Online 12-Week Training
Intro to Grief Ritual Leadership
Oct 6 - Dec 22, 2026
12-week circle
Tues at 5:30-7:30PM
Pacific Time (PT)
Online
Live weekly session
Overview
This cohort is now FULL. Please join the waitlist to be notified if space becomes available
For much of human history, and across cultures, grief was tended in community. People gathered in time-honored ways to weep, sing, move, pray, witness, and remember together. Grieving was not just something to survive. It was an essential part of how communities stayed connected to one another, to the ancestors, to the land, and to the sacred.
Today, many of these communal ways of grieving have been disrupted or forgotten. In this time of unraveling, we are carrying not only personal loss, but also the breaking of community, harm to the earth, violence within our systems, and the absence of elders and shared places to bring our sorrow. This grief was never meant to be carried alone. We are in deep need of more grief tenders who can help bring our hearts back into community—creating spaces where sorrow, outrage, complexity, and tenderness can be met with beauty, dignity, and care.
This introductory training is for those who feel called toward community grief tending and want to begin learning the foundations of grief ritual leadership. Together, we will explore grief ritual as a practice of cultural repair, communal belonging, spiritual relationship, and a compassionate response to the converging crises of our time.
Welcoming all who are:
- Drawn toward holding or already holding grief spaces in your community
- Want to deepen your understanding and practice of communal grief ritual
- Curious about ritual, ancestors, spirit, beauty, song, and communal witnessing
- Interested in ritual design, container building, and the practice of grief ritual leadership
- Open to reflection around gifts, edges, power, lineage, culture, and right relationship
- Enjoy small learning communities and space to tend your own grief with care
What’s Included
10 Live Zoom Trainings
2 Online Grief Rituals
4 Guest Speakers
Course Workbook
Ritual Design Guide
Ritual Toolkit Inventory
Small-Group Learning
Intentionally limited to 16 participants. This is a relational and participatory training rather than a webinar-style course. The small cohort allows space for discussion, personal reflection, practice, questions, and learning alongside the same group over 12 weeks.
Questions?
Please email Siena at: nwgrieftending@gmail.com
“I believe the future of our world depends greatly on the manner in which we handle our grief.” – Sobonfu Some
Your Guides
Siena Tenisci
Lead Facilitator
Siena Tenisci, MA, LMHC, is a therapist and founder of Northwest Grief Tending – a practice dedicated to grief ritual, community healing, and…
Laurence Cole
Guest Speaker
Laurence Cole is a song elder, ritualist, and beloved facilitator whose work helps communities remember the healing power of grieving and singing together….
Thérèse Charvet
Guest Speaker
Thérèse Charvet is the founder of Sacred Groves, where she has offered earth-based ritual, grief work, women’s mysteries, rites of passage, and community…
Alyx Somas
Guest Speaker
Alyx Somas is a 2S Native North American of multiple tribal and detribalized peoples. Rooted in life-honoring ancestral teachings, they walk as a…
Course Schedule
Each live session will weave together ritual practice, teaching, reflection, and group process, including opening and closing elements such as candle lighting, song, poetry, prayer, or reflection. The outline below offers a sense of the themes we will move through together over the 12 weeks.
6
Oct
Week 1 – Orientation to Community Grief Ritual
We’ll begin by opening the circle, meeting one another, and orienting to the rhythm and intentions of the training. Together, we’ll consider why communal grief work matters now, including its role in cultural repair, community building, and responding to the converging crises of our time.
13
Oct
Week 2 – Apprenticeship & Time-Honored Grieving Practices
This session introduces lineage, cultural memory, and the ways communities have tended grief across different times and places. We’ll look more closely at Celtic keening and Dagara grief rituals from West Africa and consider the role of long-term apprenticeship in traditional ritual cultures. We’ll also introduce the Five Gates of Grief.
20
Oct
Week 3 – Ritual Foundations & Ancestral Guidance
What makes something a ritual, and how does a grief ritual differ from a support group? This session considers how ritual practice can arise through relationship rather than imitation or performance. We’ll reflect on ancestors, spirit, land, lineage, culture, and beauty, as well as what it means to carry practices in right relationship.
