in the past 5 years, we have suffered a great amount of unresolved loss and mass death. The Covid-19 pandemic, systemically unacknowledged and now unsupported, has killed millions and disabled millions more. brushed under the rug by the government and societally, pretending that deaths didn’t happen, giving us no collective place to grieve. the Palestinian genocide, in its next moment of unfoldment, and the hundreds of thousands of deaths we have either had personal connection to, or have watched unfold across our screens. the way that the Palestinian genocide highlighted other ongoing and severe genocides in the Congo, Sudan, Haiti, Tigray, and other locations.

The weight of the collection of these events on their own is unbearable.

Not to mention our own personal griefs and losses both connected and unconnected to these events. All the things we have lost, without a place to acknowledge them, tend them, grieve together.

The Collective Funeral is a somatic deathwork rite and half-day retreat intended to offer a place to process grief collectively + have a communal funeral rite service to honor what we have lost. The Collective Funeral is an explicitly mad and disabled centered + led space. we will have time to journal, reflect, connect, and share together, before we come together and express our grief. each participant will also receive an herbal remedy flower tincture for grief to support them in integration pre, during, and post-funeral rite, provided by my friend and colleague Avey from Wolfberry Apothecary.

With openness to access needs, the funeral space itself is intended to be an intercept in the “civilized” “quiet” and “hidden” ways that white supremacy forces us to tend to grief. Therefore, we will hold space for loud, colorful, expansive expression of grief. Wailing, crying, painting, drawing, dancing, moving, screaming, all will be encouraged and allowed.

Grief needs a voice. a song. a dance. Grief needs a web. Grief needs movement. Grief is like salt held in water. grief needs us to witness it. together.

come grieve together.

During this half-day retreat, we will:

open the crypt: excavate our losses and know them by name (somatic writing practice to explore what griefs we hold)

prepare the body: explore how grief lives in (our) collective body (body-based practice to move with grief, share our losses with one another, to be known in them together)

hold The Collective Funeral: embody the bainsidhe, the mad, the wailing, the grief that expresses, paint, scream, wail

toss dirt on the grave: integrate and bless what has left (writing practice, conversation to name what we take with us)

when: December 1st, 2024, 9AM MST - 1PM MST

via: Jitsi or other non-AI utilizing video platform

cost: $129 ($125 + $4 to cover taxes + fees)

payment plans available.

2 sliding scale spots at $30 will be offered for people of the global majority and disabled working class trans folks. Please message me via my contact form to receive the discount code (first come first serve). as capacity and sign ups allow, i will open more slots.

(ps. you are also more than welcome + encouraged if you have the capacity, to support a spot for someone else! please message me if you’d like to support)

access notes: as with any space I hold, your access needs are invited + encouraged in the space. you may attend from bed, sitting on the floor, standing, camera off or on (though I do ask as one of my own access needs that some people leave their cameras on if they are willing, or come on camera intermittently). captions are provided, and if ASL or Spanish translation is needed, please reach out to me via my contact form within 14 days prior so I can secure a translator.

as a cw: this event is intended to hold space for large emotions + will have loud noises. you are welcome to mute your own speakers if you need, or if large movements are an access issue for you, you are always welcome to turn off your screen or turn away from the camera.

lineage: this space is held within my lineages of griefwork with Antonio Sausys in 2017, my own longtime embodied practice with and exploration with grief over the past 17 years, ritual practice with Amber Naali Katz, Malidome Patrice Somé’s work Ritual, and the tradition of Scottish funeral rites and bhean si/bain sidhe of my Scottish and Irish lineages, who keened and wailed at funerals.