“I can’t even begin to say how beautiful, brilliant, deep, delicious, wise, impactful, meaningful,
moving, powerful, fierce, profound, real, and deeply healing this gathering was.”
Montgomery Norton, San Luis Obispo, CA
EVENT TESTIMONIALS
“Simply put, Lara is ideally suited for this sacred alchemical work. She has the capacity to hold deep space for the sorrows of the world while being firmly rooted in the healing power of the good, the true, and the beautiful.”
Freyja Swan-Utsman, San Luis Obispo, CA
“Lara is a skilled facilitator who navigates the most challenging issues of our time with wisdom, sensitivity, and a wide-open heart. Her event was a deep experience that challenged me to explore my grief and pain, while empowering me to face those hurts with resilience and hope.”
Kevin Gallagher, Santa Barbara, CA
“I have the greatest gratitude and wonder for the community created and soul work accomplished, at Lara's recent Portland event "Drinking from the Well: The Sacred Work of Grief". The work she unveils is the work of love and joy and pain and sorrow; it is the work of moving forward in this particular world, in this particular embodiment, at this particular juncture in time. It is Lara's great gift to offer her wisdom, her journey and her extensive knowledge to all who wish to experience this on the very deepest level. She does so with gentleness, passion, insight and an expansive and inclusive spirit.”
Kristen Wilson, Salem, OR
“Everyone has something to grieve. I went specifically to grieve about the Earth and all we are losing. Those of us who love the earth and are awoke to what is happening are carrying so much grief. Taking the time to feel and express grief for disappearing species, desecrated places, and our difficult future does not mean we are giving up, but rather it can re-energize us to continue our activism. Grief is the other side of love and we can’t have one without the other, yet there are so few places where our grief is welcomed and accepted and can be fully expressed in community.”
Sharon Blick, Eugene, OR
“Here's a wonderful opportunity to reclaim energy you may be unknowingly wasting just trying to hold back despair. My close friend, Lara, is a gifted facilitator bringing many years of study and practice to create the safe space needed to grieve through despair into the power of community.”
Leonard Higgins, Eugene, OR
“I wanted to wholeheartedly thank you for the ritual. It was very, very profound. You are gifted as a healer. You have been through the fires and storms of grief and now have emerged as a being of light and healing that this world so much needs!!!”
Lesley McClintock, Portland, OR
“If you want a deeply poignant and absolutely beautiful experience, I most highly recommend this sacred work. If you are at all interested, go. If you are curious, go. If you are doubtful, go. If you think this is for you or if you think this is not for you, go. You will be forever blessed and eternally grateful.”
Chante Dao, Hugo, OR
“So much gratitude Lara for leading this life changing event. The village we created was stronger than I imagined possible, and carried me to depths I've not reached in so long. Gratitude to all my villagers too, for embracing my grief and beauty and strength. May all share in this powerful healing.”
Öcean Liff-Anderson, Corvallis OR
“I found myself feeling amazed when we parted ways, as tears sprang up. I had come to know and care for my fellow participants, made friends, heard stories, saw inside their hearts briefly. A true community holds the capacity to experience many things together without busting at the seams. Grief bonds when held with deep compassion and understanding. Grief shows us our capacity for Joy as well. A community that learns to hold both is strong, resilient, and capable of changing the world. Thank you, Lara Lwin Treadaway, for guiding us.”
Michelle Madgett, San Luis Obispo, CA
“This is so beautiful, as are you. Your deep listening and following are an inspiration and light along my path and so many others'. It was a special gift to join you in grief work last year and I look forward to meeting again in beauty as the path unfolds.”
Karen Maple Holmes, Portland, OR
“Thank you, Lara, for an incredible gift of healing. It will be a memory I will travel with and share with others wherever I go. So glad our paths came together during this time in my life. From a very grateful heart.”
Jean Edwards, San Luis Obispo, CA
“Having a strong leader who kept structure, time and process in check made me feel safe and secure and helped ease any tension about the day. I feel like the ritual took off another “layer” of stress and tension that I was experiencing and I was able to let go of some things I was holding onto, thinking and feeling I needed to deal with it on my own. I have recommended this event to many friends already and I have told them it was deeply nourishing and healing on many levels.”
Jeanean Rauch, Corvallis, OR
“I would recommend this event to anyone open minded and ready to embrace a positive shift. I found that we are all grieving and we all want and need a community to share and release this an feel the embrace of love. I’ve been needing, wanting, searching for a way to process my loss and grief and I found this Grief Ritual to be perfect for my needs. I found more layers of past grief bubbling up and I was able to let more go more than just what I thought I was grieving. Thank you so much for this amazing work and healing gift.”
Cathy Jamieson, San Luis Obispo, CA
“This is a great opportunity to explore and express your grief, where you can truly go to very deep places and feel safe doing it, being held by a facilitator who is kind, compassionate, powerful and experienced. Lara, I love the combination of your skills and experience, your love and deep compassion for the work, your humor and seriousness with the process, your kindness and the over abiding love that you share.”
