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Practice Grief Not Grievance

  • Salt Spring, Golden Tree Farm Golden Tree Farm, 150 Suffolk Road Salt Spring Island Salt Spring, BC Canada (map)

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Tuition: $160 | $130 early bird Oct 19th (GST added at checkout) 
Seats are non-refundable but transferable to another person
Workshop Times: Saturday 10am-4pm
Venue: Golden Tree Farm, 150 Suffolk Road Salt Spring Island

OUR TIME TOGETHER

People generally need little persuasion to sign up for workshops teaching happiness where the subtle message is to derail and make one impervious to grief or at the very least able to recover quickly from it. Few make the case for developing some skillfulness around grief and inviting this often unwelcome guest to take a seat at the head of the table. If I've got your attention, please read on and come to the feast table ..

In a world so caught up in the business of coming out ahead on life's great balance sheet, we are frequently called to bear witness to the fact that our present day society leaves little room for mourning when mourning is clearly called for. We have become grief inarticulate and experts at grievance. Our capacity to weather the tragedies and sorrows of life is painfully thin and in and of itself tragic and sorrowful.

Grief by Jan Clayman

A person's ability to navigate the terrain of grief is exactly that .. an "ability" .. something that must be learned throughout one's life. "Grief is a skill". Those are the wise words of author Stephen Jenkinson and subject of the film Griefwalker. Grief is also mysterious; in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s book The Little Prince, the author writes, “What makes the desert beautiful, is that somewhere it hides a well…” He later says, “It is such a mysterious place, the land of tears.” This land of tears is enormously rich and fertile, especially when we come together with others who are feeling the weight of their own grief bundles and who know something of the valley of aches and tears, whether by virtue of having been there or merely having heard rumours of such a place.

This gathering is for those who are disillusioned with grievance and have felt the compelling draw to venture into the rich terrain of grief and soulfulness. Here we will wrestle with letting life's big and small endings have their way with us. We will make a place for hardship and limitation so that we might become persons of depth as well as persons who can hold out a steadying arm to others facing endings and limitations of their own. By learning grief, the meaning of our lives becomes bound to vital forces beyond our distorted expectations and the periphery of our own self.


TOPICS

• Failure to grieve
• The broken heart is not brokenness
• The language of grief
• Myth, metaphor, poetry, speech


WHAT YOU WILL NEED

• Something to write with
• A small treasured object
• A favourite piece of writing, poem or song that speaks to you

Regarded for nearly 20 years for her work in helping people speak and relate with greater depth, honesty and authenticity, Rachelle has been a scholar of Stephen Jenkinson's (Griefwalker) Orphan Wisdom School in Deacon Ontario for the past 8 years.

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Hear psychotherapist and author Francis Weller, MFT discuss the communal nature of grief, the expressive virtue of anger, false happiness, and the two hands of grief and gratitude. 

Earlier Event: June 19
Speaking A Language of Life
Later Event: October 13
Speak A Language Of Life