Honouring Grief - A 3 Part Workshop Series

In a world that is suffering from the impacts of capitalism, genocide, displacement, climate change, inflation, racism, state violence, there are increasing reasons to experience grief, loss, exhaustion and heartbreak.

There is so much to grieve on the collective level, as well as on the personal level. Life is full of change and loss; from the endings of relationships, life phases, jobs, to letting go of old versions of ourselves, to experiencing sickness and the loss of our dear ones.

The need to slow down and make space to grieve collectively seems more then necessary. We are not made to grieve alone. This workshop series is an invitation to grieve in community and through the therapeutic support of movement and the expressive arts.

Throughout the workshops, we will give ourselves permission to be with our Embodied Grief and let it be our teacher. To let Grief inspire our art making, and in return allow the art we make inform us about our Grief, and the ways in which it can be our guide in living fuller, more authentic lives.

Workshop Series Intentions:

• Re-claim the sacred act of grieving in community
• Explore the inner landscape of grief through embodiment practices and the expressive arts

• Give voice to what your grief wants to teach you through movement, drawing and writing
• Meet feelings of shame, guilt and/or resistance around the act of grieving
• Allow the body to rest/heal by making space for embodied grief
• Explore Pleasure as a resource to navigate your grieving processes
• Cultivate intimacy with yourself and others by collectively honouring grief

What to expect:

• Breathwork & mindfulness exercises
• Self-touch
• Somatic & creative explorations
• Movement & dance
• Intuitive drawing
• Reflective & creative writing
• Ritual performances
• Partner and Group shares
• Collective altar building
• Grief rituals

My name is Sarah Varichon, I'm a holder of space for embodied Grief & Pleasure. I'm a certified movement-based expressive arts therapy educator, body worker and dancer. I received professional training as a Life/Art Process® practitioner at the Tamalpa Institute (San Rafael, California) in 2019.

The Life/Art Process® is an integrated approach that explores the wisdom of the body as expressed through movement, dance, and imagination. We use artistic processes and media to explore and deepen our relationship to psychological life, to social issues, and to creativity itself.

The foundation of the Life/Art Process® is based on a view of the body and movement. The body holds our entire life experience. We understand movement as the body’s primary language. For us, movement is synonymous with life. Movement is personality and soul made visible, and dance is body, feelings, and imagination in motion. We believe that movement/dance is a way for all people to live a more embodied and creative life – one that fosters healing and social transformation. Movement and dance are ways to express the full range of human emotion and to connect, deeply and authentically, to our truest selves.

Come as you are, and join us on this creative, insightful, embodied journey!

If you have any questions about this offering please feel free to email me at : [email protected].

Host or Publisher Sarah Varichon