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 As the nights grow longer, and the days grow shorter, you are invited to join me on a journey through the dark of the year. We begin at Samhain, gathering each month until we emerge again at Spring Equinox.

This is a journey exploring the Bone Mothers, our most distant ancestors. While we might not know much about them, what we do know is that they were born and they died. Who were the ancients who keened and lamented, the ones who led the souls of the dead home to the otherworld.

Even within the lands making up the UK, there were different cultures who viewed death and ancestral veneration very differently. We can’t be sure of their view on the otherworld, but we can explore the possibilities through story, art and ritual.

 
 

The Bone Mothers

We have many ancestors, our blood ancestors, those whose names and stories we know, while our bone ancestors are so old and distant, they are our shared ancestors. Then there is our animal kin plants and nature and our adopted lines, for me that is doll making and keening.

My logo holds the figure of three women, this is the inspiration of the keening woman going back to their pre-Christian roots, to those reclaiming keening today as well as considering this tradition in the future and all that future people will face in this world.

This inspiration for this winter journey lies with the Bone Mothers, the pre-Christian roots of this tradition and engaging with these ancient ancestors through story, art and ritual. Just as people gathered through the dark of the year to tell stories around fires, we too will gather to share and explore our intentions for the dark of the year, ways to root our grief and explore it through creative projects and ritual.

The Great Unravelling - A permanent darkness?

This time in history has been given many names, Francis Weller calls is the Long Dark, Joanna Macy referred to it as the Great Turning while Jem Bendell speaks of a need for Deep Adaptation due to the collapse of global systems which has already begun. However you look at it we are descending into the deep and so as we journey through the dark we will share stories and practices to help us ground as grief will be a constant companion.

This journey offers:

  • Stories of Ancestral Mothers from the Bone Mothers, the Cailleach, She Who Runs with the Herd, to the Goddess Brighid.

  • Rooting Grief - small practices to ground grief with simple ritual ideas

  • Creative projects - from collage to clay doll making creating an ancestor shrine

  • Keening Women inspiration - Exploring ancient ancestral veneration to recordings of the last keening songs

The Great Forgetting

Our age is one of a great forgetting. Patriarchy has erased, or has tried to erase many traditional practices. We have forgotten how to grieve, how to be with and process grief.

Reclaiming keening isn’t just about keening circles, it’s part of a practice of rooting grief, a grief tending practice which allows us both to explore grief, become more familiar with it alongside creative projects and engaging conversations. This can help reinstate grief as an essential part of life, something our ancestors fully understood.

While we might not be meeting in person, we kindle what we can, and gather around our virtual fire, in the Cave of the Grandmothers - letting the inspiration of our most ancient ancestors, the Bone Mothers, into our lives, and help us to tend to grief.

Creative Projects

Create a Ancestor Shrine & Bone Mother Doll

Journeying Through the Dark of the Year with the Bone Mothers

How does this course work?

The aim of this course is to meet each month through the dark of the year. There will be a lesson on the online platform which will give you the detail of creative projects, plus the Zoom meeting link and also provide a chat function where we can share inspiration, ask questions etc.

The heart of the course is in the Zoom gatherings, so to get the most out of the course I recommend that you are available for most of the meetings, and to be an an active part of our community. Gatherings will be recorded.

Who is this course for?

This is a course for folks inspired by our ancient foremothers, and wish to engage with them in a meaningful way. It’s a course designed to take that inspiration and explore it through creative projects, and through sharing with one another.

1. October. The Cave of the Grandmothers

  • Bone Mother Story – The  Cave of the Grandmothers

  • Creative project – Ancestor Shrine

  • Keening woman inspiration – Past, present and future keeners

  • Rooting grief – Who are our ancestors?  Our blood ancestors, the bone ancestors and our adopted linages

  • Zoom gathering - Sunday 26th October. UK 7pm, US Eastern 3pm

2. November. Tending to the Shrine

  • Bone Mother Story – The Shrine of the Cailleach

  • Creative project – Bone Mother doll

  • Keening woman inspiration – Story of women tending the stones, keening at the Shrine of the Cailleach

  • Zoom Gathering - Sunday 30th November, UK 7pm, US Eastern 2pm

3. December. Running With the Herd

  • Bone Mother Story – She Who Runs with the Herd

  • Keening woman inspiration - Considering our own deaths

  • Zoom Gathering - Sunday 28th December, UK 7pm, US Eastern 2pm

4. January. The Cailleach and the Wolf

  • Bone Mother Story – The Cailleach and the wolf

  • Keening woman inspiration – Eco grief

  • Rooting grief – Meditation, returning home

  • Zoom Gathering - Sunday 18th January, UK 7pm, US Eastern 2pm

5. Grief as Activism

  • Bone Mother Story – Brighid and the Cailleach

  • Creative project – Making a Brighid’s cross

  • Keening woman inspiration – Shawl ritual, picking up the mantle

  • Rooting grief – Grief as activism

  • Zoom Gathering - Sunday 8th February, UK 7pm, US Eastern 2pm

6. March. Emerging from the Cave

  • Bone Mother Story – Breejah and the Bear

  • Creative project - A healing charm

  • Keening woman inspiration – Bear, first story of decent and return / rebirth

  • Rooting grief – A review of our time in the deep. What do we leave in the cave, what did we find in the dark?  

  • Zoom gathering - Sunday 15th March, UK 7pm, US Eastern 2pm

Sign Up

Sign up using the button below. Payment is via Paypal, get in touch if you’d rather pay by card and I will send you an invoice.

What do you get for your investment?

  • A community of women to journey with through the dark of the year

  • Full instructions for creative projects

  • Six zoom lessons

  • A online platform which offers a chat facility - to upload photos of your creations and a place to talk between our meetings

  • How to take the inspiration of these figures, explore it through art and ritual and weave it into our lives

  • Rooting grief - how we can tend to grief

The cost for this journey is £149 (approx. $USD £199)

REGISTRATION HAS NOW CLOSED

 
 

Your Guide

Jude has been visiting the Isle of Eigg for over 25 years, forming deep connections with both the land and the island community. As an artist and writer with a background in Human Ecology her work explores the intersection of story, art and ritual can nurture a strong relationship with place, and also provide a map to our grieving process.

Reclaiming keening is inspired an age-old old indigenous grief ritual. Jude’s approach is taking the threads of the keening woman’s ritual and exploring them in dedicated keening circles. Over time these separate rituals can be woven together to create a keening circle which helps make space for, explore and transform grief.

Reclaiming keening isn’t a practice just using the voice, it also employs art projects such as doll making or weaving. As a doll maker her work through dolls connects to the Ancestral Mothers of Scotland, as well as the process of doll making providing healing and ways to express our grief symbolically.

Reclaiming Keening is also an act of resistance. Patriarchy thrives on control, which includes the control of grief through limiting how emotions are expressed, the medicalisation of death, and the loss of communal mourning. When grief is silenced it becomes a tool of social control. To reclaim grief is a form of activism. It allows us to reconnect with indigenous grief traditions, to normalise grief as part of life, and to challenge the stigma around emotional expression.

She gained her MSc Masters Degree in Human Ecology at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow and lives on the West Coast of Scotland on the banks of the River Clyde, near Loch Lomond. She is currently writing her first book, Walking the Path of the Ancestral Mothers.