Learning to Tend Grief Series 

(In-person & online option)

Jen George and Micaela Musterer of Deeper Currents have two concurrent grief series beginning in September. 

You’re invited to join a co-created grief support circle to explore, express and be in community around grief. We experience so many waves of grief (big and small) throughout our lives yet we live in a culture that teaches us to hide our grief and sorrow. The hidden message we receive is that our grief isn't welcome in community spaces or even in our most intimate relationships. It can feel radical to gather in community to explore grief’s edges, yet many have a longing to not do it alone. 

This stirs the inquiry:

• How do we tend to our grief? 

• Why is it helpful to do so in community? 

This 12-week container (meeting for 6 sessions within the 12 weeks) was intentionally designed for those who are unfamiliar with turning toward their own grief in more creative ways and/or in community. There are ancient, more connected ways to be with our grief than what we were taught. In this series we will gather to discuss and explore simple and gentle ways to be with our personal and collective grief.

In our culture it’s common to think this may not apply to you if you haven’t experienced a close death or had a major life transition (divorce, move, job loss, etc) but we will expand on honoring the places grief regularly arises: 

•  Grief around current world affairs

• Grief that you can’t name but is deeply felt

•  Grief around climate collapse 

• Collective grief

• Ancestral grief

The list goes on and on. If you’re noticing curiosity arise or a stirring inside that you recognize as resonance, we invite you to join us.

When we gather and share our unfiltered life stories, we start to create new ways to be in community. Often we realize how similar our stories are and recognize that we aren’t as alone in this world as we thought or felt. This is a place to see each other and be seen, to be heard and held in your truth.

In-person Series

6 Thursdays - meets every other week

Dates: 9/23, 10/7, 10/21, 11/4, 11/18, 12/2

Time: 6:00 - 8:00pm PST

*Note: The first gathering is 3 hours | 6 - 9pm

In-person location: 

Full Bloom Sanctuary (15 mins outside of Bellingham off Everson Goshen Road. Exact address will be shared after registration is completed)

In-person pricing:

Cost:  $300 - $400 (sliding scale for series)

+Registration deadline: September 16th, 2025

+Scholarships are available - email to inquire

Online Series

6 Tuesdays- meets every other week

Dates: 9/18, 10/2, 10/16, 10/30, 11/13, 11/27

Time: 5:30 - 7:00pm PST

*Note: The first gathering is 2 hours | 5:30 - 7:30pm

Online location:

Zoom

Online pricing:

Cost: $200 - $300 (sliding scale for series)

+Registration deadline: September 11th, 2025

+Scholarships are available - email to inquire

HOW TO RESERVE YOUR SPOT:

Register for in-person offering

Register for online offering

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Community Grief Lodge 

Hosted by Jen George, Micaela Musterer and Brian "Yam" Dwyer

Sunday, September 21st | 2-7pm

Sunday, November 2nd | 2-7pm

Please join us (Micaela Musterer, Jen George and Brian "Yam" Dwyer) in community for an afternoon of circling, singing, sharing, and sacred co-created ritual. Whether you are new to grieving with others or are familiar with the practice of tending grief, Community Grief Lodge offers the local community a space to tend to the many forms of grief that we hold inside us.

Whatever you’re carrying, you don’t have to carry it alone.

WHAT IS IT?

Community Grief Lodge is a land-based, community-fed relational and musical healing space. In this ritual container we welcome in the multi-faceted expressions of grief, joy, anger, desire, fear, longing — emotions that are so often suppressed and stuck in our bodies — to be honored, expressed and tenderly held by others. No need to be ‘experienced’ in the ways of ritual, rhythm and music, or ‘good’ at grief-tending to participate— this space is open to anyone who feels called to explore and express the depths of their humanness, together.

WHY IS IT HAPPENING?

Community Grief Lodge is a space to explore the waters of collective depth, attunement and belonging, together. For many of us, life throws curve balls our way when we least expect it. Our schemes fail. Our plans fall through. Our dreams fade and our wishes seem to go unanswered. Our life, inevitably, finds itself changing. When these things happen we can sometimes feel sad, distracted, weighed down, at a loss, or impacted by major (and sometimes especially minor) life-shifts. But what if we could be held with compassion and courage in the rawness and fullness of our experience, and invited to give ourselves permission to share the bigness of whatever it is? How would it feel to be witnessed, listened to and supported in a collective way no matter what you’re going through?

In the words of one of our facilitators, Micaela Musterer, “...What feels really important to Jen and myself [with Community Grief Lodge] is that we cultivate a space where people can just be in their shit, without having any pressure or expectation or promise that it should be, could be or will be something else.”

As a team of facilitators and friends, we have each gleaned through our own direct experience how much inner-strength, resilience and generative beauty can be cultivated through returning to collective grief spaces time and time again.  It’s one of the many reasons we have called this container into being: because we ourselves need it, and have found it to be beneficial in our lives and our communities. To us, collective grief tending feels like practicing basic sanity - a standard exercise in collective heart & soul maintenance. 

WHAT CAN I EXPECT?

Expect tears, laughs, tender heartache and healing attention. Expect to feel things. Expect realness and encouragement to be exactly where you are without expectations to be changed or fixed. The totality of who you are is welcome here. This invitation is one that asks you to sense into this healing, life-giving culture of Village that many of us have not yet experienced, but remember somewhere deep inside our bones and are longing for. We don’t have the answers. We are simply answering the call of our hearts, and inviting others to answer theirs with us.

LINEAGE OF TEACHERS

The style of grief ritual in this container is informed by - but not a direct descendant of - the teachings and offerings of Malidoma Patrice Somé, Sobonfu Somé, The Dagara People of Burkina Faso, West Africa, Resmaa Menakem, Francis Weller, Joanna Macy, Martín Prechtel, Laurence Cole, Thérèse Charvet, Tere Carranza, Collin Brown, and others. We give thanks and praise to each of them for their ongoing guidance, and recognize that none of what we are offering would be possible without their vital contributions to the world of grief-tending.

HOW TO RESERVE YOUR SPOT:

Register for September 21st Grief Lodge

Register for November 2nd Grief Lodge

To learn about Jen and Micaela: https://www.deepercurrentspnw.com/about

To hear the latest offering of Brian's Music: https://earthpracticemusic.bandcamp.com/album/dream-come-thru-earth-practice-live-the-roost

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Breath of Life Community for Peace

Let's gather in Peace for Peace

When:

• September 21

• October 5

• November 2

• December 7

Time: 9am-12:30pm

Where: Peace Education Somatic School/ Aikido Dojo

1101 N State Street

Bellingham, WA 98225

Schedule:

• 9:00-10:00am Open Floor somatic practice. Come practice in community...any personal practice, all forms are welcome...yoga, tai chi, chi gong, breath work, aikido...

• 10:00-11:00am Seated Meditation for peace (10-10:15am arrive and settle), chairs are provided, please bring personal items for sitting on the floor.

• 11:00-11:20am Supported community conversation for Peace.

• 11:30am-12:00pm Music and Movement- musician lead music for community enjoyment and group singing, call and response. People welcome and encouraged to dance and move.

• 12:00-12:30pm Musical shares, poetry, creative offerings for peace

Children welcome! In the fall we will have programs that are relational, creative, and focused on principles of peace in a fun and guided environment where they can engage in their own way as desired.

RSVP: claracunningham1008@gmail.com

No RSVP required, although it is helpful us to get a headcount.