Jack Leishman, Ashland, OR
“Clarity, Vastness, Depth, Liberation, Inspiration, Community. Grateful for today’s Grief workshop of Unraveling. It works if you work it. Thank You Lara Lwin Treadaway.”
Anahata Kia Wind, San Luis Obispo, CA
“I can’t even begin to say how beautiful, brilliant, deep, delicious, wise, impactful, meaningful, moving, powerful, fierce, profound, real, and deeply healing this gathering was. I spent a year at Kalani-Honua on the Big Island of Hawaii following two years at Esalen so I have experienced many healing events, retreats and workshops, and I have to say that I was so thoroughly cleansed, impressed, moved, touched, wrung out, inspired and lifted up by this Grief Ritual Retreat at Loving Earth Sanctuary that I still can’t believe it. I highly recommend this experience to everyone I know! Amazing work!!! Amazing!!!”
Montgomery Norton, San Luis Obispo, CA
“This is such important work, no matter where your grief is stemming from. It was very transformational for me and I highly recommend it. Drawing on the wisdom of so many amazing teachers, Lara presents it masterfully.”
Brenda Johnson, Ashland, OR
“Thank you so much for the gift of this work Lara. You are an insightful and gifted facilitator. The work was profound for me. I feel a sense of being softer. Holding on to grief makes a hard shell. So I feel softer, gentler and a little more relaxed in my skin. You are a beauty and a love!”
Leigh Rhudy, Ashland, OR
“It was a very healing/reviving experience for me. You created a space that was grounding, safe, uplifting, sacred and deeply real.”
Isa Jennings, Eugene, OR
“The ritual cleared and cleansed me, the next day I felt a great capacity to hold life and things that were unbearable before. It was a life-changing practice that I intend to make a part of my life on a regular basis. Lara is an extraordinary spirit and a skillful facilitator. The container she created felt incredibly safe and inclusive allowing me to do very deep work. This ritual is a much-needed balm for healing the collective.”
Jana Holm, Portland, OR
“Please attend this important event. It will change the way you see the world, the grief, the joy and our connection. Lara Lwin Treadaway will enfold you and bring you into a world beyond right and wrong, a world where we can all meet and hold space for each other.”
Milena Worsham, Ashland, OR
“The songs. The jubilation. The celebration. All in front of the village's altar. It was beautifully put together in a way that made it easy to do the work with everyone. The poetry was profoundly moving. I believe this was just a beginning and still a palpable lesson I have been waiting for, to share my tears with others. To be seen. And to be thanked for doing so. I felt very present. I felt connected. You must experience this ceremony to whatever capacity you can. It is simple. It is powerful. And it is moving.”
Blake S., Corvallis, OR
“Thank you Lara Lwin Treadaway for organizing this, it was so amazing! What a way to WAKE UP both literally and figuratively.”
Wendy Wysong Leighton, Ashland, OR
“Thank you for facilitating the amazing day Saturday! I do feel changed, and I certainly can say this experience feels like one of those "watershed" experiences. I highly recommend this for anyone who feels the burden of grief over personal or any other loss.”
Lisa Mayfield, Portland, OR
“The Drinking from the Well Retreat opened up the pain of deep unresolved guilt, resentment and anger I held for my mother and allowed me to see who she was and why for the first time. It was a true epiphany that I wouldn't have had without being present in this beautiful circle Lara gave us. I feel I am at peace for the first time in my life.”
Robin Clark, Coos Bay, OR
“Lara, because of the heart, beauty and wisdom you provided at the workshop, my life trajectory has been reset. Deep level healing is the way free. Your gift to me. With deep honoring, love and gratitude.”
Don GerBracht, San Luis Obispo, CA
“I want more of this experience of community showing up so fully and so beautifully. This is some of what will change the world.”
Peia Luzzi, Ashland, OR
“I would highly recommend this event. This was an extremely well held container, a village well created. Lara, your wealth of experience, your authenticity and openness, your compassion, sense of ease and familiarity with grief, led the day beautifully.”
Brenda Blair, Ashland, OR
“This was a beautiful and profound experience and I’m very grateful to have experienced it with you as our grief tender.”
Karen Duggan, San Luis Obispo, CA
“I have recommended this event to many friends already and I have told them it was deeply nourishing and healing on many levels.”
E. Rho, Corvallis, OR
“The work you are doing is critical for assisting folks like me that need this energetic movement and soul retrieval plus radical support for it. I know I did some major work and felt honored to be present for my fellow villagers.”
Elizabeth Izzo, Portland, OR
“Thank you for a FANTASTIC, TRANSFORMATIONAL, HOPE-FILLED Gathering!!!!”
Rachael R. Resch, Ashland, OR
“I am so grateful to have attended the Lamentation workshop and ceremony. It was a profound experience to sing my sorrows instead of just speaking them. There was grief that came out that I didn't know I was carrying. Something about singing opened me up. I hope to be a part of Lara's next ceremony!”
Claire Winograd, Portland, OR
“Lara creates a safe space where I can be vulnerable and I believe men in this culture need a great deal of support in learning how to express honest emotions.”
