Geography of Grief One-on-One

Reading, writing, and ritual with Jennifer Springsteen

Incorporating one-on-one and self-paced structure

This is a combination online coursework and one-on-one coaching.

Cost: $345 (Installment plans available. Contact jennifer.springsteen@pdxwriters.com)
The course is based on six-week lessons, but it is a self-paced course; you and Jennifer will design the pace that best fits your schedule.
You'll have a minimum of four half-hour phone or zoom conferences with Jennifer.

We are experiencing collective grief now in addition to our own personal grief, both past and present.

Writer and activist Francis Weller defined five gates of grief:

First Gate: Everything We Love, We Will Lose
Second Gate: The Places That Have Not Known Love
Third Gate: The Sorrows of The World
Fourth Gate: What We Expected and Did Not Receive
Fifth Gate: Ancestral Grief

In this workshop, we'll examine Weller's gates of grief and discover where those gates intersect with one another in our experiences. We'll map our stories of love and loss, tracing memory and connection through writing, reading, rituals and feedback. Participants will be invited to create their own "grief altar" to share with the on our last day of workshop.

Loss and grief can be defined any way the writer perceives it.

Please note: in our final conversation, we will lift up our joys and reaffirm ways we can take action in our grief, ideas for self-care and a commitment to return to tending our grief when needed. We will part with spirits raised.