Exploring the 6th Gate of Grief: The Harms We've Caused
In this one hour online workshop we will explore the tender terrain of impact, regret, guilt, and harm. We will talk about harm we’ve caused personally and collectively, and how to process our resulting grief so that we have the capacity to cultivate deep, equitable relationships with other people and the planet. We will start by briefly laying out the Five Gates of Grief as articulated in Francis Weller’s book “The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief.” We will then add and explore a Sixth Gate of Grief (first articulated by Rachael Rice): the harms we’ve done (or are doing). This exploration will include personal harms we’ve caused, to ourselves and others, as well as collective harms we’re complicit in, such as racism, patriarchy, ecocide, and inequity. We will include a short somatic practice and writing exercise as part of this gathering.
Event Facilitators:
Desiree Coutinho (she/her) is a spoken word poet, activist, and community organizer. Desiree is currently working with the Ashland BIPOC Sanctuary to hold POC led grief rituals. Desiree is finishing a Masters of Social Work Program through Portland State University, focusing on collapse psychology and radical social work futures.
Holly Truhlar (she/they) blends her Doctorate in Law and Masters in Transpersonal Counseling Psychology to guide people and organizations from dominating ways of being into attuned relationships. She lives and works in the threshold of collective grief and trauma, conscious collapse, and social justice. She’s most interested in social technologies, such as ritual and Deep Democracy work, that foster large-scale trauma resolution and collective nervous system regulation.
