Grief Medicine: A Community Healing Ritual

Whether your grief is surviving the loss of a loved one, a relationship breakup, or witnessing the sorrow and injustice of social and planetary calamities, this event was created just for you. This ritual will support you in acknowledging, accepting, and attending to whatever has brought your heart to the place of being broken. We live in a world context where grief has no place to go, which leads us to contraction in our bodies and spirits and can bring about psychological, spiritual, and physical imbalances.

In a safe space held by expert facilitators, we are given the opportunity to fully allow our grief, in all its forms, to move through us and awaken us to our own aliveness and compassion -- the very medicine we need, personally and planetary. As we shift out of the current cultural paradigm of repression and denial of grief, towards the new vision of gathering together to grieve our losses fully, we heal our hearts individually and collectively.

Together we will open the circle with a group sharing ritual and dip into a sound bath with gentle and restorative yoga, breath work, and movement. We will then break out into individual creative expression processes followed by sharing and witnessing others. Sound, movement, and expressive arts processes help us release grief, heal, and create beauty and meaning together. As we gather in this beautiful community ritual, we find a sense of belonging in our shared grief, helping us to metabolize our losses and transmute them into a gift for our own hearts and for the broken heart of the world.

Please bring a journal, something to write with, and an object of significance for the grief altar. Wear comfortable clothing that is easy to move in.

About the Facilitators:

Amy Hyun Swart is a licensed psychotherapist, group facilitator, writer, children's book illustrator, and meditation and yoga instructor. She believes in the healing power of nature and connecting to the creative, spiritual, relational, and emotional wisdom that dwells within each of us. Alongside 10 years of working in the field of psychology, her personal experience of grief and loss at an early age, and unique multi-modal approach to grief therapy, Amy's offerings have become a great resource in the grief community of San Francisco . Learn more at www.amyswart.com.

Amber Field is a Tamalpa Associate Teacher of Expressive Arts, singer, and sound healer featured in SF Magazine's Best of the Bay for yoga music. They have performed and taught at SF Jazz, Hollyhock, Esalen, and more. Amber is a talented expressive arts facilitator who leads groups in ancestral healing, vocal transformation, and diversity and solidarity work for the past 10 years. Learn more at www.amberfieldmusic.com