27
Oct
Week 4 – Container Building w/ Guest Speaker Laurence Cole
With guest elder Laurence Cole, we’ll consider how to create a strong, welcoming, and well-held ritual container. The session will address agreements, reflective listening, beauty, spiritual preparation, and other practical ways of helping people feel witnessed, supported, and invited into communal grief work.
3 Nov
Week 5 – Online Grief & Gratitude Ritual
Community Event
10
Nov
Week 6 – Ritual Design
Drawing on the previous week’s ritual as a case study, we’ll identify the elements that help create a coherent and supportive ritual container. Participants will be introduced to a simple ritual design guide and a range of grief ritual forms, formats, and resources, while listening for the kinds of gatherings they may feel called to hold.
17
Nov
Week 7 – Grief Rituals In Practice
This session will give us space to work more directly with grief ritual forms in response to the interests and questions arising in the group. Depending on what feels most alive, we may focus in on specific topics, explore case examples, practice through role play, or share ritual sketches in small groups for reflection and learning.
24
Nov
Week 8 – Leadership Dimensions
We’ll explore grief ritual leadership as both an inner and outer practice. Through reflection and conversation, participants will consider the gifts they bring, the power they hold, the edges they meet, and how their own presence shapes the ritual container.
1
Dec
Week 9 – Tending Cultural Rupture w/ Guest Speaker Alyx Somas
With guest speaker Alyx Somas, we’ll explore how collective rupture—including disconnection from land, ancestry, culture, and community—shapes the grief we carry. We’ll consider how these show up within the group field and what helps facilitators respond with greater cultural awareness, steadiness, and care.
8
Dec
Week 10 – Elder Circle w/ Guest Speaker Thérèse Charvet
Invited elders, including Thérèse Charvet, will share from their paths of apprenticeship, service, leadership, and becoming. Through conversation, Q&A, and reflection, we’ll listen for what their stories reveal about the long road of grief tending and the gradual process of growing toward elderhood in our own lives and communities.
15
Dec
Week 11 – Integration, QA, & Next Steps
Our closing session will offer a simple ceremony of reflection, gratitude, and integration. Participants will have space to notice what has shifted, where they now stand, and what continued apprenticeship may ask of them. We’ll also consider next steps for practice, support, and carrying the work forward.
22 Dec
Week 12 – Online Winter Solstice Grief Ritual
Participation Optional
What Students are Saying
“Siena held the circle in a way that invited trust—not just among our cohort, but in our own natural gifts and capacities. This circle marked a real threshold for me. Before this experience, I had never led a community ritual—but within this container, I stepped into facilitation in grounded, approachable ways. With Siena’s mentorship and the group’s dynamic perspectives and encouragement, I came to trust that I could hold space for others while staying rooted in my own practice.”
“Participation in Siena’s practice circle provided the framework and support to deepen my relationship with grief-tending and feel more confidence and ease integrating ancestral practices into my personal grieving and my professional services. The group encouraged me to trust my grief-tending gifts and skills, develop “right relationship” with ritual and working with spirit, and has inspired me to continue to learn from elders and connect with community.”
“Siena is a deeply caring and intuitive mentor. She has a gift for holding facilitation in its administrative and soulful needs, and I felt supported, guided, and spacious to explore doing my time in her grief practice group. I am leaving my time in the practice circle wiser, humbler, and inspired.”
Registration Fees
Registration fee includes 24 hours of live facilitation, 2 online community grief rituals, guest teachers and elders, a course workbook, ritual design guide, ritual toolkit guide, and light home practices to support your learning between sessions. The small cohort is designed to allow space for discussion, personal reflection, practice, questions, and learning alongside the same group over 12 weeks. Your tuition helps sustain the preparation, facilitation, administration, and care needed to hold a small-group learning container.
Supported Tier
A reduced rate for those who would experience financial strain paying the full cost of the training. Scholarships are also available for those for whom this remains out of reach.
$425
Sustaining Tier
This rate reflects the direct cost of offering the training, including facilitation, preparation, guest teachers, materials, administration, and the ongoing care required to hold the program well.
$550
Pay-It-Forward Tier
For those who are able to contribute beyond the full cost of their own participation. Your additional contribution directly supports sliding scale and scholarship spots for those otherwise be unable to join.
$675
Scholarship Tier: A limited number of scholarships are available for those who otherwise could not afford to join. To apply for a scholarship, please complete the Scholarship Application Form and await scholarship approval prior to registering.
