"I believed I wanted to be a poet, but deep down, I just wanted to be a poem."
-Jaime Gil de Biedma
Grief Ritual Training Self-Study Course Now Available!
We’re honored to offer Entering the Healing Ground: Grief Ritual Leadership Training once again, now as an online, self-paced course. This program is adapted from our live five-month immersive training, exploring obstacles to grief, working with deep emotional states, dimensions of leadership, the art of vesseling, and the architecture of ritual. Past participants described this course as, “deeply medicinal and life changing” and, “the deepest, most soulful training I have encountered.”
Our curriculum is crafted to expand your heart’s capacity for the troubles of these times and equip you with the skills to lead grief rituals in your community. Join us in the healing ground where we’ll remember and revision practices for communal repair. For more information and to enroll, visit the course landing page at: https://enteringthehealingground.thinkific.com/courses/GriefRitualTraining.
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I had the privilege of joining Anderson Cooper for a second conversation about grief and loss. This one was more focused on his journey with sorrow and how finding ways to hold loss in the arms of the adult is crucial to keeping it moving. Here is a portion of the write-up from Anderson for the podcast: |
The grief which I buried as a child and ran from most of my life, has risen and I can't run from it anymore. I need help. I've rarely said those words to anyone, but I wrote them several months ago to my guest on the podcast today, Francis Weller. We've been talking by Zoom once a week ever since. He's helped me start to turn toward my grief, to try and touch it. And perhaps even more importantly, he's helped me begin to see the strategies I've used since I was a kid to keep it and all kinds of feelings buried. These strategies, which I use still every hour of every day, they helped me as a child and as a young adult, but they aren't helping me any longer. They're hurting me and I need to figure out a new way to live. This is a particularly personal episode of All There Is. So wherever you are in your grief, I'm glad you're here. I'm glad we're together. Francis Weller is a psychotherapist and author. His book, "The Wild Edge of Sorrow Rituals of Renewal in the Sacred Work of Grief," was sent to me by a podcast listener named Cynthia. And if you're listening, Cynthia, thank you. It's one of the best books on grief I've ever read.
I’m delighted to share a podcast interview with you on “Grieving in Community.” In this episode, I was interviewed by Thomas Hübl for his podcast - Point of Relation. Here are some of the themes we explored together:
Tune in to Point of Relation to hear more about slowing down to engage in communal practices so that we can face these dark times with the courage and creativity needed to step into a radically new world.
- How a structured grief ritual creates a supportive space where grief can be honored, held, and digested.
- The “village mind” that invites us to let go of our individualistic notions about healing, reminds us of our interconnectedness, and opens us to transmissions from our ancestors
- Seeing our collective crises as an initiation and grief as a reminder of the depth of our love.
- How the grief from generational trauma is still migrating and affecting our lives
- Working with the trans-generational transmission of trauma, but also the trans-generational transmission of courage, resilience, and love
- How the soul is drawn to ritual, beauty, imagination, and creativity
Tune in to Point of Relation to hear more about slowing down to engage in communal practices so that we can face these dark times with the courage and creativity needed to step into a radically new world.
I was honored to be the first guest for Season Two of All There Is with Anderson Cooper. We spoke about many matters close to the soul. I hope you find the conversation supportive of your own encounters with sorrow and loss. Here is the write-up for the episode:
Grief doesn’t just go away, no matter how hard we may want it to. So how can we live with it and learn from it? These are the questions Anderson Cooper struggles to answer after the first season of All There Is ends. Anderson spends months playing more than 1000 unheard voicemail messages about grief from podcast listeners, and once again finds himself in his basement surrounded by boxes, full of letters, photos and objects that belonged to his late father, mother, and brother. He also talks with psychotherapist and author Francis Weller, whose book “The Wild Edge of Sorrow” gives him hope.
Click on the image for the link to the podcast.
A live recording from a recent SAND Community Gathers hosted by Zaya and Maurizio Benazzo (co-founders of SAND*). Along with their guest, Francis Weller, they explore themes of emptiness, individualism, self-help, separation, religion, belonging, relationality, and Francis’s deep work with grief.
Click on the image to listen to this provocative conversation.
*SAND: Science and Nonduality
Join host Ned Buskirk in conversation with psychotherapist, writer, & soul activist Francis Weller, talking about the saturation of sorrow we’re faced with in these times - & how we might trust, befriend, & accompany our grief with slow encounters, to return with medicine for our community, as we more wholly & fully renter LIFE.
Click on the image to listen to the podcast.
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/yergoing2die/ with @yergoing2die
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/yergoingtodie/ with @yergoingtodie
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Francis explores the territory of the Long Dark with Michael Shaw, host of Living in a Time of Dying. A deeply intimate and moving conversation. Recently, Francis was invited to present a talk at the C.G. Jung Institute in San Francisco. It was a rich exploration on "An Apprenticeship with Sorrow: Tending the Losses of Everyday Life." |
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Hear psychotherapist and author Francis Weller, discuss the communal nature of grief, the expressive virtue of anger, false happiness, and the two hands of grief and gratitude. Interview recorded at the 2013 Minnesota Men's Conference. |
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A rich and varied conversation between Michael Lerner, founder and director of Commonweal and Francis Weller, exploring the Long Dark that is emerging in our culture and the planet. Recorded November 12, 2021 |
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An exquisite video combining scenes from the film, "The New World" and passages from Francis' book, The Wild Edge of Sorrow. Produced by Tom van der Linden, of "Like Stories of Old." |
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