Encountering the Sacred

WInter. This is a time when many of us move our energy inward. If you’re carrying grief of any kind, whether from the loss of a loved one, a relationship, a dream, or simply the heaviness of wishing the world were different, we invite you to join us for a Clay Altar Workshop. In this workshop, you’ll work with your grief and with clay to create an altar and a sacred practice for your sorrow. This is a space to gather in community, to use your hands, and to give your grief a place to rest so that, in its own time, it can bloom again into something new.

What happens when we don’t make space for the sacred—when we don’t make space to honor our grief…and what happens when we do? Encountering the sacred is the path of transformation — and nothing is more sacred than our grief.

Years ago, when I was in my own underworld, trying to re-form myself after several painful losses, a mentor wrote to me: “the goddess Hecate travels with a lantern to see where she's going; a mirror to look back to see where she's been; a rope to bind her to the forward way; and a knife to cut the tether if she needs to be freed.” I started thinking about the tools I have for my journeys through the underworld of grief—what lights up and binds me to the forward way, what allows me to see where I’ve come from and to cut myself loose when I get stuck? In the disorienting space of grief, we need tools to help us work with whatever moment we find ourselves in.

The hallway of my small home is where I routinely come back to myself. Running through the center of the house, I feel cocooned in the space. On the wall are two art prints, one of a woman and a bear, and one of a woman and a lark. These remind me that we are connected to all beings — never alone — existing always within the web of life. Below the pictures is an altar with dried flowers, a candle, a feather left by a winged visitor to my garden, and some herbs that I burn to consecrate the space. There is a tiny junco nest there, reminding me of the hatchlings that died in the garden last summer. I cried; my young neighbors came over and anointed the little tomb with flowers and stones; they smiled at me with an ancient kindness. Children encounter the sacred with ease. When I sit in front of my altar, I also experience the sacred with ease; I can feel my connection to the land and the creatures I share it with, to the cycles of life, death, and rebirth, to my ancestors, and to the unseen forces that hold me fast. Sitting with my altar, feeling it come alive with its own presence — pulling together past, present, and future — is a way I repeatedly return to what is true, especially when life feels like it’s unraveling.

While grief is an experience we hold alone, practicing it together strengthens our resolve and moves our transformation forward. Grief dissolves our reality, and so we need tangible practices to help give our experiences form. In a culture that treats grief as inconvenient, something to fear, and even pathological, we want to cultivate space to honor it as a creative force of release and renewal.

Peace to you all as you navigate this season of darkness and rest. May your roots go down deep, finding all the nourishment you need.