TENDING OUR GRIEF: a weekly community grief space
Facilitated by M. Barney, Mollie McElroy, Hazel Turrone, Ornella Matta-Figueroa, Heidi Wilson or Amanda Franz
Fridays 6:30-8:30pm
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Free/Donations Welcome.
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There is so much to grieve.
The grief of our world is too much to hold individually.
The grief of our lived experiences can be isolating from the world around us.
We are calling each other in, to be in the practice of making space to tend grief.
The grief of our world is too much to hold individually.
The grief of our lived experiences can be isolating from the world around us.
We are calling each other in, to be in the practice of making space to tend grief.
We see practices of grieving together as a communal resilience technology that supported our ancestors and has been impacted and systematically targeted by colonization and white body supremacy.
This grief space is an invitation. There will be no expectations about how grief shows up or moves through you. You are welcome to arrive with all that you are and all that you carry and simply be present in whatever capacity you are able in the moment.
In the shared space of our time together, we will be holding intentional time to grieve. Many people have resistance to opening the door to grief because it can feel overwhelming and bottomless.
Each facilitator, in their own unique way, will hold a gentle container, taking time to arrive together, ground in the group, and make space to tend grief.
Grief doesn’t have to look or feel a particular way. The important thing is that intentional time is created for grief and to just be with whatever arises.
We welcome you to arrive with whatever you are holding and move, sound, draw, and express whatever emotions well up during our time together.
Let us not harden to the world around us. Let us grieve!
And through grief, connect more deeply to Life, to ourselves and each other.
- We see grieving together as a way to tend to ourselves and each other in the bigness, the "too-muchness" of the time.
- We see grieving together as a way to be held and supported in accessing and moving grief, co-regulating our nervous systems and cohering our collective identity.
- We see grieving together as an ancestral connection practice; a way to support healing intergenerational trauma.
- We see grieving together as part of re-culturing ourselves toward collective liberation; a practice of togethering.
- We see grieving together as tending our human-ness.
- We invite you to come grieve together
This grief space is an invitation. There will be no expectations about how grief shows up or moves through you. You are welcome to arrive with all that you are and all that you carry and simply be present in whatever capacity you are able in the moment.
In the shared space of our time together, we will be holding intentional time to grieve. Many people have resistance to opening the door to grief because it can feel overwhelming and bottomless.
Each facilitator, in their own unique way, will hold a gentle container, taking time to arrive together, ground in the group, and make space to tend grief.
Grief doesn’t have to look or feel a particular way. The important thing is that intentional time is created for grief and to just be with whatever arises.
We welcome you to arrive with whatever you are holding and move, sound, draw, and express whatever emotions well up during our time together.
Let us not harden to the world around us. Let us grieve!
And through grief, connect more deeply to Life, to ourselves and each other.
Our Incredible Facilitators:
Madison Murphy Barney (M) is a Two Spirit Shoshone, Hoopa, and mixed ancestry sister, doula, and author. She is a doula at all of life’s thresholds, including: grief, loss, birth, death, relationship changes, moves, creative projects, and beyond. She hosted Grief & Cake for Vermont’s BIPOC community and is honored to be present for our community in this collective threshold.
madisonmurphybarney.com |
Mollie McElroy (she/they) is a grief counselor and death doula offering 1:1 grief counseling sessions as well as the facilitation of support groups, workshops, and meditations. They are a fellow human who can be with you and big, deep feelings in a supportive container. Much of her work and approach focuses on reflective listening, psycho-drama facilitation & liberatory meditation practices. Mollie comes from Scottish-Irish hearth tenders, singers, cooks, and keeners (caoineadh mnàthan-tuirim). You already know how to grieve, and we can do it together.
molliemcelroy.com |
Hazel Turrone (she/they)
(White, queer, cis-passing, neurodivergent, European descendent) Hazel is a trauma-informed, collapse-aware, intuitive body-centered holistic health practitioner, animist, ritualist, facilitator, mediator, educator, mutual aid organizer, gardener, artist and dancer who dwells on the unceded land of the Abenaki in Vermont. They are touched by the messy complicatedness and tender complexity of our humanity and in awe of the exquisite beauty in all life. At the core of their own personal life journey and the work they offer to clients and students is a dedication to embodied liberation - dismantling the entangled layers of generational trauma, systemic oppression and our socialization so that we can reconnect to the relationship with our body wisdom, each other, spirit and the land. Their personal experiences with grief reflect the wisdom of some of their teachers - that giving space for grief is one of the greatest gifts to our ancestors for it allows the accumulation of what we carry to be metabolized, thus freeing us to be more present, connected and resilient. Over 30 years of wanderings, wonderings, training and experience have been woven into Hazel’s offerings which are rooted in Intrinsic Liberation. |
Ornella Matta-Figueroa (she/her/ella)
More info coming soon... 
Amanda Franz is a 5th generation US/Turtle Island born white, queer, settler of Slavic and Germanic descent, living in the unceded territory of the Western Abenaki. Amanda is a somatics and trauma educator/bodyworker/therapist, conflict mediator, community organizer, and farmer. They collaboratively run The Everything Space, a politicized somatics studio working at the intersections of embodiment, social justice and co-creating liberatory, abolitionist, cultures of belonging. Their grief lineages come through the body, woven throughout their practices of animist oriented somatics and their lived experiences, as well as studied through the “Work that Reconnects”, Francis Weller's work, and their training/experience as a Somatic Body movement therapist.
theeverythingspace.com |
OUR SHARED GRIEF CONTAINER AGREEMENTS:
- I agree to - Show up as I am.
- You are welcome to arrive with all that you are, feel, and experience.
- I agree to - Radical Self Care.
- Take care of yourself as best you can. Remember you have the choice to get up and leave or do something that allows you to feel more comfortable.
- Recognize that no one else can keep us safe or create a completely safe container.
- I agree to - recognize that there are many identities in the space, seen and unseen, which translates into different amounts of privilege, power and capacity.
- With more power and privilege, comes more responsibility.
- I agree to - take space and make space.
- Be mindful of allowing space for others to share who may not feel as comfortable.
- Seek equilibrium between my needs and the needs of the space/container.
- I agree to - accept that triggers happen.
- They are opportunities for growth, and I can reach out for support if needed.
- I agree to - honor discomfort when I have the capacity.
- Being with discomfort can allow opportunity for learning, growth and healing.
- I agree to - recognize comfort vs safety.
- Feeling discomfort is not the same as being unsafe.
- I agree to - confidentiality.
- Outside of this container, you can share your experiences, but do not name or identify in descriptors who else was here.
- I agree to - cultivate consent culture.
- Respect verbal and non-verbal no’s.
- Let others know if something is not working for you - with hand gestures or words.
- I agree to - cultivate a shame resilient culture.
- You don’t have to agree with or feel comfortable with what someone is doing or saying. Please create enough spaciousness for the diversity of human experience without shaming.
- I agree to - silence my cell phone.
- I agree to - be curious and open to the experience.
- I agree to - be in the practice of listening deeply to the wisdom of my body and all the bodies in the space.
- Trust in the movement, action, words or sounds that move through expression - from your own body and from others in the space.
- Express freely in ways that honor your safety and the safety of others in the space.
Current Covid/Illness Policy:
Please don't come if you are sick, had recent illness exposure or are experiencing illness symptoms.
Masks available. An air filter will be running.
Please don't come if you are sick, had recent illness exposure or are experiencing illness symptoms.
Masks available. An air filter will be running.
