Your grief belongs here, whether it is fresh, old, inherited, or hard to name.
Tending the Dark
A five-day virtual journey for tending grief, honoring loss, exploring ancestral healing, and finding support through ritual and community.
Live Online • October 29 – November 2, 2026
Your grief belongs here, whether it is fresh, old, inherited, or hard to name.
Tending the Dark
A five-day virtual journey for tending grief, honoring loss, exploring ancestral healing, and finding support through ritual and community.
Live Online • October 29 – November 2, 2026
There are losses we know how to name.
And then there are the ones we simply learn to carry…
The person you loved.
The relationship that ended.
The body that changed.
The future you thought you would have.
The family you needed but didn't get.
The version of yourself you had to leave behind.
The grief that began long before you were born.
For five days, we invite you to step out of the momentum of everyday life and make space for what has been asking to be witnessed.
Tending the Dark is a live virtual retreat devoted to grief, remembrance, ancestral healing, ritual, and the wisdom that can emerge when we stop asking ourselves to move on and give ourselves space to listen instead.
What If Your Grief Didn't Need To Be Fixed?
Maybe you've become very good at carrying it.
You went back to work. Took care of the people who needed you.
Handled the paperwork. Made the decisions. Started over. Kept moving.
Or maybe what you're grieving doesn't have a clear beginning or ending.
A parent who is still alive but cannot be who you need them to be.
A marriage, friendship, career, home, identity, dream, or chapter of life that ended.
Changes in your body or your relationship with aging.
A world that feels increasingly difficult to recognize.
Losses in your family that were never spoken about, yet somehow still seem to echo through the generations.
Sometimes grief arrives all at once.
Sometimes it accumulates so gradually that we don't realize how much we're carrying until we finally stop.
Tending the Dark is an invitation to stop.
Not forever.
For five days.
Long enough to listen to what your grief has been trying to say.
"I was buoyed through the passing of my beloved Mom, a breakup, a move across the country... the teachings helped me cultivate a grounded, authentic union with my truest self."
Laura Stack
Your Grief Belongs Here
You do not have to have experienced a recent death to step into this journey.
Grief has many faces.
You may be grieving:
- The death of someone you love
- A relationship, marriage, or friendship
- A parent or family relationship that could never become what you hoped
- A change in your health or body
- Aging, retirement, empty nesting, or another life transition
- A home, career, community, or identity
- A dream or future that will not happen the way you imagined
- The state of the world or changes to the earth
- A version of yourself you no longer recognize
- Losses that happened years or decades ago but never had space to be tended
- Family pain or grief that seems to stretch back generations
- Something you cannot quite name, but know you have been carrying
You may be arriving with one clear loss… Or you may feel as though you're carrying a lifetime of them.
Both belong here.
Every Family Carries Stories
Some are told again and again.
Others disappear into silence.
Deaths no one spoke about. Relationships severed. Homelands left behind. Violence. Addiction. Poverty. Displacement. Secrets. Shame. Survival strategies that once protected someone and continued long after the original danger was gone.
But Beloveds, we inherit beauty, too…
Resilience. Creativity. Humor. Recipes. Songs. Traditions. Fierceness. Faith. Resourcefulness. Love.
Ancestral healing isn't about blaming the people who came before us or pretending we can rewrite history.
It's an opportunity to become more conscious about what we carry.
To honor what deserves honoring.
To grieve what was never grieved.
To release what no longer needs to continue through us.
And to reclaim the wisdom, strength, and love that also belong to our lineage.
The Gifts of Tending the Dark
A Place for Your Grief
Give your grief the time and attention it may not have received. Create space for losses that are recent, decades old, inherited, or difficult to name, without needing to rush toward resolution.
Connection to Your Ancestors
Explore your relationship with those who came before you, whether you know their names and stories or know very little about your lineage. Through altar building, ritual, remembrance, and reflection, connect with what has been passed down and become more conscious of what you want to honor, heal, and carry forward.
A More Embodied Way to Grieve
Grief lives in more than our thoughts. Through breath, movement, music, somatic awareness, and grounding practices, discover ways to be with what you're carrying and support yourself when grief arises.
Rituals for Remembrance
Learn practices that give form to experiences that can be difficult to put into words. Create meaningful ways to remember, honor, express, and stay connected to the love that remains.
Support While You Process
You won't be left alone between live sessions. Throughout the five-day journey, you'll have a private community with teachers, mentors, and Warrior Goddess leadership available for connection, questions, reflection, and support.
A Way to Carry It Differently
Grief may remain part of your story without having to remain the same weight. Gather what these five days have shown you, recognize what you are ready to set down, and choose what you want to honor, reclaim, and carry forward.