FAQs
Who is this training for?
This training is for people who feel called toward community grief tending and want to deepen their understanding and practice of grief ritual leadership. It may be a fit if you are holding, or drawn toward holding, circles, rituals, retreats, healing spaces, memorials, classrooms, or community gatherings.
Do I need prior ritual leadership experience?
No. This is an introductory foundations training. You do not need to have led rituals before, though you should come with a willingness to self-reflect, participate in group process, and engage grief with care.
Do I need a particular spiritual belief?
No. Participants may come from many spiritual, religious, cultural, or secular backgrounds. The training will include language around ancestors, land, spirit, prayer, and the more-than-human world, and participants are invited to translate that into their own lived relationship andwhat feels right for them.
Will there be homework between sessions?
Yes, though the homework will be intentionally light. Most weeks will include approximately 20–30 minutes of altar practice, listening, reading, or personal reflection. Participants will also complete a simple ritual design project, with additional optional listening offered for those who wish to go deeper.
Will sessions be recorded?
This training is designed as a live, relational learning experience and is not intended to be taken asynchronously. Because this is a small cohort and includes group process, participants are asked to attend as many sessions live as possible.
Will I be ready to lead grief rituals after this training?
You may leave with language, tools, and a simple ritual design you can continue developing. Some participants may feel ready to begin small practice spaces with appropriate support. Others may leave with clearer next steps for study, mentorship, or participation.
Is this therapy or clinical training?
No. This is not psychotherapy, clinical supervision, or trauma treatment. We will touch on trauma-informed care, consent, scope of practice, and aftercare, but this is not a substitute for clinical training or personal therapy.
What is the refund policy?
Tuition is refundable up to 30 days before the training begins, minus a $50 processing fee. Because this is a small cohort with limited spaces, payments are non-refundable within 30 days of the start date and after the training has begun.
Siena Tenisci
Lead Facilitator
Siena Tenisci, MA, LMHC, is a therapist, and founder of Northwest Grief Tending, a practice dedicated to grief ritual, community healing, and the restoration of communal grief tending. For more than a decade, Siena has facilitated grief rituals and supported others through retreats, consultation circles, individual mentorship, and grief ritual leadership training. Her work is rooted in relationship with her Abruzzese and Celtic ancestral lineages, including the revival of keening traditions, where women held important roles in helping communities metabolize grief through vocal ritual. Siena’s work is shaped by teachers including Sobonfu and Malidoma Somé, Joanna Macy, Thérèse Charvet, Laurence Cole, Francis Weller, Mary Hart, and Vince Horan, and grounded in Internal Family Systems, body-based practice, and anti-oppression frameworks.
Laurence Cole
Guest Speaker
Laurence Cole is a song elder, ritualist, and beloved facilitator from Port Townsend, Washington, whose work helps communities remember the healing power of grieving and singing together. He brings decades of devotion to group singing, grief ritual, and the restoration of belonging through shared voice. Laurence met Thérèse Charvet at a grief retreat held by Sobonfu Somé in 1997, and participated in many rituals with Malidoma and Sobonfu Somé through the 1990s and early 2000s. He joined the Sacred Groves grief retreat team in 2009 and has since traveled widely offering grief rituals, song circles, and communal singing at retreats, conferences, festivals, and community gatherings. Through his songs and facilitation, Laurence helps create spaces where people can soften into grief, reconnect with one another, and remember their natural human capacity for belonging.
Thérèse Charvet
Guest Speaker
Thérèse Charvet is the founder of Sacred Groves, a forest sanctuary on Bainbridge Island she has stewarded for 50 years, where she has offered earth-based ritual, grief work, women’s mysteries, rites of passage, and community gatherings. Her work is rooted in decades of ceremony, midwifery, Buddhist practice, land-based spirituality, and relationship with the more-than-human world. Thérèse attended many ceremonies with her mentor, the late Sobonfu Somé, throughout the 1990s and 2000s, and began offering grief rituals with Sobonfu’s blessing in 2002. After six years as the director of the Grief Tender Mentorship Program, Thérèse is now stepping into the role of Guiding Elder, offering wisdom, ritual leadership, and spiritual grounding while supporting the program’s next stage of stewardship.
Alyx Somas
Guest Speaker