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BlessFest has always cherished and honored the many gifts that Indigenous cultures and mystical traditions offer us—especially in this industrial, modern, and increasingly digital age.

 

We live in a time and culture that does not always allow space for grief to be felt or expressed. Yet loss, challenge, and trauma are universal aspects of the human experience. Still, our culture often suggests that if we are grieving, we must have done something wrong, or that grief itself carries a sense of shame.

 

  Decades ago, Malidoma and Sobonfu Some, both born to be medicine carriers and bridge-people, fulfilled their destiny by bringing potent healing rituals from their home in Burkina Faso to the West. The Community Grief Ritual was one of them. This ritual opens a safe container of unconditional acceptance, so we can to experience and move through grief in a non-analytical and powerful  way, with communal support.  

 

John and Renata have had numerous opportunities to participate in and assist in leading this powerful ceremony inspired by the Dagara people of West Africa. They are both inspired to bring this much needed ancient ceremony to the Berkshires and offer it as a pre~fesstival event at BlessFest East 2026.  

 

The ceremony unfolds over the course of a day from 10AM ~ 6PM and is held through traditional song, rhythm, and dance. Together, we will build a community grief shrine, the center point of the ritual work, where participants are invited—given permission—to cry, to shout out and to experience their grief in an authentic way. Rather than trying to explain or “fix it", this remarkable container allows grief to move naturally through the body, eliciting an empowering healing response. 

 

Those who have participated in this grief rituals often speak of a profound and unexpected outcome: a renewed sense of aliveness.  When grief is given space to move—rather than being suppressed or carried alone—something begins to soften. Participants describe feeling lighter, more spacious inside, as though a long-held weight has been gently set down. In that newly opened inner space, joy, connection, gratitude and creativity are more readily felt.

 

Grief, when honored, does not diminish life—it deepens our capacity to fully inhabit it.

 

We feel this is a powerful and meaningful way to open BlessFest; by offering this pre-festival day of communal ritual. By beginning together in community and our shared humanity, we create a strong foundation for what follows.

 

 From this place of openness and presence, we can then move into the weekend—Friday, Saturday, and Sunday—carrying a greater sense of receptivity and embodiment.

 

This opening will allow us all to more fully receive the ancient and contemporary practices of song, rhythm, dance, meditations and the healing arts that will be woven throughout the festival. When we arrive having already cleared some inner space, this festival of joy can land more deeply, resonating not only as an uplifting experience we participate in, but as medicine for the soul.

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For this gathering, we are honored to have our esteemed dear friend and colleague Maria Christina Owl leading the day-long event. Maria Owl is an extraordinary and profound group facilitator and has led thousands of people through wilderness rites of passage and nature-based ceremonies for over 25 years.

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Maria has an MA in Integral Counseling and Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies, and her BA in Culture, Ecology & Sustainable Community with an emphasis on Group Facilitation from New College of California.

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Maria has taught Indigenous Medicine in higher education for over 12 years, including at New College of California, Dominican University, and Naropa University. Maria is also the former Dean of Students at Energy Medicine University (EMU).

She has had the great privilege of learning with native teachers from 18 different traditional cultures and she is deeply rooted in her own indigenous ancestry and identity.

 

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