a ritual space to remember, repair, and rebirth

The Altar of Kinship comes from a lifetime of dreaming of a place where grief and joy are equally welcomed. A place where you don't have to hide your grief. A place where grief is something beautiful to share and not shameful to carry. The Altar of Kinship is a space in which to gather, be together, not separate, to speak, to listen, to move, to write with an intention that the process of grieving and mourning is a human practice and that it is holy, sacred and profane, and that it happens on its own time and when allowed finds its own authentic expression.

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This may not be for everyone, but it may be for someone. It may be for you. It has certainly been the way that I have been able to process grief and mourn in a way that has meaning. I have been able to reflect upon death as a part of life, and out of the abyss that the destruction that death creates I have found personal, beautiful and meaningful ways to keep reaching for life.

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This is meant to be a laboratory of love. A place to deepen in self-love, to deepen in love for a fellow human being that is suffering, and to deepen in love for our collective as it moves through loss.

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The experience begins with a:

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May 8th - Thursday evening, 7:30-9pm, with a gently facilitated movement workshopin which we, with the permission of space and slowing down, will explore grief. This may be the death of a person that we love, or a home that we love or a job, or relationship. It will explore an ending of something of some kind.

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May 11th - Mother's Day - Sunday afternoon, 3:30-5:30pm, is a ritual in which we will witness and then participate (at whatever level you feel called) in a community ritual of mourning following the cycle of life from death to rebirth. It will be the dance of the Angelbird and the Dark Bird.

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May 12th - Monday art making experience, 3:30-5pm, an integrative arts practice and another chance to be together and make something while we share about the experience.

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Come to one, come to all. Like double-Dutch, jump in when you are called.

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The immensity of loss can be daunting, and I found throughout my life that there weren’t enough spaces to simple feel what I was feeling let alone enter a ritual space to create something from the experience. I believe that this has been an aspect of my performance work as the Angelbird. Through the process of training to become a Death Midwife, and within that community, I saw how what I was already doing could be in service to helping people and communities process our experience of death.

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Permission to come as you are. And may this be a place to shift the experience of loss from isolated mourning to collective healing, and towards remembering the joyousness of being alive.

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Where: The Church in Ocean Park, 235 Hill Street, Santa Monica

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Thursday, April 10: Workshop 7:30-9pm (Church at Ocean Park)

Sunday, April 13: Ritual 3:30-5pm (Church at Ocean Park)

Monday, April 14: Arts Integration 3:30-5pm (MUD WTR Cafe on Main)

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Suggested donation:

$30 / per event

$50/ for two

$75 / for all three

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Venmo or PayPal @Elizabethyochim to reserve your participation.

Email ey@elizabethyochim.com for more information.

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Photo of the Angelbird by Michele Mattei.

Wings by Motherplucker Feather Company.