The Whole World in Our Hands
Connecting to Collective Grief — November 2024
Collective grief is a response to tragedy among cultural groups, communities, towns, nations, and global citizens. War, terror, racism, natural disaster, the pandemic, environmental injustice, and mass shootings adversely affect all of us directly or indirectly via news and social media.
What is unique about collective grief compared to individual grief?
- How are shared grief experiences different for communities who experience them vicariously vs. those who live through them first hand?
- How are contemporary tragedies compounded by transgenerational or ancestral suffering stemming from historical events?
- Are there opportunities for comfort and connection when renowned leaders, public figures, or celebrities die? What are the benefits of mourning in public with others around the world who also have an affinity for that individual?
- How do we resist emotional numbing when collective tragedies occur again and again?
- How do we remain hopeful?
In this three-part series, mental health professionals, spiritual leaders, healers, activists, and advocates will explore how creative expression, acts of service, and spirituality can help us navigate a pathway forward.
Upcoming Events
How do creativity, curiosity, spirituality, and mindfulness help us process collective grief? How does the pursuit of justice, acts of service, and advocacy guide us on a pathway towards growth and wisdom as we confront shared loss? As an introduction to the topic of collective grief, this panel discussion weaves the connective threads across shared trauma and grief, such as gun violence, genocide, war, and natural disaster. And we encourage our guest speakers to get personal--to share their own experiences of collective grief, whether direct, vicarious, and/or ancestral.
Guests include Jha D Amazi, leader of the Public Memory and Memorials Lab at MASS Design Group; Luis Gallardo, a former international observer in post-conflict countries and founder of the World Happiness Foundation; and Elizabeth Miller, Project Director at at September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. Dr. Edith Shiro, noted clinical psychologist with expertise in post-traumatic growth, facilitates the conversation.
Jha D Amazi believes that the narratives upheld in our public realm should be expanded to represent, honor, and celebrate the experiences, histories, and cultures of people who have been historically denied representation in our memorial landscape. As a Principal at MASS Design Group, Jha D leads the Public Memory and Memorials Lab, engaging communities to design projects such as the Franklin Park Action Plan (Boston, MA), the Emmett Till & Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument Project (Tallahatchie County, MS and Chicago, IL), the Gun Violence Memorial Project (Chicago, IL, and Washington D.C.), and the Sugar Land 95 Cemetery Revitalization Project (Sugar Land, TX).
Beyond her contributions at MASS, Jha D is a spoken word artist, event producer, and self-proclaimed SpaceMaker for the LGBTQ+ communities of color. In 2023, she was appointed to the Governor’s Advisory Council on Black Empowerment by Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey.
Jha D graduated with honors from Northeastern University (B.S. Arch) and the University of Pennsylvania (M. Arch I). Prior to joining MASS, she worked as a Designer at Sasaki and taught studio at the Boston Architectural College.
https://www.gunviolencememorialproject.org/
Dr. Edith Shiro holds space for patients, communities, and individuals to achieve greater potential and higher consciousness. Dr. Shiro's influence extends well beyond her private practice. She frequently engages as a guest expert on national media broadcasts and publications, including TIME magazine, Oprah Daily, and Billboard. Her groundbreaking book, The Unexpected Gift of Trauma: The Path to Posttraumatic Growth, has garnered significant recognition, earning her the Innovation Award in Science in 2022, the International Latino Book Awards in 2023, and both the International Impact Book Awards and Book Excellence Awards in 2024. Through her writing, speaking engagements, and media appearances, Dr. Shiro continues to contribute meaningfully to the discourse on mental health, individual and collective trauma.
Dr. Shiro has developed a model for developing coping skills and resilience to achieve post-traumatic growth. It is based on her extensive research in Cambodian, Latin American, and refugee populations, including Holocaust survivors. This unique five-stage process picks up where other trauma programs stop. Awareness, Awakening, Becoming, Being, and Transforming—provide a universal language and outline how trauma can catalyze transformative growth. She is the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors and Syrian refugees, grew up as a Jewish woman in Venezuela, and lived as a Latina immigrant studying and working in the United States.