What People In Our Community Say
"I used to live through my head in judgment and victim story, reactive, always on edge, in a state of fear. Working with these practices, I can witness and name my emotions while honoring them, allow them to flow through me. I'm able to take the story out of situations and encounters with people now in a way I couldn't before."
WG Community Member
"Before, I was trapped in fulfilling what I thought was expected of me. Now, I am better able to stop, ask, assess, and be more true to what I actually want. I've learned to stop and reflect before reacting. Much better at honoring what I need in a situation rather than always putting others before my needs are respected."
Kate J.
"I came in exhausted and disconnected. Now I feel more grounded, calm, more in control of my circumstances, more rooted and authentic in my relationships. What surprises me is the simplicity of the teachings, that's what brings the big changes. The key foundations of returning to yourself."
WG Community Member
What We'll Explore Together
For five days, we’re stepping into a different rhythm.
We’ll gather, practice, rest, remember, listen, and return again.
Each gathering takes us a little deeper into the journey.
October 29 at 3 PM Pacific | 6 PM Eastern | 10 PM London
Death as a Teacher: Lessons on Creating Sacred Space for the Dying
with HeatherAsh Amara
We begin by exploring death and loss as teachers for how to live more deeply. HeatherAsh will share from decades of experience walking with the Angel of Death and offer practices for creating sacred space around loss, honoring what has been, and beginning to compost what is ready to change.
You'll leave with an invitation to begin creating space for what you are grieving.
HeatherAsh Amara is the bestselling author of Warrior Goddess Training, The Warrior Heart Practice, Wild, Willing, and Wise, and several other books devoted to helping people release old patterns and live with greater clarity, courage, and compassion.
For more than 30 years, she has guided people through transformational practices rooted in Toltec wisdom, earth-based traditions, ritual, and direct experience.
Her relationship with death, grief, ceremony, fire, and ancestral practice has been shaped by decades of teaching, apprenticeship, pilgrimage, and walking alongside people at profound thresholds of change.
HeatherAsh is the founder of Warrior Goddess and the Center for Creative Intent and a Sundoor Master Firewalk Instructor and Empowerment Trainer.
October 30 at 8 AM Pacific | 11 AM Eastern | 3 PM London
Meeting Your Ancestors: Altars as Talismanic Medicine
with Sarina Harz-Tolbert, LCSW
Ritual can give form to what is difficult to put into words. In this session, Sarina blends ritual and psychoeducation as we explore altar building as a practical way to tend grief, create connection, and work with ancestral memory.
You'll be guided in creating your own altar and begin exploring practices for meeting and remembering your ancestors.
Sarina Harz-Tolbert is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, ritualist, certified wilderness rites of passage guide, Master Firewalk Instructor, and longtime student and apprentice of HeatherAsh Amara.
For more than a decade, Sarina has supported people navigating trauma, chronic conditions, grief, transition, and profound life change.
Her work weaves trauma-informed care with ritual, embodied practice, nature-based wisdom, and Warrior Goddess teachings, creating spaces where people can meet difficult experiences with greater compassion, curiosity, and choice.
As a lead teacher and guide within Warrior Goddess, Sarina brings both clinical experience and a deep respect for the transformative power of ritual, community, and intentional passage.
October 31 at 8 AM Pacific | 11 AM Eastern | 3 PM London
Moving with Grief: A Somatic Release Ritual for All You Carry
with Lara Rosenberg, C-IAYT
Grief doesn't only live in our thoughts and memories. We carry it in our bodies.
Through breath, mindful movement, and compassionate body awareness, Lara will guide a trauma-informed somatic practice designed to help you gently explore what you're carrying, release tension, make space for emotion, and support your nervous system.
Lara Rosenberg is a Certified International Association of Yoga Therapists Yoga Therapist, Registered Yoga Alliance 500-hour Yoga Teacher, Certified Warrior Goddess Facilitator, apprentice of HeatherAsh Amara, Certified Sundoor Firewalk Instructor, and member of the Global Firewalking Association.
Lara brings together Eastern and Western, ancient and modern healing practices to support deeper connection within oneself. Her work incorporates movement, breath, embodied awareness, and trauma-informed practices to help people meet themselves with greater presence and compassion.
November 1 at 12 PM Pacific | 3 PM Eastern | 8 PM London
Celtic Samhain: A Journey into the Dark
with Rhonda McCrimmon
Samhain is far richer than many of its modern interpretations.
Rhonda will take us into the history, traditions, and deeper meaning of this ancient Celtic season, dispelling common myths and exploring the wisdom of this threshold time and our relationship with darkness, death, ancestors, and renewal.
