Community Keening Circle
Saturday 25th August 7-8pm UK / 3-4 pm US Eastern
Registration button is below and the zoom link will be emailed out on Friday
Sacred Mourning - Honoring Our Grief
As Tokitae, Sk'aliCh'elh-tenaut,Lolita began transitioning from this life her entire family gathered off the west side of San Juan Island in a rare Superpod gathering - all three pods swimming up and down the island. Moved by her death and her families ceremony let us gather to honor her and all the other animal kin who are imprisoned and tortured.
We will begin by remembering all the animals imprisoned in intensive farming, kept on display and made to perform for human entertainment and those exploited in laboratories. You’ll be invited to spend some time collaging or writing, letting the words flow, or choose images which speaks to your feelings - grieg, rage, despair and anger are all welcome. You can download a collage template below
The keening circle is a musical journey in which you are invited to engage with in a way that is fitting for you, such as
Sitting or liying and let the music wash over you
Dance your feelings - stretching out and moving your body
Voice work - using the voice to vocalise lamenting
After the keening circle there will be some time to reflect and integrate the experience before sharing in groups
An image of Tokita on the shore of the Salish Sea
“I attended the Keening Woman workshop last year and it changed my life. I was grieving for the loss of a special soul as well as a dramatic change in my way of life. This workshop helped me through this liminal phase. I drove 7 hours to attend. The shared stories of the other women and the time for personal reflection were balanced by Jude’s guidance. ”
— Sally Ireland
My work in keening is inspired by the Goddess Brighid who is said to have brought the practice of keening to Ireland. As a figure who was very much an activist you’ll be invited to explore how you might like to transmute some of your grief into action.
Click on the orca above to read my article - The Last of the Scottish Orca’s
Your Facilitator
Jude Lally is a forager of stories. You’ll find her out wandering the hills around Loch Lomond, readings the signs which guide her to stories in the land. Stories that she then explores through art and ritual.
As a Cultural Activist, she draws upon the inspiration from old traditions to meet current needs, for our grief-phobic culture doesn’t offer the tools to grieve. She uses keening, a practice in which the Bean Chaointe (Keening Woman) guided a community through a grief ritual, as a cathartic ritual to express anger, fear, and grief for all that is unfolding within the great unraveling.
As a doll maker, she views this practice as one which stretches back to the first dolls which may have been fashioned from bones and stones and the ancient stone figurines such as the Woman of Willendorf. She uses dolls as a way of holding and exploring our own story, and relationship to the land as well as ancestral figures.
She gained her MSc Masters Degree in Human Ecology at the University of Strathclyde (Glasgow, Scotland) and lives on the West Coast of Scotland on the banks of the River Clyde, near Loch Lomond. She is currently writing her first book, Path of the Ancestral Mothers.