Luis Gallardo is Founder & President of the World Happiness Foundation and World Happiness Fest. Author of Happytalism and The Exponentials of Happiness. Director of the Gross Global Happiness program at the United Nations University for Peace. Luis is a social innovator and entrepreneur with the higher purpose of elevating the vibration of the planet by developing ideas, connecting thought leaders, activists and communities and increasing awareness on the science of happiness, holistic education and smart innovation. Luis has been an international observer with the UN and OSCE in post-armed conflicts establishing democracy and the right to vote.
For Luis, happiness is a human right and a life choice, an enabler of human development and social innovation. That’s why he is committed to creating, with initiatives such as bē and the World Happiness Foundation and World Happiness Fest, spaces for academics, activists, social innovators, scientists, governmental leaders, institutions and leaders, in general, to share and learn, to feel, understand and act towards a happier world and thriving societies.
Luis runs a private practice as a Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist, Professional Mental Health Coach and Master NLP and Chief Well-Being Officer Program Trainer.
Elizabeth L. Miller is the Project Director for September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, a nonprofit family member group committed to turning their grief into actions and advocacy for peace. Elizabeth's father, FF Douglas C. Miller, lost his life on during the attacks at the World Trade Center.
Elizabeth earned her BA in History and Arabic Studies at Bloomsburg University in 2017. In 2020, she graduated with an MA in Middle Eastern Studies from the CUNY Graduate Center in New York. Her research areas are focused on the complexities of women’s involvement in terrorism, and examinations of human rights abuses in the post-9/11 world, specifically surrounding the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center. Elizabeth previously served as council person in her city, Port Jervis, NY. She also serves on the Port Jervis Free Library Board, the Cornerstone Family Healthcare Board, and the Victory Hill Therapeutic Horsemanship Board.
https://www.peacefultomorrows.org/
About the Series “The Whole World in Our Hands”
Collective grief is a response to tragedy among cultural groups, communities, towns, nations, and global citizens. War, terror, racism, natural disaster, the pandemic, environmental injustice, and mass shootings adversely affect all of us directly or indirectly via news and social media. In these times of trouble, let’s examine shared experiences of grief through listening, learning, mindfulness, and activation.
About Reimagine
Reimagine is a nonprofit organization catalyzing a uniquely powerful community–people of different backgrounds, ages, races, and faiths (and no faith) coming together to create a more compassionate world. We support each other in facing adversity, loss, and mortality and channeling life's biggest challenges into meaningful action and growth.
Type:
Talk, Panel, & Conversation,
As part of bee folklore, there was a practice that involved bees being told of significant life events—births, marriages, deaths, and other life transitions. It is believed that this practice of telling the bees is connected with bees being psychopomps, beings who could guide souls to the afterlife and other realms. This tradition uplifts the importance of ceremony, storytelling, and ritual as it relates to engaging with the bees and natural world to support us in our mourning and grief process. In this offering, Michelle Cassandra Johnson guides you through the process and practice of telling the bees about your heartache and how you are acknowledging, honoring, digesting, and metabolizing the sorrows in the world. Using meditation to connect with a honeybee hive, Michelle invites you to share what is in your heart with them, and listen to what the honeybee might have to offer in response to you and the sorrows you are present with. This experience will include meditation, presencing ourselves to our individual and collective grief, humming, some movement, and discussion.
Purchase two of Michelle's books, Finding Refuge and We Heal Together, from Shambhala Publications and receive 30% off. Enter REIMAGINEMCJ at checkout. The code is activated and valid through December 20.
Michelle Cassandra Johnson is an author, activist, spiritual teacher and practitioner, racial equity consultant and trainer, and intuitive healer. She approaches her life and work from a place of knowing we are, can, and must heal individually and collectively. Michelle teaches workshops and immersions and leads retreats and transformative experiences nationwide. As a dismantling racism educator, she has worked with large corporations, non-profits, and community groups. Michelle published the first edition of Skill in Action: Radicalizing Your Yoga Practice to Create a Just World in 2017; and the 2nd edition of Skill in Action in November 2021, published by Shambhala Publications. Her second book, Finding Refuge: Heart Work for Healing Collective Grief, was published by Shambhala Publications in 2021. Her newest book, We Heal Together: Rituals and Practice for Building Community and Connection, published by Shambhala Publications, explores the deep knowing and truth that we are interconnected; we belong to one another. We Heal Together offers rituals and practices meant to dream us into a new way of being to benefit the highest and fullest good. A Space For Us: A Guide For Leading Black, Indigenous, and People of Color Affinity Groups, was published by Beacon Press in August 2023. Michelle's latest book, Illuminating Our True Nature: Yogic Practices for Personal and Collective Healing, explores the root causes of suffering, how to disrupt them, and work toward collective liberation.