Rhonda McCrimmon is a Celtic Seer and Shaman from Scotland focused on creating shamanic pathways for people who have been disconnected from their animist lineage and heritage.
For more than a decade, she has walked a shamanic path devoted to helping people reconnect with their indigenous Celtic roots and restore a consciously connected spiritual life.
As Founder and CEO of The Centre for Shamanism, Rhonda has created communities, programs, workshops, healing circles, and teachings that make shamanic practice accessible within an ethical and practically minded spiritual community.
November 1 at 3 PM Pacific | 6 PM Eastern | 11 PM London
Listening Through Loss: Using Music to Soothe and Connect During Día de los Muertos
with Elaine Michelle
Music can reach places words cannot.
Through mindful listening, guided reflection, and shared intention, Elaine will create space to honor sorrow without rushing it and celebrate the love that remains connected to what has been lost.
Elaine Michelle is a Warrior Goddess mentor, Toltec apprentice, and Certified Warrior Goddess Facilitator specializing in transformational practices that support personal growth, embodied leadership, and empowered action.
With a background in Human Resources and organizational leadership, Elaine blends practical experience with spiritual tools to help people navigate change with clarity and courage.
Her work is rooted in ritual, elemental wisdom, and everyday empowerment. She is also a certified Firewalk Instructor and a passionate student of astrology and music, weaving these creative influences into her teaching and facilitation.
November 2 at 8 AM Pacific | 11 AM Eastern | 4 PM London
Closing Gathering: Gathering the Gifts of Grief
HeatherAsh and Sarina
We close the journey together by revisiting what these five days have revealed.
What are you ready to carry forward?
What can be laid down?
What have your grief, your ancestors, and your own inner wisdom shown you?
Together we'll gather the gifts of the journey and explore how to honor the dead, the lost, and the changed without losing ourselves.
We’re Bringing The Depth Of An In-Person Pilgrimage Into Your Home
Tending the Dark is a true virtual retreat.
From October 29 through November 2, you will move through a supported journey of teachings, ritual, reflection, somatic practice, ancestral connection, music, community, and integration.
The live gatherings provide important anchors for the journey, but the experience doesn't end when you close Zoom.
Between sessions, you'll receive practices and invitations to continue what you've begun.
You'll have a private online retreat community inside our learning platform where you can connect with fellow participants, ask questions, share what is arising, and receive support as you move through the experience.
And throughout the five days, members of the teaching team and Warrior Goddess mentor and leadership team will be present in the community to offer guidance and support.
Because sometimes the thing that needs tending doesn't arise during the teaching.
It arrives afterward.
While you're building your altar.
On your walk.
In a memory you haven't visited in years.
In the middle of the night.
In the unexpected relief that comes after finally letting yourself feel something you've been holding back.
We want you to know there is a community around you while you move through it.
Your Retreat Support Team
Alongside our session teachers, you will be supported throughout the five-day journey by members of the Warrior Goddess mentor and leadership community. Each brings their own lived experience, areas of practice, and deep understanding of the Warrior Goddess teachings, along with years of experience holding space for people moving through change, uncertainty, and transformation.
They’ll be there to help you stay connected to the practices, answer questions, offer perspective, and support you with whatever may arise as you move through the journey.
And that support continues between our live gatherings. Throughout the five days, you’ll be able to connect with the support team inside your private Tending the Dark community, hosted within our learning platform rather than on social media. It’s a dedicated space to ask questions, share what you’re experiencing, receive support, and stay connected to the community as the work continues to unfold.
Sue Reed
Sue is a Licensed Massage Therapist, Warrior Goddess Facilitator, and longtime apprentice of HeatherAsh Amara. She brings an earthy perspective and has walked closely with the Angel of Death through her own journey with cancer and midwifing her mama across the final threshold.
Sheila Kunkel
Sheila is the founder of Light Rei Healing Arts, a Soul Weaver, Energy Intuitive, and longtime member of the Warrior Goddess community. She brings a deep passion for helping others reconnect with their sense of worth and well-being, along with a lifelong devotion to learning, growth, and supporting others on their journeys.
Aylish Steed
Aylish is a Warrior Goddess Facilitator based in England. She is a fiery spirit and single mama who brings curiosity and fierce courage to anything life throws her way. Raised in the firewalking community and around spiritual circles, she has a deep connection to the elements and being in ceremony.
