Supporting individuals and groups to respond to loss with compassion, presence, & resilience
Cultivating grief literacy and growing grief-tending communities

Grief Doula Services= Companioning and holding space on the grief journey for individuals and families through compassionate presence, personalized education, ritual, & support

Community Grief Ritual = Half, full, & multi day grief-tending gatherings for groups

Broken relationships, death, ecological devastation, ancestral trauma, lost dreams…when we do not have the support to fully grieve our losses, we may carry them on as great heaviness in our lives. While practices of grief-tending have been integral to all cultures worldwide throughout history, the forces of colonialism and modernization have frequently disrupted these vital emotional care systems.

In safe and brave containers of Earth-honoring ceremony, we create sanctuary to honor grief and to allow it to move and transform. As we enter this sacred wilderness of grieving, we practice the beauty-full work of being deeply human together. Through sharing story, song, rhythm, altar building, and embodied feeling, we strengthen our grieving muscles and begin to metabolize our sorrows into sources of gratitude, compassion, vitality, and joy.

Why do I do this work?

This work is my calling because Grief has been my single greatest teacher in this life. I have personally lived through profound initiations of loss as well as experienced how bad life can get when grief goes on unresolved. I have also celebrated the joy, depth, and ease that can open up when grief is offered movement, witness, and release. I am certain at my core that unresolved Grief is the root of social and emotional crises like depression, addiction, and violence for individuals, for families, and for entire communities. My aim is to feed the proliferation of grieving skills, grief-care know-how, and safe grieving spaces in every community in the movement toward a more just, honorable, and peaceful world.

In my grief care work, I call upon my 25 year+ apprenticeship with ceremonial healing arts and especially with several gifted teachers including Ochazania Klarich and Don Oscar Miro-Quesada. My understanding of community grief ritual stands upon the shoulders of the late Sobonfu Somé of the Dagara peoples of Burkina Faso with whom I first attended ritual in 2007. I bow deeply to Sobonfu and to her lineage for their commitment and compassion to re-seed grief ritual into our consciousness in the United States. I continue this work as an offering in deep respect of lineage teachings as well as a with an intention to catalyze bio-regionally authentic grief-tending practices. I have complemented my spiritual study with additional trainings and certifications on trauma, holding space, & grief work through the Institute of Birth, Breath, & Death and countless other classes and readings – most notably including the work of Shauna Janz and Martin Prechtel.

“Communal grieving offers something that we cannot get when we grieve by ourselves. Through validation, acknowledgement, and witnessing, communal grieving allows us to experience a level of healing that is deeply and profoundly freeing.  Each of us has a basic human right to that genuine love, happiness, and freedom.”   ~ Sobonfu Somé

Wow! Just Wow! Cealila has such a gift! With a depth, wisdom, and knowledge about grief rituals from the many traditions she has studied and with the space of warmth, safety and love she created, we came together under her guidance as a village of 40 people where each person’s experience was honored and held as sacred. I will be able to close my eyes for a long time to come and imagine that support like strong arms around me, allowing my heart to open and pour out. – O.H., elementary school teacher

I did a powerful grieving ceremony yesterday, and afterwards I felt deeply relaxed, like a wrung out sponge. I was finally able to confront my anger and the source of that unrepaired rage, to look it in the eye and understand it. And now I feel more at peace, so much more at peace. Like the deep anger and unmet needs have finally been heard and now I feel a much deeper equanimity. I think it’s really important to unpack familial trauma that gets handed down from generation to generation. One of the big takeaways is that nothing is unrepairable or unresolvable. THANK YOU, Cealila, for your amazing leadership!!! -W.S., – graphic designer

Thank you for guiding us through such a thoughtful healing experience. I am from an agnostic/atheistic background, with an affinity for Buddhist teachings. The grief ritual allowed me to integrate a lot of this while processing old and new grief. On the days after, I felt so much lighter and freer, like I had shrugged off or let go of a shroud that had been obscuring my ability to take in the wonders and joys of Life. Although I had hesitation about attending an intimate ritual with a relatively large group of strangers, I felt welcome and taken care of, safe, and able to take the risk of being vulnerable during the grieving ritual. -K.S., massage therapist

Oh my gosh that was the most amazing and real group healing ever. So powerful and so important. Thank you so much truly from my heart. Just pure magic. When is the next? This need to be done at least 4 times a year. Feeling blessed and so rebirthed. I really felt the spirit working through you. Cealila, you are an amazing filter for spirit to work through, like perfect. – V.L., artist