Losing someone you love can leave a profound impact at any age. And in this death-denying culture of ours, all of us struggle to find spaces where we can talk openly about that experience. We’ve found, though, that there’s a unique kind of isolation that comes when you are among the first in your peer group to lose a parent, sibling, partner, or close friend. This is also an age group that is typically underserved by the traditional grief community — too old for youth grief support and too young for traditional grief support groups where attendees are often older. For this retreat, we’re focusing on folks in their 20’s and 30’s. But check below for resources that might be of interest to you.

Losing anyone in your life can be unspeakably hard, and the specificity of this retreat doesn’t mean to take away from that truth. (And! Loss takes many forms beyond death loss – break ups, divorces, life-altering illnesses and accidents, incarceration, family separation, deportation, and more). However, at this moment we are focusing on serving folks who’ve experienced a few specific types of loss, so that we can do that really well.

You sure can! This retreat will be structured around Shabbat and will include Jewish music, learning, and ritual, but if that sounds good to you, we welcome you to apply.

Sorry, no. Every retreat participant will be assigned a bed onsite. There’s a special magic that happens when folks spend the full weekend together in the same space (and, we’ll add, a special magic to sleeping on an urban farm!), and minimizing folks’ comings and goings on and off site is also important for us staying as covid-safe as possible for the weekend.

In order to create the kind of intentional community that allows retreat participants to feel safe and go deep with one another, attendance at the entire retreat is required for participation. We will begin at 5:45 pm on Friday (with the option to come a little early to get settled) and end at 1:00 pm on Sunday. If you have a conflict that you absolutely cannot change, please note that in your application.

This retreat is created for and by peers, and is not, in the traditional sense at least, therapeutic. We do not have the expertise to provide professional therapy or support, and, with a few exceptions, all facilitators are also participants (and all participants will play an active role in holding space for each other). This retreat should be a complement to, and not a replacement for, the places you go to see a professional.

We are huge fans of The Dinner Party, an organization that is building a worldwide community of 20- and 30-somethings who have each experienced the loss of a parent, partner, child, sibling, or close friend.

Reimagine is a non-profit that hosts online and in-person events and festivals around loss, adversity, and mortality. Check out their webinars and groups!

Writing Your Grief is a course (self-guided or live) through Refuge in Grief that we’ve heard awesome things about, and which offers prompts and community for telling the truth about your loss.

For tons of books on loss, check out The Dinner Party’s bookshop.