Community Grief Tending

Welcome! As part of All Souls’ Day, a community festival, join us for a grief tending ritual.

Gentle support to witness and express our sorrow. Facilitated by trained grief tenders.

All grief is welcome, whether you are experiencing personal loss, sorrow for family or ancestors, or navigating the heaviness of what’s happening in our communities and the wider world.

Details:
When: Sunday 25th October 2026 
Start time: Arrival: 5.45pm. Start: 6pm. Finish: 9pm 
Where: The Hall, Stepcote Hill, Exeter, EX1 1BD
Contact us: Emily - emily@emrosebaz.com

About Grief & Grief Tending 

“Grieving is a natural process, allowing the expression of sadness, loneliness, anger, despair and other feelings… Grief is not a negative thing, but an expression of our love, our passion for justice, our interconnectedness… Sharing grief has been a part of many human cultures throughout time and across the world… [It] can be seen as precious – something we evolved to feel and express as a way of binding us together when things are tough”.
– Sophy Banks, Grief Tender

Expressing our grief and witnessing others in their grief brings a “softening” of our hearts, reminding us of how much is shared between us, and how painfully beautiful life can be. Through grief, we come closer to what we love.

In grief tending, we’re not trying to “fix” grief, we simply allow it to be. We welcome all grief: bereavement, relationship breakdown, ill-health, redundancy, the loss of the life we imagined, ancestral grief, sorrow for climate, conflicts and polarisation. The feelings of loss that we don’t quite have words for, numbness and overwhelm, and our longing, tenderness and love too.

What to expect from the evening:

• A space held with empathy and gentleness, where you can go at your own pace
• Time to connect with yourself and each other as a small group
• Guided exercises to help us slowly welcome in our grief (everything is optional)
• This is not therapy, but rather a community ritual — the chance to share, express our grief and witness each other
• A ritual space where you can express your grief without needing to speak
• Closing with soothing practices to allow us to transition back into our evenings.

About your facilitators: 

Emily and Sarah trained in grief tending together and have been facilitating grief spaces for the past few years, entering into deep and ongoing relationships with their own grief in the process. Emily is an Exeter local, Sarah lives in Dartington. They are thrilled to support the wonderful All Souls’ Day festival with a community grief ritual, and wish for a flourishing of spaces for grief in Exeter, deepening our aliveness and our togetherness.

Emily Bazalgette
Emily is a grief tender, facilitator of 15 years and coach, supporting people and organisations to navigate transitions with aliveness. She facilitates grief circles in the Foregather® Roundhouse and is starting to hold grief spaces in Exeter, most recently at the 2026 Matrescence Festival at Theatre Alibi. Emily is a seasoned and caring facilitator, committed to creating spaces of tender unfurling.
https://www.emrosebaz.com/

Sarah Parker  
Sarah is a Death Doula, Grief Tender, Craniosacral Therapist and a lover of nature and the wild. She has been holding safe spaces for her clients to rest in and allow their grief to move, for many years. She is the founder of Dying with Grace CIC, which aims to make end of life care accessible to all those who need it.
www.dyingwithgrace.co.uk

Important information:

• You don’t need to go to All Souls’ Day festival to attend this grief ritual – it’s open to all
• Once you have purchased a ticket, you will receive a Preparation Form, which we require to be completed before the workshop. This is both to help you to prepare for the session and for us to be able to support you well during the evening
• We only send information about what to bring upon receiving a completed Preparation Form
• We will start on time, please arrive 15 minutes before start time
• No entry 15 minutes after start time. If you are running late please contact us immediately
• Please arrive fed. We will have water, herbal teas and some vegan dark chocolate for after the ritual
• This workshop is inclusive to everyone regardless of age (18+), ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs and otherwise. You don’t need any experience of ritual or ceremony to join
• Please note that participants may bring challenging themes and strong expressions of emotion
• This ritual may not be suitable for those experiencing a mental health crisis, or for those feeling particularly unsupported.

Accessibility

The Hall is situated on a steep cobbled hill. This makes access for users of heavy motorised wheelchairs very difficult, if not impossible. We do have a ramp for manual wheelchairs to access The Hall from Stepcote Hill – but this would still require the user to be able to get far enough up Stepcote Hill to access the ramp.

Inside The Hall we have full disabled toilet facilities. More information here:

https://thehallexeter.org/accessibility

Cancellation policy

We rely on confirmed bookings to pay our facilitators fairly, cover the administration involved in holding these events, and keep this work accessible. Late cancellations and refunds add significantly to that admin load, which is why we ask people to book with care. All bookings are non-refundable, but if you can't attend, there are two ways your place can still be used:

• Pass it on: you're welcome to transfer your place to someone else up to 48 hours before the event. Please let us know their name, and they'll need to complete the Preparation Form that all participants fill in
• Waiting list: if the event has a waiting list and we're able to fill your place from it, we'll transfer your ticket.

Email emily@emrosebaz.com if you have any questions.

We look forward to being together.

With love,
Emily and Sarah