In the Heart of All Our Sorrows

We are in the times of endings, good byes, decay and as a result of all that  loss, we can say that we are in the times of big sorrows. We are losing friends, family members, acquaintances…in one word, loved ones, people that mattered to us and have touched our lives with goodness, smile, wisdom and love. We are losing our dear animals - those that loved us when it seemed that nobody else understood us; they offered unconditional love and sweetness in the moments we could not offer it to ourselves.

We are losing freedom, homes, country we were born in and the world as we knew it. We are losing mother Earth under all-pervading destruction, trees and hundreds of species of plants that we still did not name. We are losing before we had the opportunity to have that Something.

We are losing relationships, marriages, jobs, dreams, hopes, safety and stability. Some have lost health and body parts. We are losing self that we knew our entire life.

What these losses have in common, what connects them,  is a sense of emptiness and loneliness. That sense of emptiness is in our bodies, our feelings, in the iin the minds, like something big, infinite… hole without bottom. It feels like something endless.

Sorrow caused by loss has tendency to overwhelm and drawn us.This sense is there whether we express it or we keep it inside of us, trying to separate from it.

Grief is profound and complex. It is not like regular sadness that is usually acute and caused by disappointment, sad event or simply individual emotional state. Sorrow is often a compound of different emotions, lasts much longer and can cause physical symptoms (loss of appetite, fatigue).

There are losses that are grieved for extended periods of time. That is why, in process of being with grief we do not enter with intention to overcome it, and cross to another shore, continuing with our lives. Some losses are irreplaceable and all we can do is learn how to live with them, how to live with emptiness that stays inside and around us.

In order to be adult and mature person we must develop relationship with grief and become its apprentice (Francis Weller).

In this workshop, or better to say beingshop, we will be with ourselves and others on this spiral of grief. We will apprentice with sorrow that is touching our lives every day in different ways. We will talk to it, walk with it, write, sing and dance to it.

We will listen to the others, hearken ourselves, making more space for what wants to move and express itself. Like in the alchemical processes, that which is cooking is not intended to improve itself, but to become patient so the material, the life essence in us, can become what it wants to become.

This process requires surrender and the community is the only place where it can unfold in its own, organic way, for each one of us. Grieving is not private, but communal process.

In order to reserve the place, nonrefundable deposit of €50 (if using PayPal, please add €5)  is required. Participants from abroad are welcome as translation can be provided for additional cost.