Let us carry this together, we weren’t meant to hold this on our own…
We are glad you are here.
Grief Medicine Retreat
A Gathering to Soothe the Broken Heart
Sept 05 -
Sept 07, 2025
Let us accompany you on your
journey through grief.
Please join us for a
3-day retreat
at the historic Quaker Center
in Ben Lomond, CA.
Grief is not something we’re meant to go through alone, no matter how solitary the work can be. As we gather in community and in kinship with the natural world, we find a sense of belonging in our shared grief, helping to metabolize our losses and transmute them into a balm to soothe our own hearts, and the broken heart of our world.
IS THIS PROGRAM FOR YOU?
We are living in chaotic times. There is so much to grieve, yet it can feel too overwhelming to allow our hearts to soften into the vulnerable place needed to tend our personal and collective sorrows. Yet paradoxically, when we do not allow our grief to be felt, we can harden to our own selves, and the world around us. In a time where the world needs more caring and compassion than ever, grieving in these times is a radical act.
Do you feel stuck in your grief, feel like you need to grieve a recent loss but don’t really know how, or perhaps resistant to even going there? Are your coping strategies or default to survival mode failing you, leaving you exhausted and overwhelmed? Perhaps you would just like more support and guidance during this sorrowful time, or a place of welcome and witnessing that honors the weight of what you carry. You may have recently lost a loved one, the ending of a relationship, experienced the death of a beloved pet companion, or are reeling from the humanitarian and planetary calamities of our times.
How do we turn toward our individual grief with compassion in the midst of so much collective grief? How do we bear witness to climate change, societal collapse, and the multiple pandemics from police violence to COVID-19 of the last several years and keep our hearts open to engaging with the world and our communities as we’d like to? Join us in journeying through these questions together in a healing group container held by expert facilitators. Participate in guided meditations, somatic practices accessible to all bodies (or alternatives will be given), and creative offerings to learn how to carry our grief with care, patience and trust in its medicine, rather than ignoring, or being obliterated by, it.
Together, we will explore the various types of grief arising in us and learn helpful frameworks and resources for navigating these losses and transitions — and for deepening our capacity to be in relationship with this lifelong companion. Embracing our grief and keeping our hearts alive amidst the collective numbing of our times is part of the paradigm shift that is so needed as we face these times of tumult and uncertainty.
Grief is not something we’re meant to go through alone, no matter how solitary the work can be. As we gather in community and in kinship with the human and more-than-human world, we find a sense of belonging in our shared grief, helping to metabolize our losses and transmute them into a balm to soothe our own hearts, and the broken heart of our world.
Where we will go together…
Connect.
.Connect more deeply to yourself and others around the sacred work of grief, as well as the plants, trees, and creatures of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Participate in sharing circles, smaller pair-and-share options to connect more deeply, and participate in a ritual out in nature
Embody.
Grief is a somatic (body-based) experience that we can’t tend to from the neck-up. We will engage in movement and mindfulness practices and group singing (no experience needed!) to turn down the activation of the mind to allow the wisdom of the body to guide us.
UNLearn.
When we allow our minds, hearts, and bodies to be open to UNlearning how we are socialized to be with grief, we can reclaim our birthright to grieve our losses fully. Soak in poetry, stories, and wisdom inspired by the work of Francis Weller, author of The Wild Edge of Sorrow to support to unlearn the ways we are taught to suppress our grief and find a new paradigm to hold our sorrows in.
Nourish.
Indulge in plant-based culinary delights made with love and care by the wonderful chef, Tod Nyseth. Our retreat includes dinner on the first night, breakfast in the morning, lunch, and dinner, and tea and light bites on Sunday morning and brunch to sustain you for your travels home. You are also welcomed to bring your own food to be stored in the communal fridge.
Create.
Learn ways to harness creativity as an ally to tend to your grief. Let the natural world around you inspire you to create metaphor, images, and writing to coax your creativity out and reveal insights about your grief and connect you deeper to yourself.
