TRANSFORMATIVE GRIEF CIRCLE

Join Circle Tender, Seminarian, Poet and Yoga Therapist, Luisa Giugliano on a nine month journey to tenderly work with the material of grief in the warm container of a collective community.

Whether you are mourning the acute loss of a loved one, facing ecogrief, confronting your own mortality, the loss of a relationship, the loss of the village, ancestral grief or grieving for the collective, this space is designed to hold you in your process of transformation. This circle is also for those who care for others who carry the grief of those they serve, ancestral grief or grief accumulated through loneliness, or as a byproduct of separation from the natural world and village-mindedness.  

Caring for ourselves with radical self-compassion is a revolutionary act that can transform the world.  Allowing ourselves to be held, and also having the opportunity to hold others can return us to a state of reciprocity and kinship that we deeply need personally and collectively. 

DETAILS

  • Eighteen virtual circles meeting weekly between September 2024 - April 2025 will include prompts, creative and contemplative exercises and peer processing and council.  We will use the work of Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow as a shared text throughout our time, touching into Francis’ gates of grief as an anchor.  

  • One day-long retreat and community Grief Ritual at Westways Sanctuary on Long Island in March. 

  • Five one-on-one spiritual care sessions with Luisa, to facilitate and deepen engagement with the circle and to voice and process your grief and what it is inviting you into.

DATES

Thursdays

September 2024-April 2025
Wednesdays 5:30-7:30pm

Sept 11, 18, Oct 9, 16, 23, 30, Nov 6, 13, Dec 4, Jan  22, 29, Feb 5, 12, 19, 26 , March 5, 12, April 2  (April 9th makeup circle date if needed)

All Day Grief Ritual: April 6

PRICING

$95
thriving

$85
sustaining

$65
surviving

$125
supporting

(per session)

The 19 weekly sessions of Warmth + $75 Grief Ritual fee are paid for monthly with a non-refundable $500 deposit plus the balance from all sessions divided into 7 monthly installments.

In considering which tier of payment you might require, should you choose to join circle, we ask you to consider:

• past/current financial positionality- historical disparity across race, national history, class, etc.

• current financial situation

• your potential to make money based on your level of education, positionality, and potential future opportunities

Check out The Sliding Scale: A Tool of Economic Justice from wortsandcunning.com

Scholarships for financial hardship are available

 

ABOUT LUISA

As a circle facilitator, I have had the privilege of seeding, tending, and nourishing thousands of gatherings, in addition to training others in the art of relational, embodied, and creative practices to foster belonging and cultures of care. My yoga therapy practice and the work I do as a ceremonialist has centered for many years on grief. I come to this, like many others, saturated with a heavy love for a world in crisis. I am fortunate to work closely with Francis Weller, author of Wild Edge of Sorrow, who is my mentor and has deepened my learning around community grief rituals and the awakening of life that can blossom from this fertile territory.  Please join me and a circle of caring community to tend a season of grief and love to mature and embrace your aliveness. I will be facilitating this space in my role as an MDIV candidate and seminarian at Union Theological Seminary,this fieldwork placement which will serve as a chaplaincy residency. In this fieldwork, I will have a peer supervision group, a CPE educator, and a supervisor supporting my work. This extensive support will allow me to hold deeper space.

Being in circle for the past 4 years has been one of the most transformative experiences as it opened me to understanding the intertwining nature of all for others to learn relationships, what it truly meant to belong, what it meant to dive deep, to show-up. It taught me what it was to hold space, what it was to be held and to be seen. I take this work back into my life every day ever since my first and into all my relationships and I am in deep gratitude to have been introduced to this work”. - Circle Member