Aravaipa Canyon
Grief Tending Retreat
Friday November 13th – Sunday 15th
Whether you are carrying your own grief, supporting others through loss, or simply open to this universal human experience – you are invited to gather for a community experience of presence, ritual, and intention.
Join Michelle Marks for a weekend retreat in nature for reflection, community, embodied movement and somatic practices, meditation, writing, and ritual. Our weekend will be a container for honoring, allowing, and witnessing grief in how it impacts our lives from the personal to the collective. We will explore what our culture has taught us about sorrow, how it moves through our bodies, and what it is like to create space for all of the ways grief wants to be seen and held.
In connection we will learn more about the anatomy of sorrow, how grief affects our lives, relationships, and our sense of self. This offering is for anyone who is seeking time to settle into an experience with time for your nervous system to soften. There will be time to sit in the presence of others – this is often where healing happens. We recognize ourselves in one another, and are no longer in isolation with the human experience of grief. Each participant will be coming with their own exploration in the realms of grief – and that is welcome. There is no goal or place to get as much as learning to tend to what lives within us all. Our time will be a balance between structure and spaciousness, levity and depth, the subtle and the sacred, internal and external practices.
*While everything offered is always optional, the request is to come and participate in a collaborative experience. The invitation includes an ask to remember that when you are in the space, you are part of a larger collective, a culture of care. To keep the domain a protected realm, there is a zero tolerance policy for anti-semitism, homophobia, racism, transphobia, and xenophobia.
Space is limited to 12 participants in the main house. There is also the option for camping for up to 4 people.
Aravaipa Canyon Ranch is located about 1.5 hours from Tucson. The ranch house is large with 7 rooms for sleeping. We will be spread out but several rooms will be shared. There are two rooms that have a single occupancy, and the others will be two or three per large room. The house has four bathrooms to be shared as well. Please note this and check out the lodge details so you can have a sense of what to expect. You are welcome to request with whom you’d like to share a room if coming with anyone, or if you are asking for the single room, otherwise you will be paired up. (If this affects your decision, please inquire which rooms are still available.)
Participants can arrive Friday between 3-4:30pm. Program will begin at 5pm and end Sunday at 12:00pm. Vegetarian meals (Gluten-Free/Dairy-Free Options) are provided from Friday dinner through Sunday lunch, including morning coffee and tea. Please feel free to bring anything supplemental that you might need. There will be room in the refrigerator. Participants will be invited to sign up for one meal shift to assist in the prep and/or clean up. *Please note this is an alcohol/substance free weekend.
Please contact Michelle for registration, questions, more details. Upon registration you will be asked about food sensitivities, allergies, preferences, accessibility needs. *Please do read a description of the ranch house and its more rustic nature.