The funeral fire and mourning rituals
The power of communal mourning
"Grief has never been private; it has always been communal. Subconsciously, we are awaiting the presence of others, before we can feel safe enough to drop to our knees on the holy ground of sorrow." Francis Weller
What is mourning in community?
"Gemeinsames Trauern bietet uns etwas, das wir nicht erreichen können, wenn wir allein trauern. Durch Bestätigung, Anerkennung und Miterleben ermöglicht uns gemeinsames Trauern eine tiefe und befreiende Heilung. Jeder von uns hat ein grundlegendes Menschenrecht auf diese wahre Liebe, dieses Glück und diese Freiheit." Sobonfu Somé
Experiencing grief in community means feeling connected to others – to people who may have had similar experiences or are simply willing to share the pain. It's about having a safe space where everything is allowed: pain, memories, but also hope and new life. In such spaces, one often senses that grief doesn't have to be only difficult, but can also be something unifying and even empowering.
Grief can feel different in community than in the silence of solitude. When we share it, we realize we are not alone in our pain. Sometimes we lack the words to express what we feel – but in a community, rituals, music, or simply being together can help give it expression. Furthermore, others remind us that life goes on despite the loss – and that we are seen and supported in our grief.
In our society, grief is often perceived as something private, sometimes even disruptive. Many people don't know how to deal with their own grief or the grief of others. Yet grief is a part of life. A conscious culture of mourning means giving grief a place in our lives again – through rituals, through community, and through a more open approach to the topic.
Are mourning rituals only for people who have lost someone?
Mourning rituals are for everyone who has experienced a loss – and that can be many things. It could be the loss of a loved one, but also the end of a relationship, the loss of a lifelong dream, or a change that requires saying goodbye. Rituals help us to consciously shape transitions and give dignified space to what we have to let go of.
Mourning rituals are also learning spaces, if you want to get to know yourself and your grief, or even if you feel that you have stopped grieving.
"We grieve the loves we've lost. We grieve our abilities vanishing through illness or age. We grieve the loss of faith in our religion. We grieve our children leaving home. We grieve the paths we didn't walk. We grieve the family we never had. We grieve the suffering of the planet. But while grief may look like an expression of pain that serves no purpose, it is actually the soul's acknowledgment of what we value. Grief is the honor we pay to that which is dear to us. And it is only through the connection to what we cherish that we can know how to move forward.
Yet in our culture, we are deeply unskilled with grief. We hold it at a distance as best we can, both in ourselves and in each other, treating it as, Joanna Macy says, like “an enemy of cheerfulness.” There is unspoken shame associated with grief. It is sanctioned in very few places, in small doses, for exceptional occasions such as death and tragedy. Beyond that, it can feel dangerous and weak. Perhaps because we fear we'll drown in our despair, or because it means falling apart in a world whose values 'holding it together' above all else. But grief plays an essential role in our coming undone from previous attachments. It is the necessary current we need to carry us into our next becoming. Without it, we may remain stuck in that area of our life, which can limit the whole spectrum of our feeling alive." Took-pa Turner
Was ist ein Trauerfeuer Ritual?
A funeral bonfire is a communal ritual where people gather around a fire to consciously honor grief, farewell, and loss. The fire symbolizes letting go, transformation, and new beginnings, and creates a safe space for remembrance, expression, and sharing stories of loss.
A funeral bonfire is a communal ritual in which people gather around a fire to consciously honor grief, farewell, and loss. The fire symbolizes letting go, transformation, and new beginnings, and creates a protected space for remembrance, expression, and healing.
It combines a deep exploration of the meaning of grief and communal mourning with insights from psychology and trauma research, as well as inspiration from European and worldwide fire and burial rituals – in a contemporary, authentic form for here and now.
The funeral bonfire I offer is based on the basic principles of the ritual developed by Elke Leophthin Gerwert.
When we talk about spirit, we are referring to the life force in everything. Each of us is seen as a spirit who has taken the form of a human in order to carry out a purpose. Spirit is the energy that helps us to connect, and also helps us in ritual and in connecting with the ancestors.” Sobonfu Some
Can I, as a community, also contact you to conduct a mourning ritual together?
Yes, absolutely. You can contact me as an individual, as well as a community, team, or group. Together we'll explore your needs and how to create a suitable setting for your memorial service or your grieving process.
"Life arises from the tension between our innermost aspirations and an external reality that always seems somewhat incomplete. Besides rejecting the unpopular parts of ourselves, we usually learn early in life to hide the most delicate, sensitive aspects of our being—in order to protect them. Sometimes we hide them so well that we can no longer find them ourselves!"
Grief lifts the veils and masks from our eyes, revealing behind them, often in a burning way, what our soul longs for. This doesn't refer to fleeting pleasures – we crave those rather to distract ourselves from our true yearning.
Longing is, in fact, one of the greatest sources of strength for our existence! If I manage to give my longing space, despite all the vulnerability that this entails, then I can hear my inner voice loud and clear, and let myself be guided by my intuition.
Elke Loepthien-Gerwert
Origins of the funeral bonfire -
Sobonfu Some and the Circlewise Institute
The Circlewise approach to grief support, the funeral fire workshops, and grief circles all developed based on many years of intensive experience leading communal mourning rituals with Sobonfu Somé. Sobonfu—without whose tireless work our work would not exist—belonged to the Dagara people of Burkina Faso. She grew up there and spent half the year there throughout her life. The remaining months she lived on Turtle Island in the USA, where she led numerous rituals she had developed for people raised in Western cultures, including at and with the Circlewise Institute (from 2011 to 2017).
Following Sobonfu's death in 2017, Elke Loepthien-Gerwert, the founder of Circlewise, sought ways to continue the grieving process in a way that was authentic for the here and now. To this end, she gathered numerous insights from Western research, particularly in psychology and neuropsychology, especially those relevant to communal mourning. She also examined the basic patterns of various funeral rituals and customs in Europe and other parts of the world, which are very different but also share some similarities.
While searching for a suitable focal point for a mourning ritual, the decisive inspiration for developing a fire ritual for mourning was drawn from ritual fires practiced by the Anishinabe people of Turtle Island, North America, around funerals, and especially from the so-called "emergency fires" in Europe. Emergency fires are still widely known on our continent today; until a few centuries ago, they were often lit by the community for the community, and numerous fire rituals based on them have been preserved as customs in many regions, including German-speaking areas.
Using the ingredients and clues found, Elke developed a first fire-based mourning ritual in 2017/18, which has since been further developed, refined and constantly redesigned through the experiences and contributions of and with the Circlewise team, the participants and numerous contributors – so that it can be as free as possible from cultural appropriation, authentic for here and now and open to people of all origins, religions and spiritual beliefs.
Here are a few selected past events.
Past events
