Community Grief Ritual

All around us news of loss, greed, injustices of the most appalling variety, classist and racist policies, ecological destruction, war. All while we carry our own personal losses of loved ones, relationships, homelands, parts of ourselves, and dreams of how our life would unfold. How do we navigate life in these times? How do we keep our heart alive amidst this madness? We are coming to understand we can no longer do this alone. This time is calling for radical acts of re-imagining, re-membering, and re-invigorating our capacity to share with each other, to relate in reciprocity with each other and all of life. Communal grief tending is one way to do this good work, together. As Francis Weller says, we go to grief ritual to make our hearts more spacious, more capable of falling in love with the world. Grief work is aliveness work. To welcome our grief is to welcome our joy and the full range of human expression. Because to suppress any feeling is to suppress all feeling!! In welcoming our grief we find ourselves more alive, more able to move in the moment with what arises, and having more room for all feelings and sensations including joy. Throughout our time together we will sit in circle, we will sing, we will listen deeply and share with each other using the practices of council, and have the opportunity to visit the grief altar and honor our grief in a ceremonial setting. We will move through our time with care towards trust and connection with ourselves, each other, and the more than human world. While we ask that in choosing to attend that you are intending to participate fully, we also have so much grace for the not knowing of how it will feel to sit in such a circle and what will arise in us asking for our presence. You will have sovereignty to pass on an opportunity to share and to ask for silence rather than speak. I, Megan, stumbled upon grief ritual 7 years ago at a 3-day community singing gathering. I walked away from those few hours with Laurence Cole more alive and present than I had ever felt in my life. I knew immediately that I needed to live in a world where the people come together to grieve and that I would do what it takes to make it happen. Within months I attended several more rituals, trainings, and even organized a few grief gatherings for my then community in Northern California. After a cross-country return to Chicago during the great Pandemic Pause and a few years of songleading I now find myself ready to share this powerful technology of community healing. Logistics: Doors open at 9:30, arrive by 10am. We will have a 45 minute lunch break. Bring your own lunch or source your lunch nearby. Tea and snacks will be provided throughout the day. Bring your own mug. Cost: Tickets are sliding scale $150-200 with a limited number of scholarship and work trade spots available. If money is a barrier and you feel called to join please reach out. You can pay by Zelle to avoid fees to megan@rootedinthestars.com. **Not sure if this is right for you?? Please contact megan@rootedinthestars.com with any questions** Highly recommended reading: The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller and The Smell of Rain on Dust by Martín Prechtel. Megan Eberhardt is cultural activist and community songleader based out of Chicago, Illinois. She spent a decade of her adult life living in Northern California where she dove deeply into the study of nature connection and cultural regenerative arts. It was there she apprenticed with an astronomer for over 8 years and began teaching the stars, studied with thinker and author Martin Prechtel, and began organizing community song circles and grief rituals. Now returned to her roots here in the Midwest, Megan currently leads monthly song circles at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music, facilitates community grief ritual, and teaches the stars under dark skies across the Midwest. At the heart of her work is her devotion to fostering aliveness, belonging, and connection in and among us and with the natural world. Some of her teachers include Martín Prechtel, Orland Bishop, Stargazer Li, Liz Rog, Francis Weller, and Laurence Cole. From an participants of previous Community Grief Rituals: "Megan’s offering was my first experience with community grief ritual, which is saying a lot considering I have been in the healing profession for almost 20 years as a licensed clinical social worker, and I will return to this group over and over again. For those of us longing to hold others and be held in community, to have spaces that honor and even revere our full humanity, and even those of us who have no idea if we are longing for this because we have yet to experience it, this group is like a warm hug and a sweet lullaby. It is a beautiful reminder of our innate wisdom and capacity for healing. We are not alone." -S.L. "Thank you for such a powerful day. My body released... and expanded with love and gratitude. You facilitated so beautifully; much gratitude to your support team, who also held us and with whom I felt trust. As a villager and support person, I felt alive with purpose and meaning. As a mourner, I felt held by the beat of the drum, the wail of song, and the hearts of the community." -Ellyn Bank "As a man, it took me a lifetime to get in touch with the harm, the pain, and sadness I stuffed away in order to appear manly. It took me this same lifetime to realize the cost of this to my humanity, and to the relationships I hold dear. This is where I was when I joined Megan for my first grief practice, and I was terrified. As soon as I entered the space I was welcomed as a fellow human being, offered compassion and understanding, with a cup of hot tea. We began with singing and poetry, which helped me settle. And then we received light instruction on grieving because as it turns out, almost none of us learned anything about grief and grieving. And so I learned, and what I learned helped me release any expectation I had about needing to shed tears or sob or whatever, because whatever comes is whatever comes, and whatever that may look like is welcomed." -Daniel Roller "Yesterday was so amazing. Thank you for the opportunity to feel community while finally dealing with some real grief about my dad. I really cracked open when I got home and wow…this was so important." -Tina Smothers "I want to thank you so much for the most powerful and incredible collective of transformation and presence. What a masterfully curated assemble of sharing and singing and ritual. I am very grateful.” -Wendy W. Megan Eberhardt's website found here: www.rootedinthestars.com [http://www.rootedinthestars.com/]