“Gather the keeners! For we need to sing and dance with grief. We need to wail by the ocean, dance with the drum and to step between the worlds. We need to ask the old ones for their healing so we can heal ourselves and offer healing to others. We need to sit with our grief, not hide it away within our bodies for that makes us ill. We need new rituals and ways to engage with grief rather be overcome by it. We can weave old threads into new traditions, and root them an ancient spiritual bedrock. ”
Gathering the Keeners on the Isle of the Big Women
In world whose ecological, social and political systems are unravelling you are invited to join me on a weeklong retreat dedicated to practicing and reclaiming grief.
Reclaiming the ancient practise of keening offers a communal ritual allowing us to express the span of emotions we go through when grieving, not just limited to fear, anger and grief. Reclaiming keening taking the inspiration of this age-old practise into new rituals to help us engage with and process our grief. In the Wild Edge of Sorrow Francis Weller describes that our grief-phobic and death-denying culture, no longer offers effective ways of dealing with grief.
Reclaiming keening is about creating new grief rituals which involve creativity, allowing us to switch off our thoughts as we let our hands and heart work in a way which naturally help us process what we are going through. What we create can then offer both a symbolism and meaning which can then help us to describe our thoughts and feelings.
Reclaiming keening is also a form of activism, allowing us to mark and remember our collective losses and challenge the silence around loss. Creative expressions allow us to both honour ancestors, land, and. offering us a practise for many types of grief from the personal, to social justice, ancestral grief, eco grief and many others while offering transformation, inspiration and resistance.
This retreat is for those wishing to explore:
A space to explore grief rituals.
Support in engaging with personal grief, especially when unsure where to start.
Learning grief rituals for work that focuses on grief.
Creative projects that can be used to explore grief work.
Gathering at the Well of the Holy Women in the village of Grulin - a traditional chant which was sung at the edge of the ocean, guiding the soul of the deceased homewards, out to the setting sun and the lands beyond. - Sung by Dana Murphy
Whether we step into a keening circle or chose to make art, engage in ritual or sing laments - each has the potential to bring us into liminal space. We will seek out these liminal spaces, the thin places on the island, the dark places and these spaces within ourselves. The keening woman throughout history worked in these liminal spaces, guiding the community through their grief and guiding the soul of the dead home.
These practices can bring about healing, which unfolds in many ways takes many forms, from a shift or change which can lead to a deeper connection to oneself, a release or transformation of held emotions or allowing a different perspective, by which we change our relationship to grief, walk with it differently or carry grief in a different way.
Walking the Coffin Road
Sheela na gig - theories / return to the mother
Our grief pilgrimage begins in the village of Grulin, whose inhabitants were forcibly moved under the Highland clearances. Our journey is a grief pilgrimage, walking in silence with each person having their own space. Held by the land, each foot step becomes a prayer, the rhythm bringing us into place where we can drop down into our own emotions. This was also the same route, the last journey those in the village would have walked before boarding the ship that would have taken them to Nova Scotia.
Trance Dance
Dance an offer a cathartic release, it’s also a form of meditation. Letting the body move to music can help engage with different emotions. A trance dance offers a deeper level, of changing of consciousness, doing this through dance is one of humanities most ancient spiritual traditions. A trance dance offers us the opportunity to engage with the island on a different level. It can also offer an engagement with the ancestors, and the spirits of place.
Twig Doll
Create a doll with what the land gifts you. A grief doll is a conversation with the land, made with natural materials, created from whatever crosses your path - a shell, feather or bone. Assembling your doll is a ritual, from your intention and symbolism of the materials to the creation of an expression of your feelings.
Burying the Doll
Breejah - autumn eqionox ritual.
In the stories of the Ancestral Mothers of Scotland the women of the Bear Clan have a ritual of making small clay figurines. One is buried in the earth and dreams with the earth and the great She-Bear as she journeys in her great dreaming of hibernation. The second doll, a sister doll you take home.
