Welcome to Dear Circle Tender - a podcast that explores how to welcome grief into community spaces and why this matters. Here we'll talk about all things grief work, including why it's becoming more and more recognized as an essential skill for leaders and healers as well as for people just living their everyday lives.

Dear Circle Tender: On Grief, Belonging, & Leadership

Host: Siena Tenisci

Find us at: www.northwestgrieftending.com and subscribe to our newsletter

Instagram: @DearCircleTender

Music: "Ah Hey Oh" by Laurence Cole

From the trailer:

I'm joining you here from the Pacific Northwest, where I've had a chance to see this thing called Community Grief Tending grow over the past decade from this more underground movement into something that has suddenly become a lot more mainstream. And there's been some really powerful and surprising things that have emerged from this over the past few years that I'm excited to share with you.

"When you feel that woven together, which happens through the kind of ritual we're talking about, it's a beautiful thing. I always say grief rituals, my idea of mentally good kind of because it reminds us of that reality." - Laurence Cole

"In the community singing tradition, it's not about what it sounds like. It's about what it feels like in our bodies, and that that is an inherent birthright to every human." - Alexandra Blakely

"That which was traditional for millennia, virtually none of us got that. And yet, there's some part of us that know that there's something missing." - Therese Charvet

So what exactly is grief, work and community grief tending? Why is there this sudden shift away from a more private individual grief process? How can moving and metabolizing our grief with others actually generate something that's a value for the whole community? How can it even be a form of activism that can mend our culture of separation?

These are some of the big questions we'll be unpacking with our guests on the show. If you're new to these questions are welcome. So glad that you're here. And if you're one of our dear circle tenders who has already been working these questions and community and healing spaces, I hope this podcast can support you as you step more fully into your calling.