The Grief Commons: A Sacred Space for Communal Grief

The Grief Commons:

Where sorrow is honored as sacred and soul is met in community.

Grief is a natural expression of love, change, belonging, and the ways life touches us. It moves through families, communities, landscapes, lineages, and the wider web of life. It speaks through tears and laughter, silence and story, movement and stillness, memory, longing, creativity, and sometimes what has no words.

The Grief Commons is a place to gather and tend grief in community. Through story, song, silence, movement, creativity, council, ritual, and shared witness, we make room for what is here.

Personal, ancestral, collective, ecological, and unnamed griefs are welcome. Grief may come through death and loss, and also through love, change, devotion, beauty, longing, and caring deeply for one another and the living world.

There is no right way to participate. Tears are welcome. Silence is welcome. Laughter is welcome. Movement and rest are welcome. Simply arriving as you are is welcome.

Our gathering is held in reverence for earth, air, fire, water, and ether — ancient relatives and teachers woven through our humanness and our relationship with the wider web of life.

Gathering Details

Saturday, September 12, 2026

Location:\

Obsidian Lodge
2250 East 29th, Eugene, Oregon

Time: T.B.A.

Please arrive 10–15 minutes early to settle in and prepare for our time together.

Contribution: $55–$75 sliding scale

Please choose an amount that feels sustainable for your circumstances.

You may pay at the door or reserve your place in advance through Venmo at @Willow-SAtnarayan. Please include your name and the date of the gathering in the notes.

What to Bring

Please bring:

• Water bottle
• Your own tea cup
• Journal
• Cushion or pillow
• Blanket
• Flowers or foliage for our community altar
• An altar item if you wish — a photograph, crystal, natural object, remembrance, or something meaningful to you

Chairs are provided for those who prefer or need one. You are also welcome to bring anything else that helps you feel comfortable and supported.

We ask that phones and other devices be turned off and tucked away during our time together whenever possible. We understand that some people need to remain reachable for children, caregiving, medical needs, or other necessary circumstances.

Parking

Parking is available on the land. Please use a designated space or find a place where your vehicle fits respectfully while keeping pathways and access clear.

Contact

Willow — 305-302-8101 | willow@willowsatnarayan.com

Jonathan — 541-632-3676 | jonathan.stemer@gmail.com

Your Facilitators

Jonathan Stemer, MS, LPC is a licensed professional counselor with more than 30 years of experience in mental health and wellness. His integrative and transpersonal approach includes deep listening, somatic awareness, connection with nature, and expressive arts. He works with adults from diverse backgrounds and honors each person’s strengths, values, and ways of knowing.

Willow Sat Narayan is a Licensed Psilocybin Facilitator, Grief Tender, Death Companion/Doula, and Body-Oriented Integration Coach. Willow companions people through grief, change, initiation, mortality, and other moments in life that ask for attunement, respect and deep listening.

Willow’s work has grown through decades of healing arts, work with children and families, deathwork and grief tending, embodied practice, ritual, journeywork, and community care. These threads come together in spaces that honor each person’s voice, timing, and ways of knowing, while remembering our belonging to one another, our ancestors, the earth, and the wider web of life.