Grief and Praise Mandala Workshop: Mapping Emotional Landscapes
Grieving is healthy and natural but not given much time or understanding in our Western culture. Perhaps because we come from a place of needing things to improve and move forward. We often want to make things better and 'fix' the brokenness of something or someone rather than staying with ‘what is’ and honour it as a form of medicine.
Inspiration and reframing can be taken from other cultures. I am reminded of the way the Japanese craft of Kintsugi takes a broken pot and fixes it with powdered gold. It is called Golden Repair and gives a unique appearance to the once broken piece. Sometimes even making it more beautiful than the original, revitalising it with new life.
If we align this craft to our personal stories of loss, suffering and healing, we can imagine how beautifully attended to each of us might look. Our emotional landscapes as lines of gold all over our bodies showing that we have navigated through life’s ups and downs. We may then seem to be guardians of the darker, more difficult experiences in life. Ones who see beauty in the flawed and the imperfect. The gold shimmering lines would be beacons telling others of our acknowledgment to accept change with love and have gratitude for the life that we still have to live. It is a message not to waste the medicine of our own pain.
“Grief is the expression of healing in motion” (Martin Prechtel)
In Native American language of the Tz’’utujil people in Guatemala Grief and Praise are the same word. It is natural that love honours what it misses through its depth of grief and so communicates to us what we value the most.
In my workshop you will be invited is to share feelings and memories of loss and change in a meaningful and creative way. Our personal and collective stories of grief can be gently witness and released, making them lighter loads to bear as we place objects into our mandala. This is the container where simple acknowledgements of love and loss are shared with our stories.
Workshop: 1 - 4 pm, Saturday 9th March 2019, Mansions of the Future. Lincoln
All materials provided. Please bring something to represent grief and praise in the form of 2 small objects
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More dates and venues for Grief and Praise Mandala Workshops are:
Redbridge Library Wanstead, London, UK ~ 6 - 9pm Tickets available through Eventbrite
St Mary’s Church, Family Centre, Arnold, Nottingham, UK ~ 1 - 4 pm Tickets available through Eventbrite