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 we gather to be together, not separate in our grieving and mourning. It is a space to speak, to listen, to move, to write with the understanding that the process of grieving and mourning is a human practice--holy, sacred and profane--that 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 been the way that I have been able to process grief and mourning in a way that gives loss meaning. Through writing, art-making, singing and dancing, I have been able to reflect upon death as a part of life. At times the destruction of death has felt like an abyss, and out of this sense of never ending loss I have found personal, beautiful and meaningful ways to keep reaching for life.

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The Altar of Kinship 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, to deepen in love for the other than human life around us, and to deepen in love for our collective as it moves through loss. In this space I am both performer and producer and collaborate with other artists of different media, musicians, ministers of different faiths, indigenous leaders to create rituals that are diverse and reflective of in the words of Rumi "There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground."

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Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

— Rumi

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I am honored to facilitate these gatherings and offer them in community. I believe it has been a profound experience for many, and I have been deeply moved by each person's willingness to be tender and bold, expressive and contemplative. We are transformed in each other's presence as we share with words, with art and with movement our experience. We explore grief as a creative act and mourn together rather than apart. Many people express gaining more insight, more peace, more expression and more space for life.

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The gatherings are filled with synchronicities and miracles. To name one that moved us all was the evening that a young man walked into the Church in Ocean Park in Santa Monica, where we gathered, "looking for a place to pray" because he was overwhelmed with loss in his own life and didn't know where to turn. He was immediately embraced and folded into the group.

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

 

Curious to know more and about the next gathering? Please send an email to ey@elizabethyochim.com

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Photo of the Angelbird by Michele Mattei.