Grief As Initiation ~ 6 day grief and psilocybin retreat

Renewal, connection and ceremony in the mystical Costa Rican cloud forest.

~ Has grief touched your life in a way that has changed you- and you are still learning how to live inside that change?

~ Do you feel stuck?

~ Are your emotions held in your body (tightness, numbness, exhaustion, restlessness) and you are curious about more embodied ways of being with it, moving it and feeling it?

~ Do you feel alone in your experience and long for a community of others who are also walking this path?

~ Are you are longing for a space where you are supported and witnessed- not “fixed”, not rushed, not analyzed- just met exactly where you are?

~ Has your identity shifted, and you need some dedicated time and gentle support to explore who you are becoming?

~ Are you are drawn to nature, ceremony, ritual and seeking deeper, more intentional ways to tend to your grief, reconnect to yourself and discover what wisdom is there for you in the process?

~Do you wish for a safe and peaceful space to rest deeply so that you can remember and reclaim parts of you that have been lost?

~ Is something in you quietly whispering: There has to be another way to move through this…..

Together, we will explore what is possible when grief is acknowledged as a catalyst for deeper meaning, purpose and connection.

We will honor grief as a sacred rite of passage- an initiation that reshapes identity by dismantling who we once were and inviting us into a deeper, more conscious becoming.
Like all true initiations, grief takes us into the unknown, leaving us adrift without a map to navigate the dark and disorienting terrain. Traversing this liminal space, parts of us are stripped away, our inner landscape is rearranged, and we must learn how to inhabit life differently.

It is in this very undoing of our former selves, that we have the opportunity to rebuild with more intention and distilled clarity for who we are and what matters most.

Grief is a natural response to loss and change- the soul’s way of honoring what we love. Yet in today’s world, we are often urged to move on quickly, numb out, silence our sorrow or to carry it alone.

When left unacknowledged, grief can take root in the body and spirit, showing up as anxiety, depression, addiction, isolation, anger, burnout, dissociation or physical imbalance.

When we create a safe and compassionate space to tend to our grief and allow it to move through us — with reflection, ceremony and community — it becomes possible to alchemize it into a catalyst for growth and healing, inspiring more presence, purpose, and reconnection with ourselves, with others and the living world around us.

This retreat is designed to hold you in this tender process- offering practical tools to tend to your grief in embodied ways including somatic practices, time in nature, shared witnessing, ritual frameworks for meaning-making, grounding resources you can return to over and over again, and a psilocybin ceremony to explore the liminal spaces of grief and healing.

You will be supported to integrate who you are becoming, how grief has changed you and what your regeneration process looks like.

Each day of the retreat unfolds as a part of an intentional arc- a passage into and through the depth and teachings of grief.

We begin by honoring what has been lost. Through reflection, embodied practices, and communal witnessing, we will explore themes such as identity, purpose, and the way grief lives in the body. We learn from grieving practices from other cultures, observing that loss and sorrow have always been a communal experience, not a solitary one.

As we move deeper, ritual carries us through the heart of the passage… alter-making ceremony to honor our ancestors and beloveds gone too soon… a fire ceremony to release what is no longer ours to carry… a beautiful hands-on herbalism experience- harvesting medicinal plants on the land to make a heart-soothing tea as a reminder of nature’s capacity to nurture us.

All of this prepares us for an optional psilocybin mushroom ceremony. In a safe and supported circle, participants are invited on an inward journey – the liminal space at the center of every true initiation.

And then we begin to return, weaving in the important elements of integration.

On our final evening, we emerge from our initiatory passage with an evening of live medicine music – moving our bodies, lifting our spirits and honoring the resilience of the human heart.

You will return home with a renewed sense of self and purpose, a different perspective on grief, tools and resources to navigate grief, a new community of supportive people, continued support from facilitators. Participants often comment how the y feel lighter and more hopeful.

Testimonials from past retreat participants:
It’s a rare and deeply moving experience when someone’s heart is as deep, genuine and generous as Amanda’s – able to hold yours when it’s bruised and in need of a soothing balm. Amanda has my respect and gratitude for shining a light through the darkness of my grief. Her presence and access to her heart is a gift. ~Jeanne

I am a different person than I was one year ago when I first met Amanda, who took my grief-soaked heart in her hands and gently guided me through ceremonies and retreats that have helped me get my light back and see that life is indeed worth living and, in fact, that the best may still be yet to come. ~ Kari