Manda Wylde
Manda Wylde is a Kansas City-based Warrior Goddess Facilitator and Coach, as well as an apprentice to HeatherAsh. She loves cats, chocolate, and plants. Manda is not afraid to turn towards the fire and feel the heat when grief is present. She is deeply practiced at being with difficult emotions and finding glimmers when all hope has been lost.
Making Space for a Different Relationship With Grief
By the end of our time together, our intention is not that your grief will be "finished."
Grief doesn't work that way.
Instead, our intent is that you leave with:
- A different relationship with what you've lost.
- Practices for meeting grief rather than automatically pushing it away.
- A deeper understanding of how grief lives in your body and how to support yourself when it arises.
- Rituals you can return to when words aren't enough.
- A greater sense of connection with your ancestors and lineage.
- More clarity about what belongs to you and what you are ready to stop carrying forward.
- Ways to honor the dead and the past while remaining connected to your own life.
- The experience of having your grief witnessed without needing to explain it, minimize it, or rush through it.
And perhaps most importantly, the knowledge that you do not have to carry all of this alone.
"Before, I was searching for my purpose. Now, I know I am the purpose. I don't need fixing, just be present and listen to my heart. My attitude toward myself, and consequently toward others, has changed from criticism to curiosity and from judgment to joy."
Karla Y.
Share the Journey With Someone You Love
Everyone is welcome at Tending the Dark and no one will walk this path alone.
You'll be entering a circle of participants, teachers, mentors, and guides who will be moving through these five days alongside you.
But there can also be something powerful about choosing to make this journey with someone you already love or trust.
Come with your sibling and explore the family history you share.
Come with a parent or adult child.
Come with your partner.
Bring a close friend.
Gather members of your spiritual community, grief circle, women's or men's group, healing community, or another circle that wants to make intentional space for this work together.
You can attend the live sessions from your own homes and connect privately between them.
Or create your own retreat space and experience some or all of the five days together.
There is something powerful about healing in community, and we want to encourage you to bring this work into yours. Gather two or more people for Tending the Dark and everyone in your circle receives our special group rate.
Groups of 2+: $357 per person
Email us at hello@warriorgoddess.com to let us know how many are in your group and we will provide your custom payment options.
Everything Inside Tending the Dark
🌿 Live teachings and experiential gatherings across five days
🌿 Ritual, reflection, altar work, somatic practices, music, ancestral connection, and other invitations designed to continue between gatherings.
🌿 A private online retreat community: A dedicated space inside the Warrior Goddess learning platform where the journey continues throughout the five days.
🌿 Daily teacher, mentor, and leadership presence: Receive support, ask questions, share what is arising, and connect with guides and fellow participants while you process between sessions.
🌿 Your Tending the Dark Retreat Guide + Workbook: One comprehensive guide to accompany you through all five days, with preparation guidance, altar-building resources, reflection prompts, between-session practices, and space to integrate what arises throughout your journey.
🌿 Guided Audio Practices: A collection of supportive meditations and visualizations to help you prepare your retreat space, ground and reconnect, explore your inner and ancestral landscape, and integrate the work between live gatherings.
🌿 Access to session recordings + transcripts
A Five-Day Virtual Journey of
Grief and Ancestral Healing
Reserve Your Place Today
What Our Students Are Saying
"There is deep wisdom in the teachings and an entire tool box of medicine that helps chisel away old agreements to come home to yourself. I am more steady and conscious of my choices and listening deeply to what is needed in any given moment. I have been apart of this journey time and time again and with each experience another layer is shed."
Aylish Steed
"HeatherAsh, along with my Warrior Goddess Sisters, have walked beside me every step of the way creating a circle of love, joy, play, laughter, deep growth, safety, trust and sisterhood. I feel seen. I feel heard. I feel held, respected, honored and loved for who I truly am. I look forward to continuing this journey of growth, unfolding, and becoming the woman I was meant to be."
DEIRDRE O'NEILL
"The many tools we learned in the program transformed how I live my life on a daily basis, how I interact with the world and the people in it. I am more intentional with my actions and energy. The people I've come to know through Nine Moons and in the broader Warrior Goddess community hold space for me, see me, and cheerlead me."
Emma Sharkey
Give Yourself The Gift Of Stepping Away
For thousands of years, people have gathered at seasonal thresholds to pause ordinary life.
These gatherings created space to witness change, honor what had passed, reconnect with community, and listen for what was asking to come next.
There is wisdom in setting time apart.
We invite you to approach these five days in that spirit.
Protect the space as much as your life allows.
Clear what you can from your calendar.
Turn off the notifications you don't need.
Create an altar or a dedicated place for your practice.
Spend the spaces between sessions walking, resting, writing, making art, listening to music, sitting outside, remembering, or simply being quiet.
