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Grief Workshops at UU Womenspirit Gathering

  • The Mountain Retreat and Learning Center 3872 Dillard Road Highlands, NC, 28741 United States (map)

Mapping Our Grief Worlds (8:45am-11:45am)
We often feel broken, fragmented in grief. Instead of thinking of these fragments as necessarily negative, we can think of the prism. A prism breaks a single ray of white light into multiple colors, a rainbow. If we fold this image into our feeling of brokenness, we can start to see the various colors and textures of our grief terrains. In this workshop, prismatic thinking leads us to maps. Maps are ideal for the plotting of pieces; consider, for instance, how the continents and oceans come together to form the picture of our “world” on geographic maps.

In surveying our grief terrains, we will hopefully start to see our grief experiences from a new angle, which will help us to brainstorm the resources we will need to navigate ourselves through these worlds. As we work together, we will discuss the archetype of Shadow as relates to grief, and consider the relationship between shadow and light, piece and whole on our maps.

Embodying the Shadow (1:15-4:15pm)
Grief presents us with the opportunity to explore our shadows: our fears, our emotions, and our past experiences with loss and painful transitions. All of these emotions and experiences are already living in our bodies. Instead of trying to ignore or downplay their impact, why not explore what their presence in us points to? What is the light source that casts these shadows? And then once we recognize the pairing of shadow and light, we can feel for where each resides in the body.

This workshop employs gentle embodied activities, drawn from the performing arts, to think about and feel how grief manifests in us and how it can change our relationships with others. Our activities will play with ideas of tempo, rhythm, duration, repetition, and alignment. Our shadows will become tools to help us find center and balance.

* While these workshops relate to one another, participants do not need to attend both in order to benefit from this work.*

**To see the UU Womenspirit programming (including all classes and workshops), please read their brochure HERE. To register for the May 2019 event, please go HERE.

Earlier Event: April 13
Creative Grief Workshop