A back garden mandala ceremony for old grief

When I was approached by J ask if I could help her to find a way of starting some healing for a long held grief, I wasn't sure if I was the right person. Sudden, unexpected death brings its own particular grief and trauma. She had felt stuck for nearly a decade.

After our initial meeting and conversation I felt so much that I wanted to help her, my creative mind started processing and thinking.

There were half a dozen close family members who had been affected by the same loss; I proposed to her that we collectively made a grief mandala in her back garden. This was partly inspired following a conversation with fellow celebrant Rebecca Waldron. 

I called the ceremony ‘Holding on and Letting Go’ - a line from the picture book Paper Dolls by Julia Donaldson that held significance for them.

There were several different elements to this ceremony. Before they moved out into the garden, each person privately and independently wrote down the sharpest, most painful memories that they were finding hard to let go of, they didn't read each other's words.

As we stepped out of the kitchen and into the garden they placed their written memories into the flames in the fire bowl. Next they each washed their hands in a beautiful glass bowl and then dried them, symbolising a fresh start.

We gathered around a large circle delineated by a natural thick rope, in the centre of the circle was a small ‘circle of friends’ statue. I opened with a Wendell Berry poem and then we lit the candle in the bowl in the centre of the statue.

The day before the ceremony they had been out and foraged natural materials to make our mandala. I'd also brought some flowers from my garden and some beautiful smooth river stones.

We voiced gratitudes for everything that P had brought into their lives, in between each gratitude they laid a ring of natural materials around the central candle.

We continued until the whole of the circle radiated out. We closed with another poem by Donna Ashworth, and a cymbal ting, and then played one of P's favourite songs.

Such a simple ceremony and yet I was extremely affected by it, as were the family. They said they spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out together around the fire, reminiscing, crying and laughing.

As a celebrant I think I learn most when I am extended, I think we all do. It's at the edges of our comfort zone where the learning and the magic can be found. I endeavour to approach any ceremony with an open mind and a warm heart and listen well and follow where the story we are telling takes us.

Huge thanks to J for giving me permission to write about this.