I’m never quite sure where to start when people ask me, “what is this whole grief ceremony thing?” I could start by describing what the ceremony looks like, but I don’t think the logistics are as important as the impact and, for me, knowing the details wouldn’t have helped me understand it; it has to be experienced. I could start by describing what I’ve gained from my mentors and my experience in ceremony—mainly that my life is more rich and a little bit more sane when I’m allowed to grieve fully—but that’s only my experience. I could start by retelling the inspiring story of the progenitors of the grief tending lineage I’m in—how the Dagara people of modern-day Burkina Faso sent delegates to teach their colonizers how to grieve again—but I’m hesitant to tell their story incompletely; it’s an entire cosmology. Rather than any of these, perhaps it make sense to go way back to my earliest memories around grief. Like you, perhaps, it’s the grief of human death—the first funeral I ever attended. When I was about 10, in grade 4 or 5, my best friend’s father passed away from ALS. It was my first close contact with death and dying. I maintain a few vivid memories of that time. The first is driving out to the funeral. It was at a church across town. It was just me and my mom in the car. Paul Simon’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” came on, or I put it on or requested it. I don’t remember. I do remember playing it again and again, wanting to be that bridge for my friend, wanting her to know that whatever she was feeling was okay and alright and just perfect. Then I have a vague memory of walking into the church and navigating a crowd—although this memory is blurred with a later memory of a concert I attended at the same church. (As far as I know, those were the only two times I went to that building). And finally I remember seeing my friend after the event of the funeral. I barely got to see her. Everyone was saying hello to her. She was giving hugs and handshakes (at that age?); I never did tell her about Bridge Over Troubled Water. I wouldn’t have had the words for it back then, but from the view of adulthood I remember that funeral being qutie performative. I wanted to cry, but was it safe? I didn’t see a lot of people crying or making much noise. It was my first funeral, and I was eager to learn how to do it properly. How do people comport themselves at a funeral? I knew enough to know that the idea of dying—that my friends’ dad had died—was serious and special, somehow. When did you first learn about grief? Who taught you? What did you learn about what it means to grieve and how to do it? This was my education. It wasn’t perfect. Community grief tending has given me the power to reclaim my relationship to grief So I ask you, what if you could try again? Learn a different way? That’s what community grief tending is all about. At our community grief tending rituals we create a safer space to sink slowly into our griefs. Grief doesn’t have one language. It doesn’t have one voice or one pose or one sound. The only thing that’s universally true about grief is that we all experience it and we can’t hold it alone. Join a grief tending ceremony. With that, addressing a few additional frequently asked questions is likely helpful: # FAQ: ## Does someone need have died for me to grieve? No. One of my teachers,[Francis Weller](https://www.francisweller.net/), has written about what he calls “The Five Gates of Grief.” While not an exhaustive list, Weller’s “Five Gates” are a helpful example of how diverse the human capacity and need for grief is. Weller’s first gate is “everything we love will die.” This means we cannot love without risking loss. Partners, parents, friends, pets; homes that once held us; seasons of life and versions of ourselves—we lose all of them, in time. To grieve here is to let love finish its arc. We name what is gone, we tell the stories again, we let the tears do their honest work. In practice, this can be simple and concrete: speak the names at the table, keep a photo on the altar, write the letter you never sent. Grief, in this gate, is not the enemy of love—it is proof that love happened. The second gate is “the places that have not known love.” This is the grief of exile: the parts of us we learned to hide—our awkwardnesses, angers, needs, tenderness—because they were mocked, punished, or ignored. When we meet this gate we’re not just sad; we’re ashamed, numb, or armored. The work here is re-admittance. We bring these banished parts back into the circle with warmth instead of judgment. A question I use is, “What in me is asking to be welcomed home?” Community helps, so that what once felt unworthy of mourning can be honored at last. The third gate is “the sorrows of the world.” This is the ache that arrives uninvited: news of another fire or flood, the weight of war, plastic in the ocean, tents in winter along the river trail. Even if the headlines never say our name, our bodies register the damage. Here, grief is a form of solidarity. We let ourselves be moved, and then we move—plant the trees, deliver the meals, write the check, show up. Limits matter; collapse helps no one. But refusing to feel cuts us off from the very empathy that could animate our action. The fourth gate is “what we expected and did not receive.” Many of us carry a quiet hunger for things we were wired to anticipate but never got: reliable protection, unambiguous belonging, elders who saw us, rites of passage, a sensuous relationship with the more-than-human world. The fifth gate is “ancestral grief.” We inherit more than eye color. We carry unfinished sorrows from behind us—migration and dispossession, addiction and silence, the harms our people suffered and the harms our people caused. At this gate, grief becomes time travel. We light a candle, speak a family name, listen for the stories that were never told. When we tend this grief, we make a small promise to the future: the pain will move through us, not into those who come after. These gates are thresholds, not steps on a staircase. We pass through them many times, sometimes several in a single day. Together they widen the definition of grief beyond “someone died” to “something mattered.” And they suggest a practice: feel what’s here, name where it belongs, and meet it with companionship—human and more-than-human—so that sorrow can compost into care. That is the hidden offer inside Weller’s map: not a cure, but a way to keep our hearts available in a world that keeps breaking and, somehow, keeps inviting us to love it anyway. ## If not a dead relative, what is there to grieve? Following the above, here is a non-exhaustive list of things I’ve experienced and heard from others as relevant griefs: - climate change - dying species - a dead pet - forgotten dreams - friends lost to distance or separation - parts of myself I’ve forgotten or left unloved - my childhood - difficult times in my family of origin - painful memories - grandparents I never knew, but who’s stories I carry - ancestors I’ve never known and who’s stories I don’t know - the pain of not knowing - the grief of living life as a settler - the pain of the isolation common to modern masculinity - the toxic behaviors I learned ## What do I say to someone who’s lost a loved one? First and foremost, know that there is no “right” nor even any “wrong” things to say. My teacher [Laurence Cole](https://www.laurencecole.com/) says that in grief tending we are “permissionaries”; our role is to give the permission necessary to allow someone to have the process they need to have. So I’d approach it that way. What can you say that will let your friend know that whatever they’re feeling—rage, sadness, apathy, etc.—is welcome and safe with you.