Making these dolls is a ritual and I’ll share the story with drumming, inviting you to meet the Bear Grandmothers.
Keening Circle
A keening circle is a larger ritual which allows for a full expression of the range of emotions of grief from anger and rage, to despair. It is a musical journey guiding us through the emotions but offers opportunities to sink down into your grief - which can be expressed by sound or movement. A cathartic ritual which can bring healing and the strength to work through grief.
Shawl Ritual
A shawl offers warmth and comfort it also connects us to a long linage of ancestors who wrapped woven or knitted shawls or furs around them. On our first evening on the island we will sit in a special bay, wrap or shawls around us as we sink into the silence of place. We will also use it in our keening ritual as well as exploring the notion of ‘Taking up the mantle’ however you interprete this.
Our relationship with place, the land under our feet takes in many aspects from folklore to indigenous rights, land access and ownership to understanding the cultural framework all of this fit into. My relationship with the land I grew up in unfolded the stories I collectively call the Ancestral Mothers of Scotland, some of these figures are from folklore while others perhaps were stories once told, but stopped being shared, or perhaps were the story of one particular person.
As we approach Autumn Equinox which takes us into the dark half of the year I’ll share the stories of those Ancestral Mothers as well as offering oppertunities to deepen your relationship with them.
Lunastal. Talon Moon. Talieasker
Late summer is a time of Talieasker, a woman who is far more eagle than human. Her ritual is one inspired by excarnation, where the dead were left out for the raptors (in the guise of the Great Goddess). I picked up the trail of her story on Eigg in a curious place called the Oracle’s Chamber. Taliesaker’s rite, for the who seek her in this out of the way place, is to lie you down, lull you into a place between the worlds before she performs her ritual, which often involves the metaphorical ripping away of accumulated and unwanted layers.
Autumn Equinox. Bear Descending Moon. Breejah
Breejah is a woman whose clan honours bear, in a time when bear still walked the lands of Scotland. Autumn Equinox beckons preparations for the dark of the year. To Breejah and the women of the Bear this means tending to the Cave of the Grandmothers and the rituals which herald the return of the great She bear, whose winter journey provided the first descent and return story. We will explore the figure of the bear through a trance posture, an ancient practise carried out in many cultures throughout the world.
Samhain. Cailleach
We will visit the Hill of the Cailleach as well as a great shaped eye in a cliff face, I called The Eye of the Cailleach, on the Chirping Sands. While the Cailleach created landscapes by dropping stones from her creel, her role in winter is to strike life down dead - without death there can be no rebirth. While this talks to the cycles of nature also one we can engage with in our role of living ancestor and our position in the ancestral linage.
Winter Solstice. The Old Antlered One
The Old Antlered One is a deity of the people who followed the reindeer at the time of the ice age when the lands of the UK were joined to Europe and Doggerland. She is a creator who brought the sun and moon into their orbits and brought life and the seasons to the land.
I will share the story of She Who Runs With the Herd, a wise woman of the clan.
This retreat was exactly what I needed as a caregiver and a mental health worker – a break from rushing around and a chance to connect more fully with myself, my surroundings, and the people in my life. There were many unexpected moments of laughter and playfulness – I I even had the chance to fly a tiny kite by the Loch of the Big Women. I arrived home with a full heart and a handful of tiny shells.
Rebekah P, USA.
There's something about crossing the sea and stepping on to an island that gives you perspective on your life. The retreat provided a perfect balance of reflective time and sharing, exploring and experiencing the land and creative time to process emotion. The time dedicated to grief rituals was invaluable. The carrying of the names from the cleared village to the church along the coffin road felt really important and sacred. The keening ritual was an opportunity for me to tend to my grief in multiple different ways leaving me with tools to use in future and to find what worked best for me. Each member of the group brought their unique perspective to the mix creating a rich and deep experience. Deeply nourishing with delicious food for the body, mind and soul. And our little rabbit friend who came to die outside was the greatest teacher of all.
