A Thousand Mothers Collecting the Bones Performance Ritual

Through a performance piece featuring theater, poetry, storytelling, and music, Phoenix Song and Monique Miyake share their grief and healing journey after the loss of their seventeen-year-old son to suicide. Experience how they navigated the unimaginable to create this inspiring show as an offering of deep love, healing, and a community grief and praise ritual that allows us all to grieve more deeply and come into our shared humanity.

This performance is for anyone carrying personal or collective loss. It invites us into a shared space of witnessing, where one story can hold the stories of many. As grief is expressed and honored, it can begin to move—within us and between us—opening the possibility of integration, meaning, and renewal. This inspiring and brave story helps us experience the power of grieving together in community and how it leads to deep healing and transformation for everyone.

July 25: 730pm La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley

$25 in advance, $35 at the door. Discounted tickets available for those in financial need. Contact phoenixsongmusic@gmail.com for the code. This show sold out last time, so please buy tickets early.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/a-thousand-mothers-collecting-the-bones-tickets-1989618442320

A Q&A talkback will follow along with an artist's reception of Monique's original artwork and prints. 10% of sales will be donated to the Trevor Project.

Complete awe for the ways that Monique and Phoenix make visible, audible, and tangible dimensions of grief from the far reaches of the heart's galaxy. This is sacred medicine distilled and circulated. I am overcome by their profound gift of sharing their astounding selves, navigating the unbearable. This collective experience left me rearranged. -- Zara Zimbardo, Partners for Collaborative Change

Monique and Phoenix's co-creation in this show was incredible. Through their music, words, and performance, they traversed the domain of bone-deep grief with poignancy and honesty, and showed us what it could look like to transform some of the worst suffering imaginable -- from the brink to the breakthrough. I am moved far beyond what words can capture, and I hope this offering will travel far and wide to more audiences. May its healing gift reverberate everywhere it is needed right now. -- Shilpa Jain, facilitator, community-builder, conflict transformer

Monique is a multidisciplinary artist, performer, ritualist, end-of-life doula, hospice RN, and bereaved mother. She holds a Master of Divinity from Harvard University, and is a Reiki master and chaplain trained in Clinical Pastoral Education at UCSF. Monique is a certified Compassionate Bereavement Care Provider and HOPE Mentor through the MISS Foundation. https://www.moniquemiyake.com

Phoenix Song is a queer, nonbinary Korean American adoptee performer, writer, teacher, and healer featured in SF Magazine's Best of the Bay. phoenixsongmusic.com