Grief Honouring Rituals

Honouring Grief - A Three Month Group in Stroud 

We will gather once a month for a half day in September, October and November, immersed in nature in Sladebank Woods, creating a space to honour the different kinds of grief we each carry.

Community in Grief

This group offers a space where grief is welcomed. When we come together in community, we remember that we are connected, and the village can hold more than any of us singularly can alone.

Over the course of three months, we will move gently through guided rituals to honour grief and love including offerings to earth, water and fire, storytelling, writing and witnessing.

Everything is guided as an invitation, with space for you to bring yourself exactly as you are and find out how each ritual resonates and supports your journey with your grief. We value every participant for who you are and the story you bring.

Grief can arise from many places: death, endings, ancestral pain, unmet love, ecological loss, and the parts of ourselves we've forgotten. All forms of grief are welcome here, whether recent, long-held or difficult to name.

We’ll gather as a small held group once a month for three months on Sunday mornings (9:30am–1pm) in Sladebank Woods.

● Sunday 13th September

● Sunday 11th October

● Sunday 15th November

As this is a shared three-month journey, we ask that you attend all three dates. Staying with the same group allows for trust, continuity and a deeper sense of belonging that support this work.

Before the group begins, you’ll receive a short welcome questionnaire and have the option of a one-to-one call.

This space may be for you if you:

● have carried grief quietly

● feel there hasn’t been space or permission to grieve

● want somewhere you don’t have to explain or justify how you feel

● long to be witnessed, rather than advised or fixed

● are holding something that feels too much to carry alone

● feel a sense of emptiness or loss you can’t quite name

● want to remember how grief and love live side by side

What to expect

Grief Honouring Rituals is an invitation to come together with others exactly as you are, without any mask, whatever you are holding.

Each gathering lasts around 3.5 hours and follows a gentle arc structure:

Arrival

Gathering together in the Sladebank Woods roundhouse and outside (further details to be shared prior to each ritual)

Welcome and grounding

Introductions and simple practices to help us settle and arrive, such as gentle movement, breath and guided reflection

Meeting what’s here

Guided ways to connect with your grief in your own way and timing

Shared ritual

Intentional communal ritual practices to express grief and be witnessed together. Each monthly gathering will be shaped by the season, the land and the group itself

Integration

Time to reflect, share if you wish, or simply notice what’s shifted

Closing

Preparing to return to daily life with care and support

By doing this together, we no longer have to carry grief through endurance and isolation. Our hearts begin to soften and open. We learn that we can actually hold this - the love, the loss, the endings and beginnings. 

This is not therapy. It’s not performance. It’s not a place to fix or be fixed. This is a space to come as you are and to be met there. A space to listen and be with grief in community.

To remember that grief is an expression of love, and that no part of our humanity was ever meant to be walked alone.

The rituals are informed by Veronica and Nika’s own lived experiences walking with grief, alongside their training in Grief Rituals Leadership with Francis Weller.

If something in you recognises the need for a space like this, you are warmly welcome.

Kindly note, tickets are non-refundable.

About the facilitators

Nika Shoot (Veronika Shoot) is a multifaceted artist, pianist and somatic facilitator whose work integrates music, energy work and embodied practices into innovative approaches to healing and human expression. This body of work grew out of her early training and performing life as a concert pianist. 

Nika’s passion lies in dissolving the boundaries between different modalities, drawing from her life, professional training and lived experience, including energy work, somatic exploration, yoga, breathwork, sound healing and shamanic integration. She has also spent time in India studying in traditional ashram settings and living with communities in the Peruvian Amazon, experiences that have quietly informed the depth and sensitivity of her work. 

Working at the meeting point of music, movement, breath and energy, she supports people back into connection with their bodies, their emotional landscape and their innate aliveness, meeting each person where they are.
She has developed an intuitive somatic flow approach to yoga, grounded in nervous system care and embodied awareness. Her sessions are supported by the Earth’s natural grounding frequencies, creating a subtle yet powerful environment for restoration, cellular renewal and energetic balance. 

In addition to her classical music background, Nika holds space for music as a devotional and healing practice, whether through Kirtan, medicine music, classical performance or improvisation. She also facilitates grief-honouring spaces and rituals, supporting individuals and groups to meet grief with presence, care and community. Her work in these areas serves to bring people together, offering a shared experience of connection and presence. 

veronikashoot@thebalancedartist.org

Veronica (Veronica Frances) is a Grief Practitioner and Breathwork Facilitator. Veronica supports people in their journey with grief, whether recent or long-held. In her private practice, she accompanies people in the grieving process with talk-based support -  work she came to through her personal experience following the loss of her sister, her professional training, and what she saw was missing and needed in mainstream support. She also facilitates breathwork ceremonies, having trained with Steph Magenta of Seven Directions. 

Veronica sees this work not just as individual healing but about brings us to right relationship with ourselves, those around us and the wider web of life. As we grow our capacity to grieve, we learn how to keep our hearts open to love, and this is what the world needs. Now based in Stroud,  Veronica carries a deep connection to Peru and Mexico, where she studied with the Shipibo tradition and  previously lived.

 www.veronicafrances.co.uk