Comox Valley, Vancouver Island
Community Grief Retreat
Fri, Nov 8th - Sat, Nov 9th
Royston, Comox Valley, BC
Fallen Alders Community Hall
Oct 4th Update
The retreat is currently FULL. Please join the waitlist to be notified if a spot opens up.
Join our upcoming Community Grief Retreat:
Dates: Friday, Nov 8th at 10 a.m. - Saturday, Nov 9th at 7 p.m.
Location: Fallen Alders Community Hall | Comox Valley, Vancouver Island, BC
Registration: Sliding scale registration | limited scholarships available
Event Details
In many traditional cultures, grief rituals are considered the “glue” of connection that holds the community together. They offer us one of the most powerful means for reweaving our connection and belonging to ourselves, each other, and all our relations. We were never meant to carry this all alone.
We hope you can join us as we honor the sacredness of our grief and gratitude through talking circles, singing, poetry, movement, practice in sacred listening, ceremony, sharing food, and some quiet time in nature. The heart of our time together will include a sacred ritual inspired by the work of Sobonfu Some and Malidoma Some.
This retreat is also inspired by Francis Weller’s Five Gates of Grief, which help us to welcome in all forms of grief we may be carrying, including but not limited:
Everything we love we will lose
The places within us that have not known love
The sorrows of the world (e.g. environmental, racial, political, cultural)
The loss of village and belonging
Intergenerational or ancestral grief
The harms we have caused
The spiritual framework we use includes time-honored and earth-based modalities, utilizing the movement of drumming and song, the belief that the natural world is a rich place of interconnection with all our relations, and the importance of working with the unseen realms, including our ancestors.
You can learn more about community grief work at Northwest Grief Tending.
We invite you to lean in with us as we remember how to grieve in community. There is no grief too big or too small to be worthy of welcome here.
Retreat Schedule
Friday, Nov 8 from 10 a.m. – late evening
- 9:30 – 9:45 a.m. – Arrive and settle in
- 10:00 a.m. – Circle opening
- Evening – Community grief ritual
- Late evening – Please plan to stay into the evening. We will end when our ritual time comes to a close, which may not be until 8 or 9 p.m.
Saturday, Nov 9 from 9:30 a.m. – 7 p.m. (ish)
- 9:00 – 9:15 a.m. – Arrive and settle in
- 9:30 a.m. – Circle opening
- 5 p.m. (ish) – Circle closing followed by a community potluck
- 6-7 p.m. (ish) – Clean up – we aim to complete clean up by 7pm
Registration Details
Meals & Lodging: Please note that meals and lodging are not included in registration fees. Attendees will be responsible for finding their own accommodations and bringing sack meals, a dish for a community potluck, and snacks for the community table.
Registration & Fees: The retreat is currently FULL. Please join the waitlist to be notified if a spot opens up.
We offer sliding scale pricing in support of economic justice and accessibility, which requires your active participation in determining where you fall on the scale. Please read the tier descriptions closely and select the tier that best fits your resources and/or limitations.
Supporting Tier: $450 - This tier supports your community by allowing more need-based and solidarity scholarships to be offered. Additionally, it helps cover the full costs of running this retreat by supporting fair wages for the facilitators and greater program accessibility through sliding scale options. Please select this tier if you are able to comfortably meet all of your basic needs.
Sustaining Tier: $375 - This tier covers the full costs of running this retreat by supporting fair wages for the facilitators and greater program accessibility through sliding scale options. Please select this tier or the supporting tier if you are able to comfortably meet all of your basic needs.
Community Tier: $300 - This tier covers the direct costs of running this retreat. As a guide, this tier may be right for you if you stress about meeting your basic needs (food, housing, etc.) but still regularly achieve them, and have access to income, transportation, financial savings, and health care. If you are able to comfortably meet your needs, please register at the Supporting Tier above, which covers the full costs of running our retreat.
Supported Tier $225 - This tier falls short of covering the costs of running this circle. As a guide, this tier (or our scholarship tier) may be right for you if you frequently stress about meeting basic needs (food, housing, etc.) and don’t always achieve them. This may mean you are unemployed or underemployed, rent lower-end properties or have unstable housing, have limited access to a car, qualify for government assistance (health care, food stamps), and have no or very limited expendable income. If you are able to comfortably or regularly meet your needs, please register at the higher tier to help cover the costs of running our circle.
Scholarships: We offer a limited number of scholarships to help make this work accessible to those who otherwise could not afford to join us. This registration option is available to participants who have completed the Scholarship Application Form and received an email confirmation to proceed with the Scholarship Registration option.
Fundshifting: Northwest Grief Tending fundshifts 10% of all proceeds from grief rituals towards supporting reparations for People of the Global Majority (BIPOC folks). We donate these funds based on where it is most needed at the time of our grief retreat, which typically includes the Dagara community – through the Sonder Project or Cultural Preservation Fundraiser – and/or the local native tribe(s) whose land we do this work on.
Refund policy: Partial refunds of 50% are available up to 30 days prior to the event date. After this period, refunds are no longer available. This policy helps to hold us all accountable and creates some protection for the facilitators and organizers. We ask that you notify as soon as possible if you are no longer able to attend.
Covid/illness Protocol: We suggest taking a Covid home test the day of our event. Once gathered, each participant will be at choice as to what feels good to them in terms of masking, distancing, contact, etc. If you are covid positive or showing any cold/flu-like symptoms on the days of the ritual, please stay home.
Questions? Please email Aidan at aidansbradfield@gmail.com
Facilitators:
Siena Tenisci
Siena Tenisci, MA, LMHCA, is a therapist, community organizer, and founder of Northwest Grief Tending. She is a descendant of Abruzzese and Celtic peoples – lineages where keening women once held dedicated and respected roles in society as vocal rituals who midwifed collective grief within their communities. Siena has been facilitating grief rituals for over a decade and has been inspired by the work of many teachers and mentors, including Sobonfu & Malidoma Some, Joanna Macy, Therese Charvet, Laurence Cole, Francis Weller, and Vince Horan. She completed her Masters in Counseling at Antioch University in Seattle and is committed to a lifelong practice of dismantling systemic and internalized oppression.
Jordan Lyon
Jordan Lyon is a chef, grief tender, writer and facilitator. His passions and work guide him towards cultivating community through all the ways he creates, weaves, and lives. Primarily through food—a love language of his that nourishes community doing deep work together; through ritual—co-creating emergent ceremonies that reconnect us with the sacred, Mother Nature, and all the cycles of life; and lastly through story—weaving together mythic threads and tapestries that help us remember what we’ve forgotten and reimagine what is possible ahead. He resides on the land of Sacred Groves, a small intentional community on Bainbridge Island in the Salish Sea.