Between the Sea & ME: A Grief Ritual for the Maine Coast Community

We are honored to welcome Hogfish to the Wells Reserve for this special event, to create an empathetic, safe, and nurturing space for grief, gratitude, and community centered around climate grief, but open to all.

Living in Maine, 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 those deep connections 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 of heartbreak and heart-made, and to 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.

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.

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 .5 miles walking each way on and unpaved, wide trail, with mild elevation change, ending at the beach. For more information about accessibility and trail conditions, please reach out.