THE SACRED WORK OF GRIEF
SCHEDULE 2026
Join us for our transformative weekends, groups, day-long retreats, and public talks devoted to the sacred work of grief. Below you will find our schedule, more information, registration, and details about our current offerings.
When our sorrows are witnessed and held within a community of compassion, grief can surprisingly turn to joy, to a love emboldened for all that surrounds us. Love and loss have been eternally entwined.
-Francis Weller
Where there is sorrow there is holy ground
-Oscar Wilde
FALL 2026
This October, in a private, natural setting in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains of Northern California, we will gather to create a sanctuary for our losses - a place where the profound gifts of grief can emerge. Together, we will reclaim the conversation on the place of grief in our lives.
Facilitators Shellee Sepko LMFT, Laurence Cole and their skilled team will be the holders of this powerful space. Shellee and Laurence, both mentored by Francis Weller and in the lineage of Sobonfu and Malidoma Somé, will offer practices to help rediscover our natural human capacity for healing that comes through song, poetry, movement, writing practices, group sharing, humor and the co-creation of a beautiful ritual.
Together, we will help to cultivate a brave, non-judgmental atmosphere in which we can express our tender hearts and our losses in community. Join us as we carry our stories of loss into the seen world where they can be held within the healing embrace of beauty, community and the sacred.
Organic meals and refreshments included.
Limited spaces available.
Some work/trade discounts available. Scholarships available for marginalized communities.
THE SACRED WORK OF GRIEF
Community Gathering and Ritual
October 9-11, 2026
Nevada City, Ca
$575-$695 Sliding Scale
Shellee A. Sepko, MA, LMFT is a Jungian psychotherapist, grief tender and ritual facilitator mentored by Francis Weller since 2017. She lives and loves in the Sierra Nevada foothills of Northern California. Shellee is also the Executive Director of What’s Up Wellness, a community organization serving young people in Nevada and Placer Counties.
Laurence Cole is a song elder and ritualist from Port Townsend, Washington. He carries the gift of helping us rediscover the life-changing, transformative power of singing and grieving in community. Laurence is guided and inspired by the teachings of Malidoma Somé, Sobonfu Somé, Angeles Arrien, Michael Meade, James Hillman, Francis Weller, Joanna Macy and many others.
Grief Rituals
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Grief rituals are where we gather together as brave, tender-hearted individuals to create a sacred space for honoring our grief.
During our time, we weave together the ritual structure and tools taught directly to us by Francis Weller, author of The Wild Edge of Sorrow, Sobonfu Some’ as well as others well-versed in the terrrain of grief and the sacred. During our weekend and day long gatherings, the blessings of beauty, compassion, and reverence very often emerge as natural transformative gifts of grief.
This is not a space for anyone to fix you, offer advice, or cheer you up. It is a place to be held, seen, witnessed, and honored in your grief. Together, we create a space of generosity for sorrow without forcing it, without minimizing it, and without asking you to rise above it.
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Grief rituals invite us to lean into vulnerability, trust, and surrender so we can remember how to grieve together as community. Through listening to others, we find language for what once was unsayable. In ritual space, grief is destigmatized, metabolized, and freed from the weight of shame. Together, we regulate our bodies and souls in the natural ways of communitas being reminded that we do not have to carry grief alone.
Throughout our time together we will invite you into:
Writing Practices
Singing
Poetry
Movement
Embodiment practices
Listening practices
Large and small group circle sharing
A generous welcoming to whatever is moving through you—whether numbness, shame, rage, trembling, stillness, wailing, or silence—all is welcome
Community Ritual
Inspiration and guidance from Francis Weller to help support and frame our work together
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For each ritual gathering, we invite our participants to add to our central and ritual shrines. We invite you to bring what holds meaning for you in the form of personal, cultural or other sacred objects to create beauty at our Communal and Grief Shrines. We welcome fresh flowers, garden greens, stones, photos, art, flameless candles, colored cloths etc. We enourage all to be as lush and as colorful as you feel called! We welcome your additions to the vibrant beauty of these healing places.
GRIEF
An Essential Skill for Our Times
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Our times are filled with intensity and uncertainty and this may continue into our the foreseeable future. In such times, cultivating the capacity to grieve well is not optional—it is essential for our personal and communal well-being. Grieving well keeps our hearts open and tender, permeable to beauty, and resilient in the face of despair and feelings of helplessness.
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There are different doorways that lead to the communal hall of grief where we all, at some point, will meet.
Grief comes to us through personal, ancestral, and/or collective losses.
Our grief may come from:
The loss of a loved one, the loss of employment, the loss of health
The loss of the illusion of certainty
Loneliness
The suffering of others through wars, mass shootings, racism, or inequity
The destruction of the natural world: disappearing birds, wildfires, floods, extinctions, and the loss of wilderness and beauty
The unraveling of cultural life through divisiveness, polarization, or reversals of rights
Personal losses and wounds such as pregnancy loss, the death of a beloved pet, relationship struggles, regrets, or harm caused
Ancestral trauma and grief
Grief for the world we are leaving to future generations
Sometimes we grieve and are not clear what we are carrying. It can sometimes take time to untangle and understand.
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We are not meant to grieve alone.
Grief has traditionally been held in the healing embrace of community and the beauty of sacred spaces. It's only in recent history we find ourselves alone in our grief, separate from the compassionate eyes of others and the healing, sacred dimensions to sorrow.
When we come together to share our stories of loss we often feel deep in our bones that this is the medicine we’ve needed all along. Speaking from our hearts into our communal cup of sorrow loosens the heavy fiction of private suffering. We hope that you will join us.