Belonging to the World
Relationship and Ritual for the Heart of Grief
Next program cohort starts October 2nd, 2024
How do I make medicine of all this grief?
Our grief is a language exchange that flows within and between the wider field of living relations around us, seen and unseen. When we consciously enter into this relational reciprocity, we gift our heartbreak eloquence and expression in the world, and we allow our grief to be an offering to life, healing and wisdom.
For many, we have forgotten our place in this soulful and heart-full exchange due to dominant culture and supremacy in all its expressions within oppressed and oppressor experiences, past and ongoing.
We all have a birthright to connect with ritual skills, other-than-human relations, and ancestral practices in ways that are respectful and meaningful in our present-day life, and that support life-affirming grief expression towards dignity, right-relationship, and belonging.
In this course I will guide us into a framework of cross-cultural principles for grieving to explore the ecology of relationships, rituals and ancestral practices relevant to your own identity that support your grief as medicine. I will invite us into somatic and energetic presence practices that support each of our unique ways of metabolizing grief. We will nurture relationships with beings of land and plant kin while deepening our ritual skills of reciprocity to allow our grief to be an offering. I will invite us to explore connection to our ancestors through both spirit work and tangible research into ancestrally relevant grieving practices. I will offer a map and considerations for supporting the rite of passage of death and bereavement. And we will nurture our grief as an invitation into belonging and possibility towards healing, relational reciprocity, and connection to the world.
I have learned so much; from particular somatic practices to
guidelines for creating a ritual sequence, I have been able to deepen
into my own relationship with grief and to weave these teachings into my
own offerings. I also loved the opportunity to deepen into my
relationships with land, plant kin, elements, and spirit guides. And
beyond particular lessons, I was simply touched and changed by your
guidance, your wisdom, your spirit and essence.
Laura Johnson
***
Shauna's classes are a balm every week that invite new realms of healing and connection that one cannot anticipate until they emerge from within the container of her skilled and humble guidance. I would like to be in her courses always, as a way to stay human.
Jenna Knapp
When is the course?
October 2nd to November 27th. Live calls convene Wednesdays, 4:00pm pacific time.
Students will have access to the course
content for 3 months afterwards.
How is this program structured?
Pre-Recorded Weekly Lessons
Each lesson consists of video teachings, guided practices, reflection
questions, and additional resources for deepening your skills and explorations.
Weekly Live Calls - Wednesdays at 4pm pacific (7pm eastern)
Each week
there will be a 75 minute Live Call via Zoom
to engage in the content released in the pre-recorded lesson from the
week before. This is a time to bring your questions and to be in group
discussion and experiential ritual practice.
I highly recommend prioritizing the weekly live calls, as this is where the content comes alive in a relational field of learning and ritual practice.
Live calls will be recorded for later playback.
What will I receive?
- Over 9 hours of video/audio lesson content
- Over 11 hours of live weekly experiential practice and discussion via Zoom
- Guided visioning, reflections and/or ritual practices each week
- Additional resources for each lesson to explore further if you choose
- Access to the content for 3 months after the course ends
Shauna is a deeply reverent, resourced facilitator through grief. The
space she creates for exploration and expression is filled with wisdom
and respect for participants and what they bring to the material. This course provided me with a cross-cultural map and structure of
grief and grieving, and I wove my own lineage and experience into this
infrastructure, which allowed me space to move through my process freely
as she illuminated the path.
Katie Poinier
Will the content be relevant to me?
I
welcome folks who are navigating personal, ancestral and/or collective
loss. All grief is embraced and welcomed here, and will be met by the
skills we are learning and practicing.
I
welcome
folks of diverse ancestries, faith-based and cultural traditions, and
lived
experiences. This course is a queer-celebrating, trauma-informed,
anti-oppressive, and culturally-inclusive
framework focused on offering you a pathway to deepen into your own
grief practices as relevant to your identity and current social
location.
Please note: I offer a brave space for folks of diverse backgrounds and lived experiences (race, gender,
class, etc) coming together to be in grief practice and cultural change work that acknowledges differences in power, privilege, and dominant
cultural impacts.
The
demographic of folks who participate in my offerings have so far been:
majority (80%) racialized as white, across an age range of 20's-60's, of
diverse genders, diverse queer identities, diverse neuro-typical,
neuro-divergent and disabled experiences, and across a span of
socio-economic backgrounds.
Please reach out if you have any questions or want to talk about this more to discern if this course will meet you well. I am happy to connect with you in this way.
Are there prerequisites?
Prior experience with your own grief work and a willingness to engage in
self-reflection and self-inquiry around your own experiences of
loss/transition/grief is an important aspect of this learning
experience. Having experience and a personal practice in relating to spirit ones or
ancestors is also helpful.
It is important to also have your own support systems in place (family,
professionals, friends, care practices, community, etc) that help
keep you resourced and centered when needed.
Is this course the same as a therapeutic grief circle or grief ritual?
No. This is
an educational program based in guidance, invitational ritual practices and self-inquiry within a group learning setting (live
calls). This course offers therapeutic and ritual healing value and opportunities
for personal sharing of your learning experiences, however it is not
designed as an intimate witnessing circle for a personal healing
process.