Morag D, Northern Ireland
A wonderful retreat blending wild Scottish landscape, and a spiritual exploration. Powerful dreams and visions gained through this work and land enabled me to carry out a ritual which I feel in my bones healed a deep scarring in my female linage. I am still connected to the stone I planted in the islands soil and on challenging days I see through its eyes and am reminded of who I really am. Lengthy walks, delicious eating, and sincere mindful women made this a life-changing experience.
Gayle Mair, Asheville, NC, USA
Jude’s depth of understanding and passion of the ancestral mothers inspired me to want to know more and connect more deeply with them. As the retreat progressed, I felt myself connecting more and more with each passing day. I particularly enjoyed connecting with the Big Women through making my doll, feeling her come alive more and more to where I felt the spirit of the ancestral mothers both in her and myself. The retreat offered me a richer and deeper understanding of where I’ve been and new inspiration and vision for where I want to go
Katherine Daniels, Texas, USA
Jude is an excellent facilitator leading us on a journey to meet the ancestral mothers and to find their strength within ourselves. Through journeying, hill walking, storytelling and doll making her style is gentle and the schedule relaxed. The food was nutritious and fortifying to enable our exploration of the island. The women were each amazing and a delight to be with from the first moment to the last. I made connections to the land and nature on Eigg. I knew this retreat would be life changing but I didn’t know how. I find that I have much more confidence and determination with the ability to handle higher levels of stress in a clam way than I did before. This is a life changing adventure that you don’t want to miss.
Kat Toebes, USA
Jude is so much more than tour guide and retreat leader. Her connection to Eigg – the island and its residents – deepened and grounded my soul-expanding experience. All the while, Jude deftly handled the practical and complex tasks of leading a retreat, while providing a relaxed, trustworthy container throughout the week where personal transformation, and even magic, took place.
Our stay on Eigg was a satisfying balance of communal time and individual contemplative time. Through Jude’s weaving of academic and mythopoetic history – derived from years of study and her creative re-imagining of old stories and song into our contemporary world – the island becomes imbued with the feeling that the Ancestral Mothers on Eigg are alive and energetically powerful, and sometimes mischievous.
Caroline Mason, Asheville, NC, USA
I’ve been visiting this little, but remarkable island, for over 25 years. The name Eigg comes from an old Norse description meaning notch or wedge, referring to the Sgurr, the tall rock formation that gives Eigg its easily identifiable profile. Its Gaelic name, Eilean Nan Bam Mora, means Isle of the Big Women, which refers to stories of female warriors and mythical giant women.
Big is also description of honour and respect and there are many threads of stories left from which might well have been a rich culture of powerful and inspiring women around these islands, and islands throughout the UK. Sadly, these stories are so threadbare that we are only left with the thinnest of threads to try and weave them back together.
Build a Relationship with the land
Walking the land is an essential part of this retreat, not just visiting sites, but the walk itself. We will take time to submerge ourselves in the feeling of place and engaging with our spiritual senses. The long lingering twilights at this time of year offer hours of enchanted light after the sun has set that offer an otherworldly feeling. This quality of light paints the land in a wash of magic so you can clearly see the face in the cliff and the outline of the woman in the land.
On the train ride from Glasgow to Mallaig (where you get the ferry to Eigg) you'll travel on one of the most spectacular train journeys in the world - the West Highland Way. The train travels through the inspiring scenery of Rannoch Moor and travels across the Glenfinnan Viaduct featured in the Harry Potter films
Embodying Aspects of the Big Women
Through our grief rituals, engaging with liminal space and stories of the Big Women help us embody our Big Women selves in whatever aspect of these figures feels true to you, inspiring you to step into and remember the parts of you still attuned to wild places and the language of nature.
The Well of the Holy Women
We gather at the Well of the Holy Women in the village of Grulin, whose inhabitants were forcibly removed in the Highland Clearances. In gathering we ask the Holy Women for a blessing, remembering that we too have the power to give blessings for the power doesn’t life in the person rather who they are blessing with, such as the living waters bubbling up from deep aquifers, or a blessing made by the sun, rain, eagle or expansive views out to the Atlantic.
