REGISTRATION IS CLOSED

Dear Friends.

We sadly announce, that the registration is closed for this course. The program filled in a matter of hours. We apologize to all of you who wished to participate. We know the need for places to acknowledge our grief is intense in these times. We hope to offer other ways to support our wider community in the future. Till then, blessings, Francis

This course is limited to 175 participants. t

Cultivating an Apprenticeship with Sorrow

Grief and loss touch us all, arriving at our door in many ways. It comes swirling on the winds of divorce, or the death of someone dear, as an illness that alters the course of a life. For many of us, our grief is tied intimately to the ravages we witness daily to watersheds, forests and the disappearance of species, the silencing of languages and the coarsening of culture. And yet our encounters with sorrow are often met with confusion, fear and overwhelm. We are uncertain how to meet this difficult guest when it surfaces in our lives. 

This Four-week course is designed to inaugurate an Apprenticeship with Sorrow. It is through the rites of grief that we are, in turn, ripened as human beings. Grief invites gravity and depth into our world. Our work is to understand grief not only as an emotion, but also a core faculty of being human, a profound capacity to metabolize sorrow into something nutrient dense for the community. This apprenticeship is, at heart, about the crafting of elders capable of meeting the pain and suffering of the world with a dignified and robust bearing. This is soul activism intended to foster deep cultural change. 

Cultivating the skills of grief work is critical in these days of wild uncertainty and rampant loss. While the pandemic has quickened our awareness of the fragile threads that hold a culture together, it is only one of the pending threats that we must come to face. Social issues such as systemic racism and economic disparity, global concerns around climate catastrophe, all weigh on us, requiring a strong and urgent response. We need to fortify our inner and outer connections to not only weather the storms but to be tempered by them.
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During our time together, we will explore the soul’s relationship to grief; how grief shared deepens our capacity for compassion and eases the congested sorrows that cloud our hearts. We will work with the dimensions of our apprenticeship and develop ways to bring a seasoned attention to the layers of grief in our lives. During this intensive course, we will be invited to honor the ashes of our losses and remember that “where there is sorrow, there is holy ground.” We do this work not solely for our own healing, but also to make us capable of responding to the critical needs of our times. Utilizing the potent tools of inquiry, writing practice, imagination, and ritual, we will deepen our trust in our emotional and bodily wisdom, and build a community of concerned hearts that will help us bring forth our stories of love and loss into the visible world.


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Week 1. An Apprenticeship with Sorrow
Week 2. Rough Initiations: Radical change in Uncertain Times
Week 3. Medicine for the Long Dark: Disciplines for the Underworld Journey
Week 4. It All Turns on Affection: Keeping the Heart Open​

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"Where there is sorrow, there is holy ground."
​                             -Oscar Wilde

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We will meet on four Saturdays, for a three hour Zoom session, beginning on October 3rd. Each meeting will offer teachings, small group work, including writing practice, imaginal work, Q and A with Francis, and more.

You will also receive practices to work with between sessions.