A Ritual for Family and Ancestral Grief - Working with Francis Weller’s Fifth Gate of Grief
with Sheila Kappeler-Finn

A full-day, in-person, facilitated workshop designed to welcome participants to the embodied and communal work of grief ritual.

As we approach the holiday season in the United States, many of us begin to feel escalating tension our bodies, as we anticipate potentially heated and polarizing conversations at family gatherings. Where we should look forward to the emotional sanctuary and unconditional love of close family, some of us find ideological battlefields bereft of acceptance and belonging. 

This helix of present-day divisiveness, entwined with the un-metabolized sorrows of past generations, reproduces an animal body 

either primed for battle or crushed into a numb pulp. Neither state is conducive to tender connection.

I invite you to a full-day grief retreat and ritual where we will unburden our hearts of the distress we carry for the schisms in our families and unresolved sorrows of our ancestors.

Grief is an integral part of life that requires our attention if we want to be fully available to her sisters: Praise and Gratitude. In Western culture, however, we have suppressed the art of how to share our grief in community. There are very few spaces where we are invited to fully experience and express complex grief in the presence of others. This full-day retreat will focus on Francis Weller’s Fifth Gate of Grief: Ancestral Grief, which he describes as “the grief we carry in our bodies from sorrows experienced by our ancestors. . . . Tending this undigested grief of our ancestors not only frees us to live our own lives but also eases ancestral suffering in the other world.”

We will use the ancient technology of group council as well as modern writing and smaller group practices to connect participants to their experiences of familial and ancestral grief. Our time together will culminate in a simple, but powerful communal grief ritual, in which we will witness and support each other as we move into the shared experience and expression of our familial and ancestral grief. 

We will 

• establish foundational group agreements to form a stable base of kindness and group safety
• identify restorative agreements to facilitate group repair
• gradually and gently build a community container that invites everyone to drop more deeply into their hearts, which can help to metabolize distress and give the intellect a break

Practices you will be invited to take part in

• community council where we practice deep listening and receive witness
• writing, inquiry and small group work to share our stories
• guided meditation and embodiment practices that will help you to gather your energy and attention in present time, to bear witness your inner states, and to gain discernment about your own information
• all participation is invitational; nothing is required beyond being present with and sharing the grief you carry, to the best of your ability

What to bring

• A journal and pens or markers
• Comfortable clothing

On grief

If you have suffered an event in the past six months that has triggered acute grief for you, please reach out to see if this workshop is a good fit. People in early stages of acute grief may need a different pacing than this workshop offers.

ABOUT SHEILA

Sheila brings a synthesis of experiences to community space holding: a 25-year meditation practice, 20 years of Non-Violent Communication (NVC) study and practice, NVC complex facilitation, NVC multi-year mediation intensive study, a decade-long apprenticeship (with a focus on ethical and respectful cultural practice) in medicine work, and grief tending and apprenticeship in the lineage of the West African Dagara tribe as brought to the U.S. and shared by Malidoma and Sobonfu Somé. The Somé’s collaborations with Francis Weller (author of The Wild Edge of Sorrow) helped to mold these community rituals and practices to meet the needs of grief carriers in the West, where grief practice is almost exclusively privatized.

From decades of depth work in group contexts, she has witnessed and experienced the power of healing in safe, well-designed community containers where people feel free to drop into their hearts. Sheila has the capacity to meet people in their depths, welcoming heartfelt and authentic participation.

“The work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and to be stretched large by them. How much sorrow can I hold? That’s how much gratitude I can give. If I carry only grief, I’ll bend toward cynicism and despair. If I have only gratitude, I’ll become saccharine and won’t develop much compassion for other people’s suffering. Grief keeps the heart fluid and soft, which helps make compassion possible.”

-Francis Weller