Ancestors, Grief, and Song

Let us come together at the time of spring's first stirrings, known by some as Imbolc, the halfway point between winter solstice and spring equinox, which this year also happens to fall just after the Chinese Lunar New Year. In service to all of life, let us bring together our grief and love and align with this season's energy of shedding and renewal, and plant seeds of hope for what's to come.

A part of our time together will be dedicated to remembering our ancestors, both human and beyond, and inviting ancestral support in tending our grief. In saying that we also recognize that there are many kinds of grief, not just the grief of loss (see Francis Weller's Five Gates of Grief). We will be honoring all grief together.

Grief work is aliveness work. To welcome our grief is to welcome our joy and the full range of human expression. Because to suppress any feeling is to suppress all feeling!! In welcoming our grief we find ourselves more alive, more able to move in the moment with what arises, and having more room for all feelings and sensations including joy.

In this workshop we will sit in circle, we will sing, we will co-create an ancestor altar, and have the chance to speak our grief in triads and with the larger group using the practices of council. While we ask that in choosing to attend that you are intending to participate fully, we also have so much grace for the not knowing of how it will feel to sit in such a circle and what will arise in us asking for our presence. You will have sovereignty to pass on an opportunity to share and to ask for silence rather than speak.

I, Megan, stumbled upon grief ritual 5+ years ago at a 3-day community singing gathering. I walked away from those few hours with Laurence Cole more alive and joyful than I had ever felt in my life. I knew immediately that I needed to live in a world where the people come together to grieve and that I would do what it takes to make it happen. Within months I attended several more rituals, trainings, and even organized a few grief gatherings for my then community in Northern California. After a cross-country return to Chicago during the great Pandemic Pause and a few years of songleading I now find myself ready to share this powerful technology of community healing.

**Not sure if this is right for you?? Please contact [email protected] with any questions**

Highly recommended reading: The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller and The Smell of Rain on Dust by Martín Prechtel.

Megan Eberhardt is a community songleader and cultural activist dedicated to fostering aliveness, belonging, and connection in and among us and with the natural world. She leads song circles on the northwest side of Chicago, nannies her awesome nephew, and teaches the stars at singing gatherings around the midwest. Some of her teachers include Martín Prechtel, Orland Bishop, Stargazer Li, Liz Rog, Francis Weller, and Laurence Cole.

From an attendee of the last Ancestors, Grief, and Song:

"Megan’s offering was my first experience with community grief ritual, which is saying a lot considering I have been in the healing profession for almost 20 years as a licensed clinical social worker, and I will return to this group over and over again. For those of us longing to hold others and be held in community, to have spaces that honor and even revere our full humanity, and even those of us who have no idea if we are longing for this because we have yet to experience it, this group is like a warm hug and a sweet lullaby. It is a beautiful reminder of our innate wisdom and capacity for healing. We are not alone." -S.L.

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