📍The Studio, Birchcliffe Centre, Hebden Bridge, HX7 8DG

🗓️ Sunday 26th November 2023

🕰️ 2pm til 5pm. Doors will open at 2pm and the ceremony will start when everyone has arrived.

💵 £20 *concessions are available, please contact me

🖊️ To book your place please email me at rachhawthorn@gmail.com and put "Grief Circle Ceremony" as the subject line

🚗 There is parking behind the Birchcliffe Centre

🚌 There’s a bus stop right outside

☕️ Hot drinks, home made cake and fruit will be provided.

This event is for anyone experiencing grief who would like to come together with others and share a simple ceremony which will feel welcoming, supportive, calming and nourishing.  When we grieve it is common to feel that our sorrow or our stories of loss are not welcome, that others may find it too hard to be with our pain.  It can be uncomfortable to be with our own pain and difficult to let ourselves grieve.  The Grief Circle Ceremony will allow space for us to share our stories, and all feelings and emotions that arise will be welcome.  Sometimes our stories just want to be heard and our feelings felt and allowed to be.  And the act of listening and being listened to can be transformational.

The ceremony will be simple, and will be guided and held in Love.  Within the group we will create a safe space where we are all invited to speak honestly about our loss and grief. The ceremony will offer comfort and connection with community and nature.  Everything in the ceremony is by invitation and will include embodied and creative elements such as using our voice, using sound, rhythm, movement, stillness and silence. Nothing is compulsory, just come with an open heart and a wish to be in a circle with others to share in grief.

Anyone who is experiencing grief is welcome.  Grief comes in different shapes.  You may be grieving the loss of someone who has died. You may be recently bereaved, or your bereavement may be many years or decades ago.  You may be grieving for the loss of a relationship, a home, a career, or a pet. You may be grieving for the sorrows of the world, the state of our planet and climate, the devastation of our mother earth . You may be grieving for the terror, war or killing that is taking place in our world.  You may be grieving for something you wanted or expected, but never had.  You may be grieving for something that is hard to know or to name, that feels ancient or buried.  All these griefs are welcome in this circle.  If you are in doubt and you want to have a conversation to see if this event is for you, please do get in touch. 

About me:  Rachel Hawthorn is a shroud maker in the making, and a death doula in training.  She is an artist, mother and mindfulness teacher. She has studied the world's religions and has practised and lived in community within Christian, Quaker and Buddhist traditions.  Rachel currently has no strong religious affiliation or spiritual beliefs. She understands the nature of ceremony to be a deeply human practice of connecting with others, connecting with the wider context of our world, and finding ourselves in relationship to the mystery that may or may not exist within and all around us. Ceremony can help us to acknowledge and honour our loss and grief, and feel our place as individuals within the greater whole.  

I come to this work from my own experiences of bereavement and grieving.  Over many years I have found what has and hasn’t helped me.  This is the first time that I am offering a grief circle ceremony, and I hope to build from this and continue to find ways to make space for grief.

Please note:

This event is not group therapy and I am not a therapist. Please consider your own needs, and sense into whether this is right for you at this time. Please contact me if you wish to dicuss in advance.

Access - the door to The Studio is at the front of the building, to the left of the covered main entrance. There are steps both up to the entrance of the building and down to the basement studio. There is level access at the side of the building through a different door - please let me know in advance if you need this and I will get the side door key.