Cathedral & Massacre Cave
We will visit to the large and open Cathedral Cave (if the tide allows) and the smaller, dark Massacre Cave and sing a Gaelic lament we will learn together, honouring those who lost their lives in the massacre.
Singing Sands & Eye of the Cailleach
You are invited to climb through the Eye of the Cailleach - a great eye shaped hagstone in a cliff. The surrounding beach is called the Singing Sands (or Chirping Sands in Gaelic), a white quartz beach which chirps slightly when you walk on dry sand. We will create a figure on the beach adding seaweed and stones, whatever natural materials we find - creating an old woman, Cailleach figure which will represent those we mourn the loss of and celebrate their lives. There is also time to for an old ritual, for it is said that if you spend time on this beach under a full moon you are granted the opportunity to speak to a loved one who has died.
The Hearth
Please click here to view the FAQ
Our home for the retreat is Glebe Barn which is a converted 19th-century building which offers wonderful views over to the mainland. It’s perfectly situated in the middle of the island - a great location for our trips to visit local sites and within one mile of the harbor which offers a cafe, shop and craft shop.
The kitchen, dining room, gathering room and sunroom are all on the ground floor. An entrance hall offers storage for coats and walking boots and there is also a laundry room with washer and dryer, and a shower room (with toilet) and a second toilet.
There are two accommodation options (there are no single rooms avalible):
Single beds - Two rooms with three single beds, on the second floor.
Bunk bed - Two rooms on the first floor. One room has three bunks while the second larger room has four bunk beds. You will have both the upper and lower bed to yourself.
The second floor is accessible by stairs, there is no lift in the building. The bathroom (with shower) on the second floor is located between the two bedrooms. The first floor hosts two shower rooms and two toilets - with hairdryers in the corridors. The are two toilets on the ground floor, one has a shower.
The cost for this retreat is £1229 (approx. USD $1590). A non refundable deposit of £399 is required to secure your booking (as organising a small group retreat requires up front payments before the retreat even launches). You can either pay your deposit of £399 ($529) or the full amount using the button below which will take you to Paypal.
If you live in the UK or Ireland please get in touch to pay by bank transfer.
Only one discount code can be applied per person
Sign up before Saturday 7th June and you will receive a £100 early booking discount.
All discounts will be applied to your remaining payment, not the deposit
If you wish to pay in full - get in touch and I’ll email you an invoice
After registration you will be invited to the retreat portal - which has further details such as hotel recommendations etc, plus you can introduce yourself. There is also details of a Zoom gathering where we can share travel plans etc.
Your Guide
Jude has been visiting the Isle of Eigg for over 20 years and has formed deep ties with the land and made friendships with the islanders. As an artist and writer with a background in Human Ecology her work explores connection to the land through art, story and ritual.
Her approach is in re-envisioning keening, being inspired by this age-old practise - taking the remaining threads and weaving them into new rituals while remaining rooted in an ancient spiritual bedrock. These new rituals can help us change our relationship with grief, to reclaim grief and find the words and expression of grief through art and ritual. This reclaiming is an act of resistance which can help us to heal and transform ourselves, work which can then become an effective tool within our communities.
Her focus centers on the liminal, the in-between and on the edge places which we experience in keening circles, art and in the land. These are the places the keening woman worked and it’s here we might find healing, or begin our journey towards healing.
She is a Radical Doll Maker viewing her art as part of a practise that stretches back to the first dolls fashioned from bones and stones – such as the Woman of Willendorf. She uses dolls as a way of connecting to ancestral figures, as well as dolls themselves as becoming part of our healing process and holding and speaking to our grief. As a painter she explores stories of the land, her images incorporating local soils.
She gained her MSc Masters Degree in Human Ecology at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow 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, Walking the Path of the Ancestral Mothers.