Welcome to Grief Tending in the Forest on Saturday 26th September
Whether you are navigating personal loss, seeking a way to be with the sorrows of the world, or looking for compassionate space where grief of all kinds is welcomed, join us in the forest to tend to our grief in community.

Key details:

When: Saturday 26th September 

Start time: Arrival: 10.30am, Start: 11am, Finish: 4pm 

Where:  Stanmer Organics, Stanmer Park  (Location will be confirmed in follow up email)

Contact us:
Nikki - [email protected]
Christina -  [email protected]

“Grieving is a natural process, allowing the expression of sadness, loneliness, anger, despair and other feelings. The more we open ourselves to love others, to celebrate the beauty of our world, to long for peace or justice, the more we open ourselves to the pain of losing what we love, or feeling the destruction and the inequality in the world around us.” - Sophy Banks 

"There is some strange intimacy between grief and aliveness, some sacred exchange between what seems unbearable and what is most exquisitely alive. Through this, I have come to have a lasting faith in grief.” 

― Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief 

We live in a predominately grief-avoidant culture, one that puts the onus on the individual to work through their pain alone or in private with a therapist. Grief is often pathologised and shamed, which can make it an isolating experience. However coming together to share in our grief is something that has been part of human cultures throughout time and across the world. We are inspired by villages and indigenous communities around the world who tend to their grief as a regular practice, and in doing so see grief as a precious thing that, when tended to collectively, can be deeply connecting. 

In grief tending practice we welcome in the many forms of grief and losses; from the death of a loved one, a relationship breakdown, the life paths we hoped for but did not receive, the state of our world and planet. Francis Weller’s “5 Gates to Grief” gives us a helpful framework in honouring grief from whichever branch of our humanity it arises. 

We believe that it is through creating meaningful, connecting and safe space to ritualise and express our grief in the collective, that we can begin to tend to our pain and our love at the same time. Grief tending can often feel surprisingly life affirming and, to us, this is the soul work we want to offer in community.

Christina and Nikki have both been on powerful journeys with their grief and have been apprenticing to grief and holding grief spaces over the last few years. They are now coming together through their life experiences and passion for community and ritual to offer a grief tending space. Our intention for this work is to build a Brighton grief tending village, so we can be with and learn from our grief as a collective. 

Nikki is a home educating mother, an integral coach, facilitator, wellbeing and trauma informed practitioner and forest school leader. In her spare time you will find her dancing or in nature! Nikki’s craft  creating meaningful and safe spaces for people to come as they are, and together to remember old ways; sitting around fires, in circles  exploring big life questions through ritual. 

She has been working with young people and educators over the last 20 years, supporting their wellbeing through connecting them to nature and their agency through personal development and self discovery. Her dedicated work with young people focuses teaching emotional wellbeing, mental health, embodied leadership and positive psychology. 

Grief work is her soul work, having experienced the loss of a parent herself. Nikki designed, facilitated and trained The Grief Guides, launched by Apart of Me. The Grief Guides is peer-based model to support young people experiencing grief, challenging the societal tendencies to turn away from death and instead facing the experience not head on but palm out, held in the hands of those living through the same thing. She recently joined the The FireFly project team, supporting proactive grief education and creating grief aware and grief welcome spaces. 

Christina is a Brighton-based programme designer and facilitator, song-sharer, sea swimmer and proud aunt. She has spent the last 15 years designing and delivering educational programmes for young people and adults ranging from mental health and wellbeing, climate action, women’s empowerment and creative arts. 

Christina came to grief work in 2022 when she embarked upon the Host Fellowship with Huddlecraft. Bereaved as a child, she wanted to explore her own grief and created the “Death x Life Huddle” - a creative exploration of our relationship with death, loss and grief for 12 curious mortals. In 2023 she trained in Grief Tending on Sophy Bank’s “Apprenticing to Grief” programme and has since been offering regular group grief journeys with The Slow Work Garden. Christina is a deeply caring facilitator, committed to creating tender and joyful spaces for our grief and our love in equal measure.

https://www.theslowworkgarden.com/what-if-we-learnt-to-grieve-together

We look forward to being together in the forest🌿

With love
Nikki and Christina