Here’s a small selection of the resources we recommend. This is just for your own reference, not required at all for you to do for the ritual. That said, you may get more out of the experience with these additional references.
Books & Essays:
- Wild Edge of Sorrow Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief by Francis Weller (also in Large Print)
- The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise by Martin Prechtel
- There are several Books by Sobonfu Somé on her website including Women’s Wisdom From the Heart Of Africa
- Ritual: Power, Healing and Community by Malidoma Patrice Somé
- Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
- The Grief Recovery Handbook, 20th Anniversary Expanded Edition: The Action Program for Moving Beyond Death, Divorce, and Other Losses including Health, Career, and Faith by John W. James and Russell Friedman
- Reclaiming our Indigenous European roots. This is a fantastic essay from Dr. Lyla June Johnston (aka Lyla June), an Indigenous musician, scholar, and community organizer of Diné (Navajo), Tsétsêhéstâhese (Cheyenne) and European lineages.
Podcasts & Videos:
- Why it’s important to feel and to express grief. “To feel is to be alive.” (Sobonfu Somé)
- Grieving and Recovery (Sobonfu Somé)
- Rituals (Sobonfu Somé)
- Grief and Praise part 1 (Sobonfu Somé)
- Embracing Your Gifts Sobunfu’s talk on how everyone has a gift that is vital for the community (Sobonfu Somé)
- A short interview on Embracing Your Gift (Sobunfu Somé)
- Lyla June also has a wonderful TED Talk: 3000-year-old Solutions to Modern Problems. She also has a lot of powerful songs, including All Nations Rise.
- What We Carry for Our Ancestors: Intergenerational Healing. This is an important TED talk by Serene Thin Elk on ancestral grief and intergenerational trauma.
- Grisha’s podcast, The Lesson is Love has several episodes that may be of service in your grief journey.
- Practicing Grief and Practicing Pleasure – Alexandra “Ahlay” Blakely on (embedded below). Ahlay is a grief tender and songleader.
- How to Be With Every Part of Yourself – Karen Faith (ethnographer, empathy educator)
- Tapping, Embodied Healing Practices, and the Value of Re-Membering – Damon Silas (psychologist, tapping coach)
- Tender Touch, Practice Versus Performance, and the Skill of Tracking – Aaron Johnson of Grief to Action and the Chronically Undertouched (CUT) Project.
- Feeling Into the Possibility of a Different World – Shireen Amini (now Riomas) (songleader)