Tending
Our Grief
Grief Ritual & Community Gathering
At Morris Orchard Natural Burial
The warm sun on your face, a lightness to meet what’s heavy in the heart.
Canopy above, roots below - sanctuary of elder trees holding us so our bodies can soften.
Kind eyes and soft smiles, laughter and tears. Community holding it together, surrendering it together to earth and spirit.
Tending Our Grief is a returning to our truest medicines for grief: Community and Earth.
This ritual helps us remember…
That we are not alone, neither in our human experiences of loss and change, nor in our collective grief of ecological loss, violence, & systems of oppression.
How to honor and alchemize our grief through what Francis Weller calls the “language of the soul” - ritual, song, beauty, poetry, nature, human connection.
That honoring the natural cycles of loss, the rhythms of life and death is a portal to opening our hearts to gratitude, joy, and belonging.
Opening Our Hearts, Healing Our Community
The Gift of Healing in Community
We live in a time where there is a lot to grieve. We also live in a time when communal rituals for grieving have often been erased or forgotten. The impacts of unfelt grief and communal separation are rife in our culture - loneliness, numbness, depression, violence… the list goes on.
Yes, grief can feel scary to feel, especially when ancestral grief rituals have fallen away. However we can revive those rituals, practice touching into our grief, and remember what it feels like to be surrounded by a circle of support and belonging.
At this gathering, any experience you have is welcome. Grief can have layers - numbness, shame, fear, anger, sorrow. Your tears are welcome, just as much as the numbness or rage.
Your joy is welcome too, and often grief rituals naturally bring forth our gratitude, joy, and interconnectedness. When we let grief move, we can find our way back to ourselves, into our wholeness and humanness. By doing it together, we are humanizing ourselves and each other; we are healing our community.
Your Facilitators
Nicole Robinson
Somatic Coach
they/them
Nicole is a Somatic Coach and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, a Teacher, Tender, Dreamer, and a Human. They feel a deep calling toward connecting people to grief work, community, and relationship with the Earth. They weave their training in somatic healing with years of earth work, and a living apprenticeship with community ritual.
Amanda Lucia
Song Leader, Facilitator, & Photographer
she/they
Amanda is song leader, embodiment photographer, and space holder devoted to guiding people into their fullest, most liberated expression. She is passionate about cultivating belonging through co-creative ritual, nature immersion, song, and sacred play.
Michael Judd
Morris Orchard Co-Founder, Agro-Ecological Designer
he/him
Michael has worked with agro-ecological and whole-system designs throughout the Americas for over three decades. He is the founder of Ecologia Edible & Ecological Landscape Design and Project Bona Fide, an international agro-ecology nonprofit, and co-founder of SilvoCulture, a Maryland-based agro-forestry non-profit, and Morris Orchard Natural Burial. Michael’s involvement in natural burial began with a deeply personal experience. When his father passed away, Michael and his family decided to establish a home cemetery to honor his father’s wishes and their connection to the land. This process proved to be extraordinarily meaningful and led Michael to explore and advocate for natural burial practices and help to bring the option to the extended community.
Tending
Our Grief
Grief Ritual & Community Gathering
at Morris Orchard Natural Burial
Saturday, October 3, 2026
1-5pm
The Land:
We look forward to gathering in community with you at the one and only Morris Orchard Natural Burial, a sacred sanctuary of 60+ year old chestnut trees tucked just beneath the blue line of the Appalachian Mountains on the unceded lands of the Tuscarora and Piscataway people sometimes known as Frederick MD. This sacred land is home to natural burials, where folks who feel called to reconnect with nature and intimate death care can be held by the land and a loving group of stewards. It is also home to community gatherings and retreat experiences.
Morris Orchard Natural Burial
9489 Pear Lane
Frederick, Maryland 21702
Flow of the Gathering:
For this gathering, it felt important to not just gather for a grief ritual then go home, but to create space for lingering and connection, organic community building.
This event includes:
A grief ritual facilitated by Nicole and Amanda integrating meditation, writing, movement, song, drumming, sharing, land connection, and making beauty from our pain.
A talk by Michael, sharing about Morris Orchard and his journey bringing natural burial to the community.
Community connection time - enjoy a walk through the orchard, have a snack, enjoy the fire, connect with new and old friends. (We will have some light healthy snacks available to enjoy).
We invite you to bring an item or items with you to place on our grief shrine. This might be a photo of a lost loved one, an object that represents a grief you’re moving through, an offering of beauty, or whatever else you feel moved to bring.
Inclusivity & Agreements:
Our aim is to create an inclusive space that holds awareness around the ways systems of oppression impact individuals and communities. We feel this is especially important in grief work spaces which invite us into our vulnerability. Some ways we support this include centering marginalized voices, acknowledging ancestors of the land, affirming and welcoming all from the LGBTQIA+ community, and doing our own work as facilitators to recognize our biases and privileges, welcome feedback, and increase our capacity for rupture and repair.
We won't all have the same opinions, communication styles, or relational capacity. Please embrace this diversity, perhaps practice listening more when in a position of privilege, and sharing more when your voice is not often amplified. We welcome you to keep an open heart and mind as you engage with one another. And ask you to please take care of yourself, knowing everything we offer is invitational.
Join Us
To make this event more accessible, we are offering a sliding scale $40-70. Pay any amount within that range, using this tiered system for guidance as needed.
Receiver ($40): if you need financial support
Sustainer ($55): this is the rate that supports us well for our time & expertise
Supporter ($70): this rate provides us extra support and creates more accessibility for those with less socioeconomic stability
*At check out, complete the ADDITIONAL PAYMENT section to add an additional amount onto the $40 base price if you can pay a higher sliding scale amount
What’s Possible
We invite you to dream with us and help us hold a vision of a more beautiful future -
one that is made possible through the healing power of community, mutual care, and ritual
of relationship with land, grief work, and honoring the natural cycles of life and death.
We hope to see you in October.
