide moms through connecting with Nature as a resource for being a present, anchored, and an inevitably human parent. This comes with grief, often, because of the current lack of systemic support for mothering. I consistently post resources on YouTube @landscapeofmothers, and my email list and mentoring services can be found at www.LandscapeOfMothers.com.

Jillian ‘Jiji” Grace

Jillian “Jiji” GRACE is a woman of many hats, all that are useful for the central purpose of protecting and encouraging the sacred in all things. This has led her to being an herbalist, auntie, environmentalist, fire tender, ceremonialist, storyteller, songwriter, sacred clown, a student and practitioner of Traditional Medicines.

With the central heart drumbeat leading her own internal journey of alchemy and realization, and in devotional response to a communal need, she is now offering Ritual Integration Counseling. In order to support you by listening, sharing insights and practices that are effective in helping to nurture the seeds received from experiences in ceremony to their wholesomely taking root in our lives so that they serve us and the ecosystems we belong to.

Please email her at sacredfiregrace@gmail.com to learn more and set up a consultation. In service for you, and consequently all creation. Your healing, my healing, my healing, your healing. All together now.

Erin Kammerer Hen: Craniosacral Therapy

Erin Kammerer Hen has been practicing for over 20 years. She brings priceless experience and safety to the table. She currently has 2 practices, in Berkeley and Santa Cruz. Occasionally, she offers apprenticeships if it's the right fit! 

Erin offers deep rest and attunement with Craniosacral Therapy.  Lay down on a soft and heated mattress.  Experience deep healing of your nervous system for 80 minutes. Sometimes, guided breathwork and relaxation cues are given. Towards the end, there is a 5 minute integration time with sound healing.

Erin offers support to your deepest layers and to your whole field.  Your craniosacral system is comprised of your sacrum/tailbone, your spine and 22 cranial bones. Gentle touch and intentional stillness to this system brings your nervous system into balance and reminds you of the wholeness that you came from.  The healing is immense. www.mindheartbodywork.com

Other Resources

Books

  • The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller

  • The Smell of Rain on Dust by Martin Prechtel

  • Opening to Darkness by Reverend Zenju Earthlyn Manuel

  • The Grieving Brain by Mary Frances O’Connor

Free Events