Vernon Huffman, Corvallis, OR
“Lara’s insight, knowledge and compassion to serve people through the process of grief is so powerful and wise. It’s very evident she has devoted herself to this much needed practice of healing. The love and acceptance she evokes in this work is truly moving and powerful."
Gina Shulman, San Luis Obispo, CA
“This was one of the most rich and beautiful days of my life. I did not know how, but felt a need to grieve all that I had not for so long... and to look for answers in that unacknowledged pain and sorrow. Lara held an impeccably clear, loving space for all of us to do just that. To be safe with the tribe. Supported by strangers, connected to all human beings by this beauty-full grief. I came away having made friends with my sadness and peace with the anger that protects it. I continue to feel a sense of peace as I let the grief walk beside me, no longer judged or hindered by fear.”
Erica Indrani Eddy, San Luis Obispo, CA
“Lara is a gifted guide through the deep well of sorrow and grief. She is receptive to the needs of each participant being aware of the community as a whole. Lara holds a safe container in which participants can let go in ways many of us have never been able to before. The deep joy which follows the out-pouring of grief is truly profound. These rituals have been life-changing for me.”
Oshi, Coos Bay, OR
“This was a very, very exquisite gathering of beautiful women practicing a very old lamenting way. I feel so, so blessed to have had this experience with Lara Lwin Treadaway. I'm just speechless.”
Victoria Markham, Ashland, OR
“I am so grateful to have been part of Lara's workshop. It was exactly what I needed to learn about bringing a practice of sacred grieving into my life and to help me open up to the acute grief I've been feeling from the recent death of my father. It was intense and transformative to be witnessed in my grieving and to witness others in theirs. We spent part of the day learning about lament and keening and then the rest of the day in practice. I felt confident in the way that Lara facilitated a safe, supportive, and sacred space for us.”
Minda Stiles, Newport, OR
“I cannot suggest enough how much this event changed me. For anyone feeling the loss of another or loss of a dream. This event helped me, in my darkest time, to begin my healing process. Sign up, you will not be disappointed.”
P. Scott Roberts, Ashland, OR
“Your presence in my life has come with great healing and shift. Since I met you I am so much more clear on what peace feels like. That deep peace at the very center of the pain for all the things you mentioned. I can’t say enough about you and the safe space you held to communally do such personal work as process ones grief. You are masterful at what you do, and so clearly and beautifully committed to helping heal the planet with this work. Thank you. Thank you. Deep bow of gratitude.”
Laura Ghirenghelli Knutson, San Luis Obispo, CA
“Each time I tell of the experience I had of "Drinking from the Well" to a friend who didn't get to experience it they are amazed and my story becomes a little more complete and clearer to me. You blessed us all with this gift. You truly created a sacred space, of trust, holiness and safety. What a combination. Thank you so much, Lara.”
Lois Williams, Coos Bay, OR
“I would absolutely recommend this ritual for anyone who is longing for an authentic, safe and reverent engagement of our deepest most profound emotions. This is profound experiential work for both personal and communal nurturance and healing.”
Richard Leversee, San Luis Obispo, CA
“Thank You Lara for showing me how to grieve!! I feel like a weight has been lifted from me!! You lifted me up when I needed it the most!! This ritual will be with me for a long time. Keep up your great journey for you truly help many people!!”
Mary Adams, Coos Bay, OR
“Thank you Lara Lwin Treadaway for being so real that almost in a flash of your smile my anger, denial, resentments and fear of the wrongdoings of others neutralized so that I could be present with that which I like to hide and repress. Your wisdom and beautiful voice gave me an invisible chord of courage and magnetized me to my heart. More please.”
~ Fran Dukehart, San Luis Obispo, CA
“Yes! My heart is so full! Thank you!!”
Elise Anderson, Ashland, OR
“To be part of this sacred ceremony was an honor. To be among the trees and next to the water. To feel the warmth of the fire in the center of this circle of like minded individuals. All of this as the sun rose and rain fell from the sky.”
Cindy Williamson Valencia, Ashland, OR
“Thank you for the transformative opportunity to grieve in a way I never knew existed. My heart has begun to open again and many emotions are spilling out. These feelings, that I tend to stuff because of the deep abyss they have always pushed me into, are ready to come to light. They need to come to light. Your work is remarkable and I’m praying I can work with you to further this path of healing that I am so ready for.”
Jenna Derrick, Sebastopol, CA
“The Drinking from the Well Retreat opened up the pain of deep unresolved guilt, resentment and anger I held for my mother and allowed me to see who she was and why for the first time. It was a true epiphany that I wouldn't have had without being present in this beautiful circle Lara gave us. I feel I am at peace for the first time in my life.”
Robin Clark, Coos Bay, OR
“Thank you for this beautiful work. I'm so glad I met you and walked the path with you at the symposium last weekend. Many blessings.”
River Seanain Snow, Laytonville, CA
“Thank you, Lara, for your service and leadership this weekend at Herbal Symposium. I am forever grateful and look forward to learning more from you!”
Sacha Sterling, Sebastopol, CA