Friday Night Talk: An Apprenticeship with Sorrow, November 8th, 2019

“To speak of sorrow works upon it moves it from its crouched place barring the way to and from the soul’s hall.”
– Denise Levertov

Includes 15 CEUs

“Where there is sorrow,” wrote Oscar Wilde, “there is holy ground.” Join us for this two-day gathering as we turn our attention to the grief we carry for self, community, and world. Working with these sorrows composts them into fertile soil. Sharing our deep emotional selves brings us into the circle of restoration, into the arms of the sacred. Utilizing the potent tools of writing practice, singing, and deep ritual, we will build a community of concerned hearts and coax our stories of loss and suffering into the visible world. This is a form of Soul activism and it is what we are called to embody in this extreme time.

Grief has always been communal in our long story as a species. This weekend we will enter the original healing matrix and offer one another a refuge safe enough to allow multiple layers of grief to be touched and released.

This gathering will include:
• Writing practice assisting in opening our stories of loss
• Deepening our trust in our emotional and body wisdom
• Cultivating soul activism
• Awareness of cultural obstacles to grief such as ‘private pain’
• A community grief ritual
• Avenues to express our grief over world events
• Small group work to deepen our writing process
• The poetic imagination to encourage our entry into the well of grief

Francis Weller, MFT, is a psychotherapist, writer and soul activist. He is a master of synthesizing diverse streams of thought from psychology, anthropology, mythology, alchemy, indigenous cultures, and poetic traditions. Author of The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief, and The Threshold Between Loss and Revelation, (with Rashani Réa) he has introduced the healing work of ritual to thousands of people. He founded and directs WisdomBridge, an organization that offers educational programs that seek to integrate the wisdom from indigenous cultures with the insights and knowledge gathered from western poetic, psychological and spiritual traditions. His writings have appeared in anthologies and journals exploring the confluence between psyche, nature, and culture. His work was featured in The Sun magazine (October 2015) and the Utne Reader (Fall 2016). He is a frequent presenter and keynote speaker at conferences, bringing insight, poetry and a breath of humor to his talks. Francis is on staff at Commonweal Cancer Help Program, co-leading their week-long retreats with Michael Lerner. He has taught at Sonoma State University, the Sophia Center in Oakland and has been the featured teacher at the Minnesota Men’s Conference. He is currently completing his third book, A Trail on the Ground: The Geography of Soul.

Friday, November 8
Location: University of Utah Guest House 110 Fort Douglas Blvd.