“Any time a feeling of loss arises, there is an energy that demands ritual in order to allow reconciliation and the return to peace. Grief must be approached as a release of tension created by separation and disconnection from someone or something that we love.” -Malidoma Somé

Community Grief and Renewal Ritual
The feeling of disconnect from that which we love accumulates quickly as unmetabolized grief. We are innately, profoundly connected to life but are taught to believe that we are spiritually disconnected, succumbing to feelings of scarcity and isolation. Emotions of grief are not meant to be experienced alone, behind closed doors. They are meant to be ritualized in community, to be witnessed in sacred space. When we come together in sacred grieving, we validate, witness, and share our collective stories of loss, pain, and suffering to compost them into the soils of our hearts. This is a way of growing seeds of deep connection and liberation.
As we come to the Spring Equinox, we feel the brightness in the blossoms, the lengthening of the days. It's a good time to shed the heaviness and sorrow of the winter months, to move the stuckness, and especially to pray together for the recent tragedies. In the face of this, we actually have a great resource. Our bodies hold wisdom and memory for metabolizing this collective grief and growing resilience together. We are connected to our ancestors who navigated great loss and oppression, and their experience can guide us. We are in continuous reciprocal relationship with the seen and unseen; ancestors, spirits, plants, animals, minerals, all these dynamic forces have support and love. We are calling in, collectively, all our resources and our deepest soul’s prayer, feeding life through the gift of our grief.

This one-day weekend ritual event will be held at Grandmother Ocean, exact location tba. The ritual will be held in the healing lineages taught to Madeleina and Coby by Sobonfu Somé, Malidoma Somé, and Martín Prechtel, with permission from these lineages. Our focus is on creating a solid container of trust and safety to access our personal and collective grief, rooted in traditional practices that were gifted to us. We offer and receive in service to ourselves, our beloveds, our communities, the elements, and the Wild Holies of Nature.

A great tree fell last year.
We are still grieving the loss of Elder Malidoma Somé, who left his physical body last year on December 9, 2021, a Water Year. At his request, his body was returned to his homeland in the village of Dano, Burkina Faso, for the traditional Dagara funeral rites. Those rites were followed by an Ancestralization ceremony and Elder Malidoma has transitioned to the ancestral realm where we feel his support and guidance.

Event details
Date: Saturday, March 18th
Time: Arriving by 9:45 am, going until 5:30-6-ish.
Location: Close to the Ocean, Sonoma
Cost: $100-$200, sliding scale. Please, the more generous you are able to be, the more we can send to the Villages in Burkina Faso, West Africa to support the families and ritual work of Sobonfu and Malídoma.
Venmo: @Coby-Leibman, Paypal: madeleina88@gmail.com
Further information and directions will be sent upon registration.

Registration Requirements
There are two prerequisites for attending this Grief Ritual:
-Watching the youtube videos below
-Reading this entire event description
We require email communication upon payment, sent to communityritual@gmail.com, that you have completed both prerequisites.

A one-day event 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, an act of respect, and an essential prerequisite for attendance.A confirmation email will be sent once we've received your payment and confirmation that you watched the videos.

Mental health: 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.***

Scholarships: scholarships and reduced rates are available for BIPOC and other marginalized communities. Please contact us directly for inquiries at communityritual@gmail.com.
15% of the proceeds will be donated to Sobonfu Somé's organization Wisdom Spring

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

Grieving Resources and Ritual Prerequisites
Videos
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
Why grief is important

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 Sages's/Land of Verse 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 13 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! MadeleinaBolduc.com
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 and healing circles 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, Coby works closely with the community here in the bay area that trained with her in holding her lineage.
Somatic Practitioner: Certified Somatic Experience Practitioner (SEP), Master Classes in Ancestral Healing, Theraplay, Attachment, trainings with Gabor Mate.
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, Pomo and Wailaki Tribes and the Winnimum Wintu tribes as an ally and supporter in cultural revitalization.
Coby runs youth rites of passage programs in Sonoma County and does outdoor wilderness and somatic sessions with youth and adults.
Coby runs a private practice as a Somatic Experience Practitioner (SEP) and wilderness and youth mentor helping people connect with the lands that sustain us and the bodies' innate capacity to lead the way towards healing. www.cobyleibman.com