Tell the people around you that you're on retreat.
And if you have the ability and desire, you might even give yourself greater physical separation from everyday life. Rent a quiet cabin or vacation home. Book a hotel room for a night or two.
Go somewhere that gives you privacy to listen, grieve, rest, and process.
None of this is required.
You do not need a perfectly quiet house, five empty days, or the ability to leave your responsibilities behind to participate fully.
This journey is designed to meet you in your actual life.
But if you can make a little more room around yourself, we encourage you to take it. 💛
Trust What Brought You Here
There are things we cannot carry forever in the same way.
There are people we will always love.
Stories worth remembering.
Losses that changed us.
Patterns we are ready to stop passing forward.
Wisdom waiting to be reclaimed.
And grief that may not need an answer nearly as much as it needs our attention.
For five days, give yourself somewhere to bring it.
You don't need experience with ritual.
You don't need a relationship with your ancestors.
You don't need to know your family history.
You don't need to have an altar.
You don't need to know exactly what you're grieving.
You don't need five uninterrupted days.
You only need a willingness to make some space for what is here.
We'll meet you there.
Come tend the dark with us.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. This journey is for many kinds of grief, including bereavement, relationships, transitions, aging, changes in health or identity, unrealized futures, family and ancestral grief, environmental or collective grief, and losses that may be difficult to name.
You do not need genealogy records, family stories, or detailed knowledge of your lineage to participate. We will work from the energetics and what your bones know, not necessarily what your brain “knows”. Many cultures and traditions have been lost over time and we may not know or have “proof” of where our peoples came from, but you can still connect energetically to your ancestors.
If you are adopted, that’s a super special bonus. The Warrior Goddess teachings acknowledge adoptions as having even more opportunities to connect with ancestors because you have more lines available–blood and adoptive parents/caregivers.
If you are estranged from your recent ancestors, no problem, you can connect with further down your lineage.
And finally, if you have a difficult history with your ancestors, know that many of us do. This workshop creates space for us to tend to that grief too.
We encourage you to attend live whenever possible because the shared experience is an important part of the retreat container. We also understand that people have work, family, caregiving, health, and other responsibilities. The experience is being designed so that you can participate meaningfully even when you cannot arrange your schedule around the sessions.
Recordings will be available as soon as we can get them ready, our goal is to have them available within 3 hours, but please allow up to 24 hours for processing.
No. We encourage you to protect as much time as realistically possible because creating space around the sessions can deepen the experience.
For one person, that might mean taking several days off and renting a cabin.
For someone else, it might mean clearing one afternoon, turning their phone off during sessions, creating a small altar in the bedroom, and taking a quiet walk after each gathering.
There is no "right" way to create your retreat.
Yes. We encourage it. You can participate with a friend, partner, sibling, parent or adult child, family member, spiritual group, grief circle, or another community.
We are offering special group pricing for groups of two or more. Simple email us at hello@warriorgoddess.com to let us know how many are in your group and we will provide your custom payment options.
You'll have a circle here. The private retreat community is an integral part of Tending the Dark, and teachers, Warrior Goddess mentors and leadership team members will be present throughout the five days.
You can participate privately as much as you need while still knowing support and community are available around you.
Tending the Dark is designed with care, choice, and support built into the experience, and you are always encouraged to honor your own limits.
During this virtual retreat, take care of YOU. Have your sensory tools nearby, take breaks as you need, and know that you can “opt out” of any practices. This work is for you to spend time with your grief, so find what is actually supportive and leave the rest. There is no pressure here.
No. We'll explore teachings and practices connected with seasonal thresholds, remembrance, ancestral traditions, and ritual, but you do not need to follow any particular spiritual path or belief system.
You're invited to engage with the practices in ways that honor your own beliefs, ancestry, culture, and relationship with the sacred.
No. Our teachings are rooted in earth-based spirituality and personal sovereignty. We welcome folks from all (or no) religious backgrounds, and we honor each person’s unique spiritual path, including those healing from religious harm or deconstruction.
Wherever you are. Join from home, create a private retreat space somewhere nearby, gather with a friend or group, or take yourself somewhere quiet for some or all of the five days.
All live gatherings and community support take place online.
All sales are final and non-refundable. If something comes up and you are unable to attend the course, let us know by August 7th and we will issue a credit for what you paid, applicable to any future Amara Productions event or program.
When you register, you also agree to our full Terms & Conditions found here: https://warriorgoddess.com/logistics/terms-conditions/
Have a question we haven’t answered here?
Feel free to use the LIVE chat feature on this page (down in the lower right corner) or email us at hello@warriorgoddess.com