Rest.
Allow your nervous system to flow into the rhythm of the serene environment that awaits you. Have some quiet time in the redwood grove and labyrinthe during rest periods. Allow your physical and emotional body to soften in the container of our spacious schedule and the quiet of the forest.
“Amy is a gifted and committed grief worker who has devoted herself to cultivating the skills necessary to provide sanctuary to those willing to tend their accumulated sorrows. Her compassion, sincerity, and warmth help to coax our hidden losses into the open where they can be tended by others. She carries a much-needed medicine for these times
”
About Amy (she/her/hers)
C0-Facilitator
Alongside working as a grief therapist for over a decade, I’ve personally been in apprenticeship with grief since early childhood when my dad died unexpectedly. It has been a passion for me to help others feel supported in their losses as this was not my experience due to our societal and cultural views towards grief. It was not until my mid-twenties that I finally began to turn towards my own loss — something I was so terrified of — and began to feel more fully alive, connected to myself and others, and less exhausted and dissociated from running from the past.
Being multiracial second-generation Korean American and white (Western European and Jewish) from a blended family, my loved ones represent a handful of races, native tongues, cultures, sexual orientations, socioeconomic and educational statuses, and spiritual beliefs. I honor the unique impact that these identities have upon one’s life story. It is my intention to provide a safe space for those of all intersectionality of identities to feel seen, welcomed, and accepted.
I bring in my lived experience as somatic-based grief and trauma therapist, expressive arts therapist, yoga and meditation teacher, artist and writer, to welcome your whole self to feel seen, heard, and understood on your journey through grief.
I have faith in the healing power of connection and collective liberation through group work, and feel honored and grateful to my teachers who have informed my work: Francis Weller, Aki Hirota Baker, Manuela Mischke-Reeds, Ken Hardy, Sarah Lotus Garrett, Karen Rachels, and the work of Shawna Murray-Browne.
“Naila’s approach is really special. She interweaves art, grief education, meditative practices and more, all with cultural competency. For me, what sets her apart from others doing similar work is her unique capacity to make space to be with grief, reflect on the multiplicity of emotions that come with it, and find healing there.
”
About Naila (she/her/hers)
Co- Facilitator
I am a writer/poet, certified grief coach and death midwife and an ordained interfaith minister. While my life is woven from a tapestry of losses, including being a child of divorce and immigrant grief, having moved to the U.S. from St. Lucia when I was 10, the back-to-back deaths of my father and my bonus dad over a decade ago were my true initiations into grief.
My awareness through my own journey of what a grief-phobic society we live in nurtured in me a deep desire to hold grief with more reverence and curiosity — and to offer more spaces where grievers could feel validated and affirmed instead of being faced with so much of the judgment, shame and stigma prevalent around grief in dominant culture.
My work spans a broad spectrum as I hold space and offer ritual and ceremony for people at many of life’s sacred thresholds, including birth, marriage, death and other transitional passages. My grief work is often informed by my love of poetry, my shamanic studies in the Andean Pachakuti Mesa Tradition, the gifts of healing rooted in nature and community and my commitment to expanding our grief literacy. I believe that embracing the alchemy and wisdom of grief invites us to more authentic, compassionate and whole-hearted living.
As a woman of Afro-Caribbean and Indo-Caribbean descent, I'm also drawn to the ways grief and loss are honored in other cultures and the ritual embracing of this universally human experience. In 2021, in the height of the pandemic, I co-founded Salt Trails, a Philadelphia collective to help normalize grief through community rituals. I am also the co-host of Breathing Wind, a podcast about journeying introspectively through grief. You can learn more about my offerings here.
Sign up for the Grief Medicine Retreat
A Gathering to Soothe the Broken Heart
IMPORTANT LOGISTICAL DETAILS
RETREAT DATES & DETAILS:
The retreat begins Friday, September 5th and ends Sunday, September 7th, 2025
Check in 4:00 PM on Friday, September 5th, 2025
Check out 4:00 PM on Sunday, September 7th, 2025
Vegetarian meals will be provided for breakfast, lunch, and dinner throughout the duration of the program.
