what we offer
When tended with love, in communion with others, grief can be a pathway back to life. Our workshops and group journeys offer a safe place where pain and loss can be welcomed, witnessed and transformed.
Our events are held by experienced facilitators, working with tried and tested group practices that combine ancient wisdom with modern psychology. They are available on a gift basis, which means: pay what you can
Learning to be creatively present with our grief is a sacred work of the soul – and potentially one of the most transformative journeys that we humans can undertake.
For many of us though - perhaps all of us – we can't do this work alone. Norfolk Grief Tending offers an approach that provides a safe container for you to explore this territory in communion with others.
who is it for?
Our workshops and group journeys are for adults of all ages.
Grief tending provides a safe harbour for those suffering the often agonising pain of bereavement. It is also a place of support and comfort for anyone who feels sorrow and disappointment, and for those of us working through the myriad losses that beset us all through the course of life.
You may be holding the cumulative weight of changes; recovering from a specific loss around health or ageing; or exploring the roots of physical symptoms.
Perhaps you are grieving the end of a relationship, worried about the future or going through a process of transformation. You may be aware of long-term grief, passed down through your family and culture, or carrying the consequences of childhood issues.
Perhaps you are holding pain for the natural world, for future generations and for the collective troubles of the planet and its people.
Or you may simply be aware of buried grief that feels stuck or frozen.
All of this and more is welcome.
the benefits
Whatever the source of your grief, this approach offers a valuable way to meet you where you are in your suffering, and to enhance wellbeing.
Many of us have also found that grief tending in community has been a doorway into important new insights. We have learnt that:
Pain and loss can be an entry point into deeper connection and belonging.
Grief is a form of medicine for what ails us.
Being witnessed in our grief - and witnessing others - opens us to compassion, and this can become a healing force in our lives and communities.
Deep connection with joy and life force awaits us on the other side of our pain.
Grief is an invitation to a homecoming of the soul.
our approach
We are drawing on the approach pioneered by Sophy Banks and Jeremy Thres, and the teachers that have inspired the work of Grief Tending in Community (based in Devon). This lineage - the shoulders on which we stand - includes Maeve Gavin, Francis Weller, Joanna Macy, Malidoma Somé, and Martín Prechtel.
Each facilitator brings their own particular style and influences into the mix. In Norfolk we are blessed with a range of diverse skills and experience amongst the team, encompassing:
mindfulness and mindful self-compassion
performance arts and storytelling
Christian mysticism and 12-step recovery
foraging and forest schooling, and
flower essence and energy healing.
As well as being skilled facilitators, they bring expertise as song holders, musicians, poets, earth tenders and nature lovers.
