Braiding Grief
Braiding Grief: Fire Horse Edition is a 6-week ritual container that will support you in cultivating a conscious, skillful relationship with grief and rage in community.
Guided by the alchemical stages of transformation, you'll create your own grief braid — a physical expression of the love, losses, and longings in your heart that acts as a sacred artifact of healing and a power item for resourcing in destabilizing times.
Our focus this year
Practice somatically expressing, wielding, and alchemizing rage and grief into power and purpose
Cultivate the capacity to think, move, and act with precision, clarity, and alignment to your values
Connect with your ancestors for protection, guidance, and support
Fortify your mind, body, and soul, so you can be resilient and responsive to the times
Strengthen your intuition and discernment in disorienting times
Embody both softness / tenderness and strength / fierceness in service to collective liberation
Upcoming Cohorts
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Cohort 6
Sundays 4/19, 4/26, 5/3, 5/10, 5/17, 5/24
9-11:30am PT / 12-2:30pm ET
Replay access for 30 days
Sliding scale pricing $300-$900 with payment plans and reduced-rate spots available (prioritizing those impacted by systemic oppression)
If price is a barrier, please email [email protected]
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Cohort 7
Sundays 6/28, 7/5, 7/12, 7/19, 7/26, 8/2
9-11:30am PT / 12-2:30pm ET
Replay access for 30 days
Sliding scale pricing $300-$900 with payment plans and reduced-rate spots available (prioritizing those impacted by systemic oppression)
If price is a barrier, please email [email protected]
Testimonials
“Cassandra is a skillful facilitator, leading from her heart, and creating space for us all to be more tender with ourselves and our grief. Whether you are grieving the loss of a loved one or are navigating your righteous rage at the state of the world, Braiding Grief offers a beautiful container to honour and feel it all.”
— Cohort 4 Participant“The tenderness and permission that this group provided for me has been so helpful. It reminded me that grief is fluid and that is okay - it gave permission or reminded me that I will continue to live a meaningful life while continuing to process all the grief I have been holding. It was just a reminder that I really needed.”
— Cohort 1 Participant“This was such a beautiful and attuning experience to be in this group, tending grief in this slow and intentional way. The ritual of braiding grief was so tender and healing. Being able to hold my braid and sit with my grief with something tangible to represent it has helped move my grief in significant ways.”
— Cohort 4 Participant“Cassandra did an incredible job as host and guide and facilitator. Thank you SO SO much for this opportunity to grow and share and be vulnerable in this safe community container, alongside Grief. It was very much soul-enriching.
— Cohort 3 Participant“This space helped me feel how healing and transformative grief can be when I grieve in community, connect with my ancestors, and open up my broken heart to make room for more love and connection, as painful as it can be at times. I’m so grateful for this space- it came during a time of so much grief and loss in my life, and it gave me a community that I really needed in my life.”
— Cohort 1 Participant“It was so healing to be in a space where I felt safe enough to grieve openly and to just be held in my grief and heartbreak. I don’t have very many people in my life who can do that for me, so I am so grateful to have had this space where I can grieve in community.”
— Cohort 2 ParticipantWho is this for?
This is for all grievers – whether your grief is fresh or ancestral, clear or unspoken, flowing or shrouded by numbness.
This is for those who are tired of holding back how they really feel and crave spaces where their truths, contradictions, and big emotions are welcomed.
This is for those wanting to metabolize and release rage & grief, so they can access clarity and take aligned action rooted in their values.
This is for those who want to recover a sense of aliveness, access deeper spiritual resourcing, and embody authentic leadership amidst immense personal and political unrest.
This is for those who want to engage in somatic & spiritual practices to cultivate strong life force energy in service to their path and collective liberation.
Where we’re going
Guided by the alchemical stages of transformation, you’ll engage with teachings, spiritual / somatic / creative practices, and community care to process grief.
We’ll also create grief braids — physical expressions of the love, losses, and longings in our hearts that will act as a sacred artifact of healing and a power item for resourcing in destabilizing times.
Week 1: Opening Ceremony
Week 2: Nigredo (Blackening) – The initiatory descent into the dark, the realm of soul where rest and unrest co-exist; inviting grief and rage as teachers
Week 3: Albedo (Whitening) – Purification through preparation of the materials for our grief braids; shedding, cleansing, and clarifying
Week 4: Citrinitas (Yellowing) – Braiding as a gesture of care, continuity, and meaning-making; alchemy of creation; nourishing life force energy
Week 5: Rubedo (Reddening) – The return to aliveness and connection; allowing grief and rage to lead us to aligned action; awakened purpose and leadership
Week 6: Closing Ceremony
These stages will anchor our process, inviting us to honor grief not as something to endure, but as a catalyst for growth, creativity, and rebirth.