Michelle was a Tedx speaker at Wake Forest University in 2019 and has been interviewed on several podcasts in which she explores the premise and foundation of Skill in Action, along with embodied approaches to racial equity work, creating ritual in justice spaces, our divine connection with nature and Spirit, and how we as a culture can heal.
Michelle leads courageously from the heart with compassion and a commitment to address the heartbreak dominant culture causes for many because of the harm it creates. She inspires change that allows people to stand in their humanity and wholeness in a world that fragments most of us. She lives in North Carolina with her sweet dog, Jasper, and her honeybees.
https://www.michellecjohnson.com/
About the Series “The Whole World in Our Hands”
Collective grief is a response to tragedy among cultural groups, communities, towns, nations, and global citizens. War, terror, racism, natural disaster, the pandemic, environmental injustice, and mass shootings adversely affect all of us directly or indirectly via news and social media. In these times of trouble, let’s examine shared experiences of grief through listening, learning, mindfulness, and activation.
About Reimagine
Reimagine is a nonprofit organization catalyzing a uniquely powerful community–people of different backgrounds, ages, races, and faiths (and no faith) coming together to create a more compassionate world. We support each other in facing adversity, loss, and mortality and channeling life's biggest challenges into meaningful action and growth.
Type:
Ritual & Ceremony, Workshop,
For those struggling with collective grief, join a conversation with Jungian psychotherapist and scholar Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, PHD and Buddhist minister and teacher Lama Rod Owens. Both leaders will offer guidance in taking steps – both large and small – towards wisdom, spiritual growth, and action when faced with the troubles we collectively experience in the present and inherit from the past.
Following a discussion, we invite you to join small peer-led breakout room sessions guided by the following prompts:
- What insights have you gained by struggling with the grief of catastrophic events both locally and globally or ancestral trauma? Can you name at least one new opportunity for change or see one new pathway that has cleared?
- What roles can spiritual or mindfulness practice, service, advocacy, or activism play in your journey towards wholeness?
Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, PhD, is an author, Jungian psychotherapist, and spiritual leader in the international Jewish Renewal Movement, and a renowned Jewish scholar and teacher. She was ordained by Reb Zalman in 1992 and is widely known for her groundbreaking work on Kabbalah, depth psychology, intergenerational trauma healing, and the re-integration of the feminine wisdom tradition within Judaism. Rabbi Tirzah lectures and teaches nationally about spiritual and ancient wisdom practices that are honed to assist us at this critical time in world history. Wounds into Wisdom: Healing Intergenerational Jewish Trauma (Monkfish, 2019) is the recipient of the 2020 Nautilus Book Award Gold in Psychology and the Jewish Women's Caucus of the Association for Women in Psychology 2020 book award.
Lama Rod Owens is a Black Buddhist Southern Queen. An international influencer with a Master of Divinity degree in Buddhist Studies from Harvard Divinity School. Author of The New Saints: From Broken Hearts to Spiritual Warriors and Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation through Anger, and co-author of Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love and Liberation, his teachings center on freedom, self-expression, and radical self-care. A leading voice in a new generation of Buddhist teachers with over 11 years of experience, Lama Rod activates the intersections of his identity to create a platform that’s very natural, engaging, and inclusive. Applauded for his mastery in balancing weighty topics with a sense of lightness, the Queen has been featured by various national and international news outlets. Highly sought after for talks, retreats, and workshops, his mission is showing you how to heal and free yourself.
About the Series “The Whole World in Our Hands”
Collective grief is a response to tragedy among cultural groups, communities, towns, nations, and global citizens. War, terror, racism, natural disaster, the pandemic, environmental injustice, and mass shootings adversely affect all of us directly or indirectly via news and social media. In these times of trouble, let’s examine shared experiences of grief through listening, learning, mindfulness, and activation.
About Reimagine
Reimagine is a nonprofit organization catalyzing a uniquely powerful community–people of different backgrounds, ages, races, and faiths (and no faith) coming together to create a more compassionate world. We support each other in facing adversity, loss, and mortality and channeling life's biggest challenges into meaningful action and growth.
