Loss, Trust & Change—A Grief Retreat

Nature knows how to process loss, there’s nothing new to invent. Many of us live outside naturally directed cycles. Long work weeks, industrialized food and computer moderated communities can make it hard to remember we’re part of nature. 

This shows up brightly in the ways we’ve come to manage grief. We struggle to trust in systems we haven’t designed and cannot control. It makes it easy to feel lonely and afraid a lot of the time.

In our experience we’ve found, with help, support and encouragement, we can make our way back to being held and guided by this big, trustworthy thing we never left and that will never leave us. It isn’t easy, but it’s simple and quite possible. We feel lucky to get the chance to try with all of you.

We’re excited to gather in the complex wellness of the woods and water at Breitenbush, in the presence of our individual and communal grief, to practice moving with, learning from and trusting the system we belong to.

What to expect at this gathering:

We’ll spend the weekend exploring what it feels like to let go. We’ll work closely with the river to find ways to let feelings, habits, and stories that have gotten stuck in us in troubling ways be loosened and washed out.

To help us let go, over the weekend, we will work with:

• Sharing and witnessing
• Silence
• Meditation
• Movement
• Yoga
• Sound
• Touch
• Gentle tending

Our goal will be to watch this process as it unfolds in the river and learn from it. To become more intimate with this particular movement in the non-human guided world. To see how other beings trust it and how we, as part of this balanced system, might find our way to trust. 

Working Itinerary:

Before The Retreat

1. Offer yourself in service to natural world.

In the weeks leading up to our retreat we invite and encourage you to ask the big everything how you can help, and then help. 

Here’s one way to do it:

• Wake up each morning and ask – out loud, at least sometimes, if you can – how can I help? 
• Listen for a response.
• Try to do the thing you think you’ve been asked to do. Just make guesses if you’re not sure. Then ask – that? Was it that? And listen again. 
• Do this at least once a day or as often as you can.

2. Write a list of stuck things you’d like help cleaning out.

Write one thing each day or 8 things each day or 5 things at the end of each week. Or just write things as they come up. Send yourself text messages. In the days before you come, in some way, make a list of things that are stuck and hurting you. Things that need help getting free.

Retreat Schedule

Friday

• 3:00 – 4:00pm – Arrive at Breitenbush, check in, settle in your weekend home. Walk about, have a soak, get familiar with the land.
• Before dinner at 6pm, find a place to sit and greet the river privately and share your washing/freedom wish list with her. 
• Laura and Sascha plan to be on the grass outside the river yurt between 4:30-5:30pm. We will offer gratitude and acknowledgement to the land, people and other creatures who have lived on and tended it.  You are welcome to join us to greet the river as a group as well during that time or spend solo time with the land.
• 6:00 – 7:00pm – communal dinner at the lodge
• 7:00 – 9:00pm – Gather in the river yurt for our first grief spill followed by some gentle yoga.
• After the spill & yoga – private time to soak, journal, stand with the trees by the river, do the thing that calls you. 
• Bed

Saturday

• 8:00 – 9:00am – breakfast at the lodge, silent or conversational, as you choose.
• 9:00 – 11:30am – Expanding our exploration of how stuck things find movement we’ll offer yoga and guided meditation in 20-minute cycles that draw attention to our particular physical holding patterns and what helps them change and let go.
  • You’ll have the option to stay at the yurt during the meditation portions of this practice to sit, draw or journal, or walk by the river or in the labyrinth.
• 11:30 – 1:00pm – Private time to walk, soak, rest or whatever calls you. The river yurt will be open with oracle cards, blankets and cushions, and prompts for journaling, meditation and self-care
• 1:00 – 2:00pm – Lunch in the lodge, silent or conversational, as you choose
• 2:00 – 3:00pm – Led, meditative walk through the woods and by the river. 
• 3:00 – 4:00pm – Private time to walk, soak, rest or whatever calls you. The River Yurt will be open with oracle cards, blankets and cushions, and prompts for journaling, meditation and self-care
• 4:00 – 6:00pm – Gather at the River Yurt for guided sound and movement work and for our second grief spill.
• 6:00 – 7:00pm – You are invited to join Sascha and Laura for a silent dinner at the lodge if you wish.
• 7:00 – 8:00pm – Private time to soak, journal, meditate etc. The River Yurt will be open with oracle cards, blankets and cushions, and prompts for journaling, meditation and self-care
• 8:00 – 9:00pm – Sascha and Laura will lead physical care activities including tapping, hand, foot and head massage which can be exchanged or done on your own body, and all-natural aroma therapy with items from around the yurt.
• 9:00 – 9:30pm – Read-aloud/restorative yoga time – Sascha and Laura will take turns reading aloud while you rest in restorative yoga poses or drift to sleep.
• Bed

Sunday

• Wake up, wander, soak
• 8:00 – 9:00am – Breakfast at the lodge, silent or conversational, as you choose
• 9:00 – 11:00am – We will close with a final grief spill and thoughts about moving back into the busy world, then quietly walk to the river together to offer our thanks and devotion.
• After the retreat:
  • Private time to soak, journal, meditate, walk or just be at Breitenbush
  • Check out of lodging by 1pm if leaving Sunday
  • Participants are welcome to stay for lunch at Breitenbush at 1pm and on the grounds until 3pm

To learn more about this retreat and Grief House, please visit http://www.griefhouse.org.