Why this matters
In a world where many of us have been severed from our people's rites of passage, rituals, and other cultural/traditional ways of marking transitions, we are experiencing what Francis Weller calls a rough initiation: an uncontained encounter with death that we've been thrust into by the cosmos / nature itself.
We are all beholden to cycles and this cycle has determined that time is up. Radical, turbulent, paradigm-shifting change is here. When we look at what's unfolding through a mythic (rather than colonial Western European rationalist) lens, we can recognize the chaos, crisis, and rupture as generative destruction and that our Rage is Grief's bolder, impassioned, action-oriented face.
My intention with Braiding Grief is to offer you a communally contained way of moving through the alchemical stages, so you can have your own experience with these cycles that govern our political and spiritual lives.
You may not have chosen to be initiated like this... but the initiation is happening regardless. Remember that the collapse isn't just happening out there; it's also happening within us and our relationships. Things are falling away to reveal, mature, and transform you into who you're meant to become in this moment for the benefit of the collective.
I look forward to doing this precious heart-work with you.
What you’ll receive
Six 2.5 hour community rituals with optional office hours (30 mins) at the close of each session
Somatic, creative, and spiritual practices to resource the soma (integrated mind, body, and soul) for encounters with rage, grief, and rest
A robust Braiding Grief Handbook featuring grief education, resources, practices, and tips for aftercare
Guidance through the sacred art of grief braiding
A soulfully politicized container to navigate the terrain of grief, loss, and rage amidst polycrisis
A rest-affirming culture that promotes slowness, reflection, and connection to heal internalized capitalism/ableism and sustain our efforts towards justice
Option to book 1:1 grief support with Cassandra at a sliding scale price exclusive to Braiding Grief participants
“Being in Braiding Grief was like being held and supported on many levels. The amount of care and intentionality that Cassandra puts into the group blew me away.
She made it a safe container to bring all of yourself, especially the difficult things. Even though it’s through Zoom, it feels like she’s right next to you, holding your hand every step of the way.”
Testimonial & Grief Braid by GC
(Cohort 4)
Why we need ritual
Through ritual, we step into a time outside of time and collaborate with the unseen realms (ancestors, spirit, the land, the universe) to transmute suffering into clarity and pain into power.
Held by a community that understands the depth of this work, we can open our hearts to feeling and allow our bodies to express what’s gone unspoken.
Things that weren't possible or were difficult to shift in our day-to-day rhythms get an extra boost of support in ritual. This alchemical process restores meaning, returns us to joy and gratitude, and matures us into people capable of birthing new worlds.
By returning to our rightful place in the eternal dance of life-death-rebirth, we show up in our day-to-day lives wiser, rooted in a fuller understanding of what living well means to us. Our feet are rooted more firmly in place and our souls find steadiness amidst chaos.
With the right lens, we remember and feel how all of it — rage, grief, suffering — serves to guide us towards justice and love.
“Remember that grief is the growing up of the heart that bursts boundaries like an old skin or a finished life. That grief is gratitude. That water seeks scale, that even your tears seek the recognition of community. That the heart is a front line and the fight is to feel in a world of distraction.”
— adrienne maree brown
Registration Form
Community Grief Artifacts
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![An illustration of a white grief braid hanging vertically in front of a dark background, with a cup and a candle faintly visible at the bottom.]()
By Astrid Lem
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![Abstract blue, black, white, and purple artwork featuring a snowflake and other geometric shapes, with handwritten text overlay.]()
By Mara Wilkes
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![A watercolor painting with Chinese characters and abstract brush strokes in blue, white, and black, placed on a wooden surface.]()
By Ariel Zhang
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![A hand holding a tangled, worn grief braid with frayed edges and faded red and white fabric, set against a maroon velvet background.]()
By Lindsay M.
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![A bear-like plushie with orange horns, orange hands and feet, and a smiling face sitting on a pink armchair. There is a framed picture of a cactus and a colorful sky on the wall behind. There is a grief braid wrapped around the plushie's torso.]()
By Lucero
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![Handwritten note about losses, with colorful drawings of a heart, smiley faces, a pink heart, a green plant, and a line drawing of two people sitting together, accompanied by text about healing and coping with loss.]()
By Azral P.
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![A collection of grief braids, some featuring tassels, laid out on a wooden floor.]()
By Angel
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![Artwork titled "Rage, Grieve, Rest" featuring stylized red animals, including a lion and zebras, with a dark background and the title at the top with flames as the letter O in "Rage" and "Grieve."]()
By Astrid Lem
