Honoring and Grieving our Teacher
Elder Malidoma Patrice Somé 1956–2021

Community Grief and Renewal Ritual

We are at the edge of new beginnings as Spring begins to bloom in the Bay Area. As our world continues to speed up, we feel this sense of wanting to slow down and metabolize what we’ve gone through this winter, and these last years. True rebirth and transformation require this kind of allowing and attending, letting ourselves choose new paths, from more whole selves, with all that we’ve learned through these times. With the isolation some of us have become accustomed to, it can be challenging to open into the vulnerability of sharing our hearts. Still, we long for community ritual space to tend to what we’ve all been holding, feeling, and struggling with alone.

We are living through a wild time of grief, loss, change, and profound uncertainty. The energy it can take just to navigate our nervous systems, discerning real and apparent threats, on a daily basis, can be exhausting and anxiety-provoking, even to those who already have a resilient core, much less for those working with unresolved traumas and ungrieved losses. Unprocessed grief can build easily over time, affecting us in a myriad of ways. It is easy to drift out into a turbulent sea of emotions where the waves can feel unrelenting. As well, grief can appear in so many ways- from sorrow to bleakness, numbness to anger. It can be hard to know how to handle the range of feelings.

In this era of the coronavirus, which sits on the throne of the lungs and in our blood cells, where much of our grief is held personally and collectively, learning resiliency practices to metabolize grief and find our heart's path is vital.

Our bodies hold wisdom and memory for metabolizing our collective grief and growing resilience. Our ancestors are with us, and they too have gone through the aches of epidemics and loss. Learning to connect to their wisdom and courageous spirits is part of stepping fully into our true selves, the ones who are both vulnerable and strong, who remember how to carry all this together. Using grief as a collective healing path we will navigate the energetic fields across generations, weaving together the greater spiraling webs of space and time such that our grief becomes a gift of Beauty making room for more Life.

This one-day weekend event will be held on the coast near Bodega Bay, Carlevaro Way, CA on a sacred spot at the feet of our majestic Grandmother Ocean.

The ritual will be held in the healing lineages taught to Madeleina and Coby by Sobonfu Somé, Malidoma Somé and Martín Prechtel. These traditional Rituals for metabolizing grief, along with somatic tools, herbal wisdom and ancestral connection practices balance the nervous system and help integrate intergenerational trauma. Our focus is on creating a solid container of trust and safety. This Ritual consistently offers each person a steady, internal sense of well-being and health, experienced as authentic vital lifeforce, greater depths of love and compassion, and doorways to step into their deepest gifts. We offer and receive in service to ourselves, our beloveds, our communities, and the Wild Holies of Nature.

Event date:
March 5th, arriving at the ocean by 9:45 am, going until 6-ish
Detailed workshop information and directions will be sent once registered.
Cost: $75-150, sliding scale

Pay by Venmo to @Coby-Leibman or Paypal cobyleibman@yahoo.com.

*** We require email comunication upon payment, sent to

communityritual@gmail.com

that you have watched/listened to the video and youtube links below as a pre-requisite to attending this Grief Ritual. A one-day event, especially at the ocean where it can be difficult to hear, isn't adequate time to share the traditions and context of the lineage of this ritual. We care deeply about honoring our teachers and their ways. Sharing their voices with you is both an offering of resources and an essential prerequisite for attendance.

As well, we ask that you please share with us if you believe yourself to be in a mental health crisis, and if so, what support you have available. Grief Rituals are tremendously healing, and can also expose and open traumas and past wounds. We care deeply that this is an appropriate choice for all who attend. Grief Rituals are not a substitute for therapy or mental health care.***

A confirmation email will be sent once payment and communication affirming the prerequisite is received.

Scholarships and reduced rates available for BIPOC and other marginalized communities. Please contact us directly for inquiries at communityritual@gmail.com.

15% of the proceeds will go to an inter-tribal biocultural heritage farm and indigenous educational center located in Graton, Herons Shadow.
http://www.nativeland.org/donate

All CDC-issued covid protocols, including respecting social distancing for those who wish and optional (because we will be outside) mask wearing will be observed during this workshop.
***We will require proof of a negative PCR or at-home covid test upon arrival at the site.***

Grieving Resources and Ritual pre-requisites:

Why grief is important:
Sobonfu on Grieving:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtUqMwRXvhY

Sobonfu on Death:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_0gFHYL4Ec

Martín Prechtel on Grief
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUwewfPPSbE&t=22s

From the book 'The Smell of Rain on Dust, Grief and Praise' by Martín Prechtel: (available on Audible, highly suggested)

"Grief, if not metabolized, almost always goes to some form of accusatory violence in the end. Either externalized, exported, or internalized - or all of the above.
It's needful for the peace of a people, peace of the human heart, peace of the earth, for grief to be there, not transcending on a bliss journey to avoid grief.

