Sunday 17th April 2022. 1-4 pm US Eastern/ UK GMT 6-9pm

PLEASE NOTE THIS WORKSHOP WILL NOT BE RECORDED

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Keening is a practice of lamenting the dead, which was the role of the Bean Chaointe, the Keening Woman. This was my first experience of keening in guiding the community of a friend in their grieving over her body.

Keening can also be used in modern rituals or ceremonies to express the grief we carry from personal grief, to social injustices and environmental loss and destruction.

In this afternoon workshop we will explore:

  • Role of the Bean Chaointe in guiding a community through their grief

  • Hear examples of keening

  • See examples of how keening can be used in a modern setting to meet our needs today - from helping with environmental grief as well as a form of protest

 
 

Jude's Keening Workshop offered valuable and inspirational connection-- to the history of keening, to its modern practice, and to others interested in exploring this beautiful tradition. Jess Goletz, USA

 

I am so glad I participated in Jude Lally’s course on Keening. In addition to meeting many delightful ladies from all over the world, I learned how helpful Keening can be for those who are mourning and those passing on. During the exercise I had a deep soulful experience while participating in Keening, was surprised by the depth of my grief. Thank you Jude. Karen Burnette, USA

The Keening workshop was so good. Nourishing soul work with an amazing group of women. Sonia Lopez, New York, USA.

The Keening Circle was amazing and in many ways life-changing. Life-changing as in realizing, once again, that women, in intentional togetherness, hold the power of grief in a much different way. With the speed contemporary life is moving, this is easy to forget. Sharing this workshop with women from all over the world was just plain awesome.

Brigit Klement, New York, USA

Keening Ritual

In preparation for our ritual we will acknowledge that the majority of us have grown up in a death phobic culture, where it isn’t sociably acceptable to openly express grief, and we are expected to ‘get over’ a death quickly. One thing the current global pandemic has taught us is the mental toll of not having such rituals and ways which help express grief that can build up from different sources to leave us feeling overwhelmed, suffering anxiety, depression or feeling shut down.

Our Keening Ritual will take the form of 4 pieces of music which will guide us through this journey to sit with or express our grief.

A Practice

Grief is not easy for those of us brought up in a death phobic society the doesn’t express it’s emotions very well. I find that when I cry I often do it silently. For me, grief and keening is a practice, it’s something we need to keep doing. I was surprised when I first started offering a Keening Circle within Imbolc rituals that it was very cathartic. It doesn’t erase the grief, we just change our relationship to it.

As this is an online, and not in person workshop, we will be turning off our cameras and muting ourselves so you will just hear the music tracks. I sometimes find myself unable to make sound when I grieve, a result of a lifetime of being told we shouldn’t express our grief. Movement is central to this practice and it’s often in sounding and movement that we can get in touch with that pain and grief, which often feels stuck - and begin to dance with it, and voice it. yet it is important to be gentle with ourselves, to not push ourselves and have no expectations.

After the Keening Circle we will have time to write about our experience before we share how that experience was for us.

 
 

Oracle Doll /Taliesman

Before the workshop you will be invited to gather some materials to make a doll. These dolls are made from sticks, stones, bones, twigs or fabric - whatever your called to collect. I’ll share some examples so you can have a rough idea of how to assemble your doll. I call these dolls Oracle Doll’s as we make them with a rough intention of what we are exploring, in this case grief - but these dolls can go on having a conversation about what they represent long after they are assembled. Also because they are made of natural materials you might feel the call do reassemble the doll and return the pieces to where you found them

There is also an invitation of ‘Active Hope’ when making your doll. Inspired by Brighid and her connection to social justice, your invited to commit to making a change, something that takes ‘action’ to something you were holding grief over, making an active step to change, however that speaks to you.

Booking

The cost for this afternoon workshop is $55 (roughly UK £32). PLEASE NOTE - When you sign up, you’ll be prompted to login to the workshop page. There you’ll find:

  • Some materials to gather before the workshop

  • Zoom invitation

 
 

Your Facilitator

Jude Lally received her MSc in Human Ecology with the University of Strathclyde (in partnership with the Centre for Human Ecology) Glasgow, Scotland in 2008. She is an artist, writer and Cultural Activist, using art and ritual as empowering tools of creative resistance.

As an artist and Cultural Activist, Jude Lally is rooted in the inspiration of her Ancestral Mothers. All her work comes about through exploring her relationship with the land through art, ritual, imagination and creativity. 

 She uses the inspiration of old traditions to meet modern needs. While keening, was traditionally a way to lament the death of someone in the community, Jude uses it today as a way to address modern needs in allowing an expression of  grief we hold for all that is happening across the planet. In using keening in this cathartic way she uses gestures of ritual which help inspire to work in creative ways in acts of resistance, working towards a restorative culture.

She calls herself a Radical doll maker who views her art as part of a practice that stretches back to the first dolls fashioned from bones and stones – such as the Woman of Willendorf. 

She gained her MSc Masters Degree in Human Ecology at the University of Strathclyde (Glasgow, Scotland)  in partnership with the Center for Human Ecology, with her thesis entitled ‘Fire in the Head, Heart and Hand. A Study of the Goddess Brighid as Goddess Archetype and her Relevance to Cultural Activists in Contemporary Scotland’. She currently lives in Asheville, Western North Carolina but is moving back to Scotland.