Tending Together:
A Grief Ritual Gathering
October 8–11, 2026
Sunrise Ranch | Loveland, Colorado
Grief moves when witnessed.
Join Hilary Kinavey and Carmen Cool for four days of communal grief tending, ritual, reflection, and accompaniment — grounded in the work of Francis Weller — at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
"Carmen and Hilary have created the kind of space for this work that I will forever crave more of."
— Tending participant
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Join us.
Grief is foundational to our humanity.
Whether it is bereavement, nostalgia, regrets, anger, injustice, climate change, or missed moments – these sorrows accumulate and deserve to be felt, witnessed and expressed. The world needs our nuanced presence in the midst of so much darkness.
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This gathering is for people carrying grief.
Not just grief after death.
Grief connected to bodies, relationships, identity, injustice, illness, burnout, longing, aging, uncertainty, estrangement, and the changing world around us.
Many of us are trying to hold enormous sorrow inside lives that rarely make space for it.
Tending is an invitation to stop carrying it alone.
Grief has always been communal.
We live in a culture that often isolates grief. We are taught to manage it privately. Move through it efficiently. Translate it into productivity as quickly as possible.
But across generations and traditions, people gathered to mourn together to witness, sing, pray, remember, cook, sit quietly, tell stories, and accompany one another through sorrow.
We believe grief still longs for that kind of company.
Again and again, we have seen what happens when grief is given space, ritual, language, and community. Something softens. Something shifts. Not because grief disappears — but because people are no longer carrying it entirely alone.
"When we get something essential that has been missing in our dominant culture, it feels like homecoming. It is surprisingly powerful relief to not have to fix anything or do something or 'use self-care' because we are caring together."
— DB, Tending participant
What this gathering will include:
Over four days together, we will create space for:
- Guided grief rituals and reflection
- Large and small group conversation
- Somatic and creative practices
- Poetry, music, and contemplative practice
- Optional opportunities for sharing and witness
- Rest from productivity and performance
- Community around the deeply human experience of grief
Time outdoors beneath the foothills. Quiet mornings. Shared meals. Evening fire circles. Moments of unhurried rest woven throughout.
This gathering is designed to honor many relationships to grief — grief that is fresh, longstanding, unnamed, collective, ambiguous, or difficult to explain.
You do not need to arrive with the right words.
You do not need a recent loss to belong here.
You do not need to perform vulnerability to participate.
You are welcome exactly as you are.
This gathering may be for you if:
- You have been carrying grief quietly and mostly alone
- You feel emotionally full, numb, or exhausted
- You support others professionally and rarely receive support yourself
- You long for ritual, witness, or communal spaces around grief
- You are grieving losses connected to people, identity, health, relationships, place, paths not taken, or the state of the world
- You want somewhere to bring what has felt difficult to carry
What this gathering is not:
Tending is not a clinical treatment program. It is not a pressure-filled healing retreat. It is not a place to perform emotional catharsis or a promise that grief will be resolved.
This is a facilitated communal gathering rooted in witness, ritual, reflection, and accompaniment. We believe there is profound value in simply being human together in the presence of grief.
Registration + Cost:
Retreat fee: $497
Limited payment plans available until June 30th.
REGISTER NOW
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"If you want to tend to your grief, on a journey facilitated by master teachers who are compassionate, open, caring and wise - you must sign up for TENDING with Hillary and Carmen. The community they cultivate facilitate your deep dive into the depths of your grief and allow you to emerge to a healing space where you feel less overwhelmed, less alone, and able to face the challenges that come up around anniversaries of loss of loved one or other type of loss. You will be giving the opportunity to experience embodied presence and body trust within the space cultivated for healing and growth. Highly Recommend."Â
Anonymous Participant
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"Carmen and Hilary are more than just teachers; their vulnerability and raw honesty give you the sense that they are truly walking alongside you in this grief journey."
-Anonymous Participant
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Have We Met?
This work is facilitated by Carmen Cool and Hilary Kinavey.
Hilary Kinavey and Carmen Cool have spent years facilitating spaces where grief, complexity, embodiment, and the realities of being human are welcomed rather than managed away.
Their work is rooted in relational practice, communal care, anti-oppression values, and the belief that grief deserves witness rather than pathology. Both have been trained by Francis Weller as grief ritual facilitators.
Together, they bring years of warmth, steadiness, honesty, ritual, humor, and care for the complexity people carry.
In this offering, we will be using the six gates of grief as our guide, as taught by Francis Weller. Both us have been trained by him as grief ritual facilitators.
Carmen Cool (she/her) is a queer, politicized and poeticized psychotherapist, psychedelic integration therapist, and certified mindfulness instructor. For over 20 years, I have been working at the intersection of eating disorders and weight stigma, activism in psychotherapy, and supporting youth leaders. Lately, my soul urgings have been taking me in the direction of earth-based practices, creative expression, and bringing love and magic back into the field of psychotherapy. I am constantly on the lookout for sensory joy. I love to cook, to read poetry, to sing under the bones, and I go out of my way to pet all the dogs.Â
Hilary Kinavey (she/her) is the co-founder of Center for Body Trust, where her work as a therapist, healthcare consultant, facilitator and writer, has been a study of what interrupts our sense of wholeness and how we can return to ourselves in a culture that profits from fragmentation. She is the co-author of the book Reclaiming Body Trust. She has worked as a therapist for over 25 years and works at the intersection of therapy and activism.
Some things were never meant to be carried alone.
We do not believe grief must be hidden to be survivable.
We believe people deserve places where tenderness, witness, ritual, and community can help what feels unbearable become a little less lonely.
For a few days together, we hope to create one of those places.
We hope you'll join us.
Questions? [email protected]
REGISTER NOWÂ
Ready to join us?
Save your spot by registering below. We are offering a single payment or payment plan over three months.
$497 or 3 payments of 165.67
Join us!Stay in touch with Tending...
"Everything is beautiful
and I am so sad.
This is how the heart makes a duet of wonder and grief."
~Â Mark Nepo, Adrift
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