Sheela na Gig in the ruins of Kildonnan Church - we will visit her as part of our grief ritual along the coffin road

The word pilgrimage comes from the Latin peregrinus, meaning foreigner or stranger—evoking journeys into sacred lands where transformation unfolds. A pilgrimage is more than travel; it is a crossing from the known into the sacred unknown, into a space both unfamiliar and deeply meaningful.

In Western culture, grief too is treated as a stranger, an unwelcome visitor. We silence our emotions and keep busy, rushing to move past grief without truly facing it. Most of us have never been shown how to walk with grief, and so it feels like unfamiliar terrain. Our culture surrounds us with distractions but offers few rooted traditions to guide us. Yet grief is not to be feared—it is a sacred journey to be embraced.

This week long pilgrimage invites you on a sacred journey, reclaiming an ancient indigenous grief ritual, using the tools of story, art & ritual. At the core of this reclaiming is exploring motifs of the keening woman’s ritual in dedicated keening circles.

I’m holding three pilgrimages in 2026, each has slightly different offerings, ranging in the level of walks, the types of creative projects, and the amount and depth of the - helping you choose the one that best suits your interests.helping you choose one thats more suited to your interests.

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.