Guests are asked to bring their own bedsheets or to rent them for $15. The Quaker Center operates on a dormitory style living experience where time will be set aside before checkout to help tidy up your rooms, bathrooms, and main areas.
RETREAT LOCATION:
The retreat will take place at the historic 50-acre Ben Lomond Quaker Center, a retreat and conference center in Ben Lomond, California, located about two hours south of San Francisco. There are hiking trails and a labyrinth for exploration, with retreat time set aside for contemplative time in nature. Discover more about the history and purpose and of the center here: http://www.quakercenter.org/.
Participants can choose between single room, shared room, and camping options
RETREAT INVESTMENT & TIMELINES:
Early Bird Rate: The total investment for the course is $800 for single rooms, $600 for double rooms, and $400 for camping, or $1,200 for a private cottage, before 8/1. Payment plans available.
Standard Rate: The total investment for the course after 8/1 is $900 for single rooms, $700 for double rooms, and $450 for camping, and $1,300 for a private cottage.
To enroll, please make a $50 deposit and fill out the application below. You will be contacted within a couple of business days to confirm your registration and lodging status. If you decide to move forward with the retreat, you can pay the remaining fee via PayPal, Venmo, or credit card. Payment plans are available.
One partial scholarship is available for those who qualify for a fee reduction. Preference will be given to equity-seeking groups such as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, trans and non-binary folks, and those with disabilities. Please reach out and I will send you the application for a partial scholarship. The final deadline to apply for a reduced fee spot is 7/1.
REACH OUT TO US:
If you have questions before signing up, email to schedule a free 15-minute phone consultation with Amy: amy@amyswart.com
If no appointments are available this means the course is full
You can view our Terms of Service Agreement here.
Grief Medicine Participant Testimonials.
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Grateful
Grateful for the love and sweat Amy and Naila put into this project. Absolutely loved the art time followed by discussion. I liked zoning out and feeling like I came into myself midway through art time as I am focused on the colors and less whatever was occupying my mind before 530p. Truly a transformational experience that I did not even know I needed.
- Grief Medicine Participant, Winter 2023
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Highly recommend
Amy is a delightful group leader that helped me get through some old tough feelings of mourning. I highly recommend this class and and I wish it were longer!
- Grief Medicine Participant, Spring 2023
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Nourishment my soul craved
The Grief Medicine course was the nourishment my soul craved after the loss of my parent. Being in community with others who understood loss from the inside gave me a place to explore ways to embrace my grief process in service of my own healing. Amy created a connected and loving online space filled with art and rich resources I can take with me and use in the future.
- Grief Medicine Participant, Winter 2023
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Taught me how to connect with people again
More than anything else, this course taught me how to connect with people again and how strangers can offer one another support during their most trying times.
- Grief Medicine Participant, Spring 2021
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I did not realize how little I actually knew
I thought I was very familiar with grief because I have experienced so much personal loss in my lifetime. I did not realize how little I actually knew about it until taking this course. Amy was a most compassionate and kind facilitator who guided us through our different forms of grief in a way where I felt held and cared for. I appreciated the expressive arts activities and writing prompts that she shared in the course, and the sacred space of connecting and sharing.
- Grief Medicine Participant, Winter 2021
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Channel for expressing
I felt completely supported by Amy and by the other participants in this journey. I loved the art activities, which gave me a channel for expressing some of the feelings I would not have found words for. The group was a safe space for finding my way through grief, and I am grateful for it.
- Grief Medicine Participant, Winter 2021
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Highlight of my week
Thank you, Amy, for providing a safe space & facilitating an amazing 6 weeks. Thursdays were the highlight of my week knowing I'd get to see everyone. I truly didn't expect to feel SO supported & safe in a virtual environment.
- Grief Medicine Participant, Fall 2020
