"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.
New Podcast with Tami Simon, Insights at the Edge
I had the pleasure of being interview by Tami Simon from Sounds True. It was an engaging conversation, meandering through rich soul terrain. Here is the description from the website:
Right now, we may be surrounded by grief, anxiety, fear, and uncertainty. But we don’t have to drown in our sorrows or deny the painful realities of these trying times. In this podcast, join Tami Simon in dialogue with psychotherapist, bestselling author, and “soul activist” Francis Weller to explore a new and empowering approach to grief—one that is essential for both our personal well-being and our capacity to be of service to others.
Listen now to a much-needed conversation about the attitudes and skills involved in “an apprenticeship with grief,” including: how grief softens and opens the heart; metabolizing grief, and the choice to engage instead of endure; how to “offer a bottom” to your grief to mitigate feelings of anxiety or panic; the energy of melancholy; relinquishing our culture’s heroic ideal; containment and release—the two requirements of grief; navigating “the long dark” of our times; getting into “village mind” and embracing a communal approach to grief; breaking the pattern of denial; how grief work brings you more fully into the present moment; waking up from “the amnesia and the anesthesia”; being an adult in your relationship to grief; simple rituals you can explore to engage grief with deeper intention and meaning; attuning to the rhythm of “the archaic psyche”; our soul responsibility—to register the losses of the world; ancestral grief; patience; the elements of soulful living; the invocation of courage and faith; and more.
Click on the image to be taken to the podcast.
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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.
To listen the first interview between Anderson and Francis, click here.
To listen the first interview between Anderson and Francis, click here.
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.
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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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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