We need a culture of passionately grateful people who can hear, give, and truly feel the deep weeping grief inside the absurd platform of hate caused by the writhing of human pain. Instead of compulsively defusing the situation, these cool people would know to find and digest the grief through the whole bigger 'story' of life, knowing it is hard in our frustration not to always want to fight against 'something' to make it alright.
How relaxing it would be if there really just was a bunch of bad guys who you had only to depose to make the world all fixed up. But that's too simple and the source of even more loss, because in the instance of trying to cure it all by force you plant the next round of the sickness of revenge. So what do you do?
Get courageous.

Become a person. Make beauty out of grief. Become real people who might have untenable rotten ideas, but who in the end grow into solid old people who are generous and unconniving, people who know things and don't just see everything as a business opportunity. Be courageous, make your hate into an art of love beyond your wants, and stop sending undigested grief in the form of sorrow frozen into hate into the arms of the future. Hand over the world with some modicum of the possibility for peace".

Madeleina and Coby's Bios:

Madeleina Bolduc has been cultivating the art of medicine and ritual for three decades. Raised in the creative crucible of the Naropa University, she was trained by Tibetan meditation masters, artists, and indigenous elders in the practices of everyday magic, consciousness, and world wisdom traditions from childhood to early adulthood. She is a Holistic Health Practitioner, integrating Western Clinical Medical Herbalism, Chinese, Mayan, Tibetan, and Eden Energy Medicine, traditional foods, wild harvesting and medicine making, spiritual counseling, coaching, somatic practices, and indigenous wisdom, as given permission by her teachers. She is an educator of Clinical and Elemental Herbal Medicine, a lineage holder of Tibetan Buddhist meditation practices, a ceremony officiant, and an artist. She has been both visiting teacher and core faculty at various herbal schools.
Currently, Madeleina is teaching a myriad of classes, including medicine making, and the Elemental Herbal Wisdom Immersion that starts at the beginning of each year. She holds a full private practice and is core faculty at the Scarlet Sage's School of Traditional Healing Arts.
She was a student and friend since 1995 of the beloved, late Sobonfu Somé, is a devoted student of the illustrious maestro, Martín Prechtel since 2000, attending his school, Bolad's Kitchen for the last 12 years (www.floweringmountain.com), and is training with master teacher Adam Gainsberg in Open Heart Experiencing work.
As a re-Weaver of Culture and dedicated Beauty-Maker, Madeleina is passionately devoted to the preservation and cross-pollination of wisdom and healing traditions, while infusing them with fresh color and perspective. She loves teaching people about the wonders of Plant Medicine, the Vitality of our Hearts, our relationships to the Elements, and the incredibly diverse ways in which we can be fully Awake and Praise Life!

Coby Leibman is a Somatic Experience Practitioner, a chef, a wild forager, a lover of plants, people, and all wild beings. He creates community events on a regular basis to build community, culture, and vitality.
His primary teachers have been:
Martín Prechtel: 12 years participating in ritual with Martín and attending his school in New Mexico (Bolad's Kitchen).
Malidoma Somé: 12 years of assisting and training with Malidoma.

Sobonfu Somé: Coby attended and assisted grief rituals with Sobonfu for 8 years and has worked closely with the community here in the bay area holding her lineage.

Somatic Experiencing: Three years of training as a Somatic practitioner and Master Class in Ancestral Healing.

Coby has also trained with Keith Pashe and Shane Pashe from Dakota Tipi for over 10 years and worked with many local native communities including Sogorea Te as an ally and supporter in cultural revitalization.

Coby runs youth rites of passage programs in Sonoma County and does outdoor wilderness and somatic therapy with youth and adults.
Coby runs a private practice as a Somatic Experience Practitioner and wilderness mentor helping people connect with the lands that sustain us and the bodies innate capacity to lead the way towards healing. www.cobyleibman.com