What is Grief Tending?
Grief tending is a structured communal practice for experiencing, expressing, and processing grief through ritual, embodied practice, and witnessing in the presence of others. Grief tending is a practice where processing feelings can happen, distinct from talk therapy or individual counseling. Rather than seeking to “fix” or eliminate grief, the aim is not to heal or fix grief. However, grief tending can be both healing and therapeutic. The practice recognizes all forms of loss—death, divorce, illness, ecological devastation, ancestral trauma, unfulfilled dreams—as worthy of mourning.
The practice typically unfolds in group settings with a specific arc: facilitators aim to build trust between group members. We call this ‘building the banks’. Then there is some exploration of the participants’ emotional landscape or ‘stirring’. At this point the group shifts into ritual space, where deeper expression may happen. Finally a period of integration or ‘soothing’ allows participants to shift gradually back to every day mode. The process usually involves a grief ritual where feelings may be expressed with or without words, framed by other activities. It may include words, but it is not solely a talking based practice.
Origins & Lineage
In the traditional world of the Dagara of Burkina Faso, West Africa, the ritual of grief, conducted regularly in different parts of the tribe, is their way of releasing the tensions caused by loss and of restoring continuity in relationships. The Dagara people have preserved the old ways of African village life, with family structures and spiritual practices that have been in place for over 10,000 years.
Sobonfu Somé is one of the foremost voices in African spirituality. She travels the world on a healing mission, sharing the rich spiritual life and culture of her native land Burkina Faso, West Africa. She came from the lineage of the Dagara People of Burkina Faso and had been doing grief work since the 1980’s. Sobonfu passed in 2017, leaving a legacy of practitioners trained in her approach.
In parallel, Beginning in 1997, [Francis Weller] began to offer grief rituals as a way for communities to attend the large and small losses that touch each of our lives. Weller holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay and two master’s degrees — in clinical psychology and transpersonal psychology — from John F. Kennedy University. He trained with the West African healer Malidoma Somé for two years in the U.S. and then accompanied Somé back to his home country of Burkina Faso for further study. His 2015 book The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief introduced his framework of the Five Gates of Grief and became influential in contemporary grief work.
Francis Weller’s ritual was influenced by the lineage of the Dagara People as he studied with the late Malidoma Somé in the 80’s & 90’s.
Another influential voice is Martín Prechtel, trained in the Tzutujil Maya shamanic tradition. In 1997 [Prechtel] delivered a lecture in Minneapolis, MN on the seemingly juxtaposed but as he explains inextricably connected twin subjects of Grief and Praise. He eloquently describes how these are both innate and essential human capacities, that have atrophied in the modern world and must be re-developed to live well and metabolize our losses into the wondrous possibilities of making more life. His 2015 book The Smell of Rain on Dust articulates the relationship between grief and praise.
How It’s Practiced
A grief tending session typically includes multiple elements. There are different variations of grief rituals. The exact Grief Tending ceremony being offered will depend on the practitioner, the space where it is taking place, the time available and the number of people who are taking part. Alongside grief rituals, there will be a mix of embodied exercises that may include movement and relaxation.
Utilizing the potent tools of writing practice, singing, and ritual, we will build a community of concerned hearts and coax our stories of loss and suffering into the visible world. We will also engage in short writing practices and guided inquiry to help access different, non-habitual aspects of the mind and psyche. We will also explore embodiment and movement practices that help us to fully inhabit our bodies, and release patterns of holding, particularly areas like the jaw, the chest, the lower belly, our breathing, and our voice, where tension patterns can block or inhibit the movement of grief.
Physical objects often play a role. Grief rituals benefit from incorporating a meaningful physical object. If possible, select an object with a connection to your loss. Grief experts recommend using the object in some way. This symbolizes moving the pain of grief to a place where it can be worked with and transformed.
You will usually experience both being emotionally held by others, and being a part of that holding circle in a Grief Tending ritual. The communal dimension is central: When we tend grief in community together, the sense of “my grief” can begin to dissolve into “our grief,” the grief and loss that we hold and carry together.
Grief Tending Today
Grief tending has spread from its African roots into Western therapeutic and spiritual communities. We are remembering the lost art of grief tending. A way of being and relating in community, ceremony and song that was once deep in our bones. We are finding our way back to welcoming grief as an inevitable part of being human and cultivating the elders, guides and stewards to hold people through these deep initiations.
Practitioners encounter grief tending through multi-day residential retreats, single-day community gatherings, and increasingly, online offerings. Francis Weller offers both in-person weekend intensives and recorded audio series. Training programs have emerged: Nici [founded] The Grief Space in 2019 as a place to explore the duet of wonder and grief. This training has emerged from years of facilitating grief rituals, and offering grief tending practices.
The practice has adapted to address contemporary forms of grief. The grief we carry can come in many forms. Loss, heartbreak, woundedness, rage, numbness, our unlived lives, how we carry the state of our culture or the natural world. Embracing and reclaiming grief rituals will be essential for navigating ecological change and humanitarian crises, alongside healing our own personal and ancestral grief and traumas.
Common Misconceptions
Grief tending is not psychotherapy. Grief Tending is not an alternative to ongoing one-to-one therapy to deal with grief. Similarly, Grief Tending is not a first response method of help.
It is not about achieving closure or “moving on.” What has become clear is how difficult it is for us to attend to our grief in the absence of community. Carried privately, sorrow lingers in the soul, slowly pulling us below the surface of life and into the terrain of death. The practice does not promise to eliminate grief or provide relief in a single session.
Grief tending is not limited to bereavement. Grief Tending is for anyone dealing with grief and loss. This practice allows any loss to be felt and mourned. Every loss is meaningful. The practice honors all forms of loss, from the intimate to the collective.
Finally, contemporary grief tending practices, while inspired by Dagara traditions, are adaptations. I hold immense reverence and gratitude for the Dagara People who brought their grief rituals and framing of grief work to the West and also acknowledge how the rituals I help to co-facilitate have been modified to adapt to the modern times. Questions of cultural appropriation and respectful transmission remain subjects of ongoing conversation among practitioners.
How to Begin
For those new to grief tending, reading foundational texts provides context. Francis Weller’s The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief (2015) offers accessible entry through his Five Gates of Grief framework. Martín Prechtel’s The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise (2015) explores the relationship between grief and praise from a Tzutujil Maya perspective.
Attending an in-person or online grief ritual provides direct experience. Francis Weller continues to offer workshops and has recorded audio series available through his website. Other trained facilitators offer regular grief tending circles in various communities—searching for “grief ritual” or “grief tending” along with your location may reveal local offerings.
For self-practice, Francis Weller refers to [grief tending practices] as soul-hygiene- just as we tend to the state of our teeth, or our bodies, we can tend to the state of our soul by experiencing and metabolizing the grief we carry. Simple rituals can include creating a home altar with objects connected to loss, regular writing practices to express grief, or time in nature for witnessing and release.