Between the Sea & ME: A Grief Ritual for Our Coastal Communities -- Postponed

*EVENT UPDATE*

Thanks for your interest and positive response to this event. Based on thoughtul feedback from our community members, we’ve decided to postpone this event to a slower season in order offer the best communal experience for all. Stay tuned at hogfish.org and wellsreserve.org/calendar for a new date later this winter. We look forward to gathering with you in the near future!

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We are honored to welcome Hogfish to the Wells Reserve to lead this special community event, centered around climate grief, but open to all. Facilitators trained in grief work, reiki, art therapy, somatic work, and social work will guide participants through a progression of activities designed to create an empathetic, safe, and nurturing space for grief, gratitude, and community.

Living on or near the coast, many of us are lucky enough to have a personal deep connection to the natural world, and so also must carry a personal deep connection to the evolving climate crisis. This gathering provides a communal space to process these emotions that are often held privately.

Grief and gratitude for the natural world are not meant to be solitary, though today many of us grieve and give thanks alone; communal ritual offers the opportunity to witness one another’s pain and joy, share our stories, and hold each other as we journey into the depth of our collective sorrow so that we may more fully experience the gratitude for what we have lost and what still is.

Learn more from the event organizers in our recent blog post.

This event will include:

• the chance for you to share a place that is important to you through a photo or story
• poetry and song
• an invocation to the unseen world through spoken word and drumming
• time to grieve and have that grieving witnessed and held
• grounding somatic movement practices to help us find deep support as we unwind and soften the bracing in our bodies
• the creation of a beautiful shrine
• micro-rituals of guided writing practices that include an opportunity to share and witness in small groups
• culminating in a powerful community grief ritual on the beach by the ocean
• a potluck of dishes that connect you to a favorite experience with the natural world
• dancing together to let our feelings move through us and back into the world

Robin Wall Kimmerer writes, “If grief can be a doorway to love, then let us all weep for the world we are breaking apart so we can love it back to wholeness again.’”

This event is made possible by a generous grant from the Onion Foundation. We are grateful to be able to offer sliding scale ticket pricing to make this event more accessible to our community.

Who is this event for?

• People who are deeply concerned about climate change
• People who care deeply for coastal places
• People who have witnessed dramatic change in the coastal places they are connected to
• People whose lives were directly affected by the Winter 2024 storms
• People who are looking for ways to process their emotions about climate change
• People who may feel alone in experiencing feelings of climate loss and grief
• People who are looking to build community with others who share their feelings about climate loss

What do we hope you will take away from this experience?

• Awareness of the power and importance of gathering as a community to witness and express deep feelings
• Respect and gratitude for grief and the important role it plays in our lives
• Approaches for navigating and comfort with processing grief individually and as a community
• Recognition that we are not alone in bearing these feelings
• Comfort, solace, perhaps even acceptance

About Hogfish

Hogfish is a regenerative arts production company and artist residency at the historic Beckett Castle, surrounded by an internationally recognized rose garden on the coast of Maine. They are building an artistic sanctuary and body of work dedicated to restoring creative and physical health to individuals, our communities, and our earth.

The climate is changing. Temperatures and tensions are rising in our environment, our communities, and ourselves. Industrialization and the digital world have lifted billions out of poverty, and yet, with the rise of wealth has also come the rise of inequality, toxic carbon levels, fraught public discourse, and sedentary lifestyles. Hogfish is inspired by heroes, sung and unsung, working to restore wellness to global, social, and personal realms. Hogfish believes that applying the principles of regenerative agriculture to the arts provides a unique opportunity to holistically restore every layer of the human experience. We are on a quest to build an artistic sanctuary and body of work to restore a healthier dynamic balance between our planet, the stories we tell, and the way we live.

Accessibility

This event will begin on the Laudholm campus with paved walkways. The grief ritual will proceed down the Barrier Beach trail which involves 0.5 miles walking each way on an unpaved, wide trail, with mild elevation change, ending at the beach. For more information about accessibility and trail conditions, please reach out.