“From a young age we see around us that grief is mostly an affliction, a misery that intrudes into the life we deserve, a rupture of the natural order of things…
What if grief is a skill, in the same way that love is a skill, something that must be learned and cultivated and taught? What if grief is the natural order of things, a way of loving life anyway? Grief and the love of life are twins, natural human skills that can be learned…”
THE THREE MOVEMENTS
GRIEF
Grief is a taboo in our culture. We are barely allowed to grieve the loss of a loved one, let alone a job, or an identity, or a democracy, or a species. So loss may be expressed as rage or fear or despair. Putting words to our loss in supportive community allows us to begin to grieve. Facing our grief frees us to live well in hard times.
GRATITUDE
A strange thing happens when we honor a loss. That which remains becomes precious, radiant. The ordinary is no longer ordinary but a great gift. We experience gratitude, not as duty, but as wonder and delight. Surprisingly, the light of loss illuminates our lives.
COURAGE
Who will you become when you have finally named and grieved that which haunts you? Good grief puts wind in our sails, inviting us to seek new shores. We can’t tell you what your courage looks like, or where your journey will take you. But we will cheer you on your way.
A participant reflects: I was most worried that it would be really depressing the whole way through, and afterward I'd be a pile of tears, and feeling helpless. But instead I found it really refreshing and uplifting.
ORIGINS AND PURPOSE
GGC is designed to give people the space and tools to grieve together, in an online format or in person, and to offer an understanding of grief as both a sacred communal practice and a healthy part of living. This task has become urgent as we face unprecedented loss.
GGC was first shaped as an 2019 by Terry LePage as an in-person gathering to honor and express climate grief, to begin to face an impending loss beyond our comprehension. She had been deeply moved by Jem Bendell’s paper Deep Adaptation. GGC was tested online in Spring of 2020 for pandemic grief. In practice, GGC works for people grieving different losses together, though a given circle may focus on a certain loss.
GUIDES
Each circle has one or more skilled and trained guides. The guide creates safe space and shares quotes and personal reflections that invite others to share their experience.
