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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This community gathering has been an honor to facilitate, and I believe a profound experience for the participants. I have been deeply moved by each person's willingness to be tender and bold, expressive and contemplative. We have been transformed. We have explored grief as a creative act and mourned together rather than apart. Many expressed gaining more insight, more peace, more expression and more space for life.

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And then there was the moment when a young man walked into the church looking for a place to pray because he was distraught over a significant loss and was immediately embraced and folded into the group. 

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There is consensus that these rituals come at a perfect time of such immense individual and collective death, grief and loss. At the least, we created a space to simply feel what is happening underneath all this change and love each other through the process.

 

Curious? Come join us.

 

Inquiry please send an email to ey@elizabethyochim.com

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Photo of the Angelbird by Michele Mattei.

Wings by Motherplucker Feather Company.