**Please note: If you are currently experiencing acute grief from a recent loss, I recommend having a counselor/therapist that you are already receiving individualized support from. In the immediacy of loss, your grief experience may need a personal attuned care and presence in addition to what the scope of this course offers.
Shauna has an amazing ability to present multi-layered and complex material to participants with various levels of experience, and at the same time, always make everyone seen and received and included.
Bernard Leplante
What does this course cover?
Welcome - Ritual Opening Circle
Lesson 1 - Cross-Cultural Principles for Grieving
- Exploring relational and ritual perspectives
- Rooting into somatic presence practices
Lesson 2 - Energetic Presence & Grief Expression
- Grief as an energetic reality
- Three centers for metabolizing grief
Lesson 3 - Partners in Grief
-
Connection to land and animist relationships
- Relational consent and reciprocity
Lesson 4 - Ritual Skills
- Ritual as birthright and language
- Self-designed grief rituals
Lesson 5 - Ancestral Wisdoms
- Ancestral connection and support
- Exploring ancestral ritual elements
Lesson 6 - Elder Wisdom
- Meeting with an Elder guide
- Relational ecology of ancestral support
Lesson 7 - The Rite of Passage of Death
- Death journey and grief ritual support
- Needs of deceased and needs of bereaved
Lesson 8 - Grieving towards Belonging
- Gateways of grief into an ethic of living
- Grief as initiation, vocation and collective healing
Shauna works with a wealth of practical, innovative and creative ways
with our difficult stories, ever directing us to the realities of the
world around us and as well to its deep, beautiful, sustaining potential
for connectedness. What a blessing.
Ani Arnott
Learning -
this course is a mixture
of video lessons, live Zoom calls with closed captioning available, audio guided
meditations, written content, and downloadable
PDF handouts.
If you have any accessibility
needs, please reach out and let's explore what could make this an
easeful experience for you. Thank you.
Financial Reciprocity
This program is offered on a sliding scale which acknowledges folks' different access
to resources within an inequitable capitalist system, and is offered
within a commitment to economic justice and community care.
I invite you to read my Financial Access Commitments
to learn about why and how I do this, and to review a more
comprehensive framework to help you discern which pricing tier to choose
given your financial situation and access to resources.
Two-part payment plans are available for all tiers at no additional cost.
Pay it Forward - $630 USD ($70/week)
You
have access to wealth, can pay for this course without much financial
consideration, and have the ability to pay a little extra to directly
support someone else who needs financial access options to participate.
Program Cost - $540 USD ($60/week)
You have access to reliable income, and/or own property/mortgage, and/or are paying at the higher end of rental, and/or
are in a double-income home, and/or have
personal savings/investments. You are able to pay for ‘wants’ and spend
little time worried about securing necessities in your life, such as
housing, food, transportation.
Reduced Cost - $400 USD ($44/week - limited available)
You
have access to income that allows you to meet your basic needs, you may
have some expendable income, and/or
have access to resources through family/partners to request support
from. You may need to budget or cut back in some other areas to make
this program happen, but it won't cause any long-term harmful impact on
your life.
Sponsored Cost - $180 to $360 USD ($20 to $40/week - limited available)
Your
access to resources and income stability is limited, and meeting your
basic needs is stressful and inconsistent. Paying at any of the higher
tiers would have a harmful impact on you.
I
prioritize BIPOC, LGBTQI+ and disabled folks in financial need for the
sponsored spots. Please reach out directly to
shaunajanz-at-gmail-dot-com to request this and let me know what
financial reciprocity amount you can pay between $180-$360
and I will enrol you.
Refunds
I am happy to offer a full refund within the first 2 weeks of the program start (the Intro and Lesson 1 will have been released). After that, no refunds are issued.
This course is closed for enrollment.
About my approach in this program.
The content and practices that I guide in this course are an outgrowth of over 15 years of offering therapeutic grief support in diverse settings for diverse losses, over 10 years of offering community healing rituals, over 5 years of offering individual and group ancestral healing rituals, and an ongoing commitment to decolonial ancestral reclamation, personally and professionally.
The embodiment approaches that I guide for grief ritual work are rooted in my 15 years of offering trauma-informed support and facilitation, and from the growing field of somatics and nervous system regulation, from teachers such as Linda Thai, Patti Elledge and NARM. The energy-body and ritual approaches that I guide are embedded in learning directly and indirectly from many teachers, some including: Francis Weller, Malidoma Some, Martin Prechtel, Betsy Bergstrom, Maris Bergrune, Carly Forest, Healing Pathways, Ancestral Medicine, Marion Woodman and Jungian psychoanalysis. My program are all deeply informed by my relationship to my elder guiding ancestors and spirit partners, and as an outgrowth of 20 years of spiritual contemplative practice and study.
I consider myself a life-long learner
and as an educator and ritualist my aim
is to bridge accessible skills and approaches towards embodied relationships and ritual in grieving. The scope of what I offer is not towards
gaining expertise, but towards invitations for a living embodied ritualized life that embraces grief as love, as relationship, and as a pathway to liberation.
To learn more about me, please visit this page.