The snow-covered peak of Mount Shasta glows purple in the red morning sun as I leave the grief retreat behind. The yawning freeway opens up ahead of me; beside me the glacial teal water of Shasta Lake meets a broad morning sky. For the first time in a year I feel alive.
Last year was the worst of my life. I lost my former fiancé in a motorbike accident then my younger brother had a brain aneurysm that put him in a coma. As the year ended my skin tingled and I felt traumatised. Lying awake, desperately seeking answers, I came across the concept of grief retreats.
The emergence of grief retreats seems to reflect a shift in cultural consciousness. Movements such as the Death Cafe and Dying Matters festivals — each of which hosts events that encourage open discussions on death — signal a growing wish to talk about the subject. Yet some grief retreats feel a cynical commercialising of mourning. If LGBT customers are the “pink pound”, is grief becoming the new black market? Online, I find exotic five-star hotels that seem to have added “grief” to their retreats in much the same way that they might add “menopause”.
But when I find Heather Moyer, everything about what she does feels different. A transformational coach who began offering grief retreats after losing her son, Hunter, she writes on her website: “I’m here to help you fix your shit.” I know I have found the right place because when she calls me she doesn’t talk logistics — she simply asks me who I have lost and my favourite memory of him.
A while later I land in Sacramento, California, and meet Jenna, another retreat attendee with whom I share the 220-mile drive north to Mount Shasta. The man at the Alamo car rental desk asks what we are doing. “Attending a grief retreat”, Jenna says plainly. He grins awkwardly: “Are you going to grieve together?” We look at each other and nod.
We head out of Sacramento on a wide road, cutting through the dusty plains of a parched landscape bordered by purple mountains. Grain silos, American tankers with bunny-ear wing mirrors and pick-up trucks pummel past, kicking up dust spirals.
As we head further north and the temperature starts to cool, we enter the curling roads of the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, with tall evergreen trees on each side of us. Overhead, birds with vast wingspans — eagles, perhaps — swoop, and I smile at road signs with pictures of bears and their cubs.
I think about how I made a similar trip with my ex — we drove east past Reno to camp by the blue water of Lake Tahoe, laughing as we negotiated a giant Winnebago on our way to the Burning Man festival. Memories of nights among the towering redwoods, in a cabin with a bubble bath on the deck, come flooding back. In grief you find yourself looking for signs, and here seems to be one.
It takes us three hours to get from the dusty warmth of Southern California to the 14,179ft peak of Mount Shasta, a dormant volcano in the Cascades Range. There is a distinct hippy energy in rural Northern California, where “free love” Haight-Ashbury hippies have retired, living among followers of alternative religions and those drawn to the wild beauty of a place where the scenery is so gorgeous it takes your breath away.
Some call Mount Shasta the root chakra of the world. On the high street of this small city of the same name, shops such as Peace of Mount Shasta and Soul Connections sell palo santo wood, crystals and books on sacred geometry. At Seven Suns Coffee the air is sweet with chai and reggae, while a man in purple trousers warns people not to trust the government.
Our group is sharing a villa close to town yet surrounded by towering redwoods and pine trees, complete with a fire pit and hot tub. In the four-bedroom villa some of us have our own rooms while others share. Moyer runs her retreats monthly, always for four nights and five days, in different locations around Mount Shasta. She mentions plans to expand into the UK, potentially to Glastonbury.
The other attendees aren’t hippies, but professional women, including Jenna, a sales manager from Texas, and Bethany, a software developer from Ohio. Some, such as Charity from Nashville, are bubbly and chatty, while others — such as Laura, who is slight and thoughtful — initially keep to themselves. Despite our different personalities there is something about them that instinctually feels safe. Perhaps it’s knowing that they understand.
After dinner on our first evening we settle on comfortable sofas surrounding the fire and introduce ourselves. Moyer explains that grief has many forms — losing people, relationships, the futures we imagined. Following the work of author David Kessler she speaks about how we don’t need fixing because we are not broken; what we need is our pain witnessed.
• My ex-fiancé died and it’s complicated
At first it isn’t easy to share, but it helps hearing others speak — Kimberley talking about losing Erika, her otherworldly partner of 30 years, “the love of my life”; Bethany confessing the pain of losing her parents; Laura opening up about the death of her husband, Darryl, to cancer.
Some of us are further along in our journey than others. Marni lost her son, Cameron, 12 years ago, although her voice still drops as she talks about how he was a drummer in a band. Jenna lost her teenage son barely two months ago, the pain etched on her face. But, as Moyer says, grief is not something that we need to get over, but something to let in as it becomes part of the richness of your life. “To live fully, you have to grieve fully”, she says.
As people share I am surprised to feel relieved. According to Moyer, grief leaves us desperate for connection. After a year spent behind glass I feel that I am finally with people who know how it feels. That night I hear a woman call out in her sleep and I don’t feel frightened; I feel seen. In the mornings we do grief yoga. Or “f***ing grief yoga!” as Charity calls it. Moyer leads us through stretches, twisting our spines, concrete with stress, calming our nervous systems with breathing. We follow her movements, punching our anger and shouting “ha!” — and I feel glad that no one I know is around. We open our bodies to open our emotions and I understand why Charity calls it “f***ing grief yoga”, because beside me I hear someone sobbing.
We have massages as touch therapy and art sessions of free-form painting (which feels a bit woo-woo) and take excursions to the source of the Sacramento River, where I stand barefoot in crystal-clear ice water, conscious of how little I have felt for so long. In morning and evening group sessions with Moyer we share our grief, slowly opening up to each other in ways that have been impossible for me because my feelings were too overwhelming to bear.
I am met by the candid bravery of other women articulating things that I didn’t know how to feel. I let my sadness overcome me, and in doing so I feel some of it lift. We are not just depressed; we laugh a lot together too. “Say grief!” someone shouts as we take selfies by Mount Shasta and we giggle when Kimberley jokes about becoming a “wid-hoe” — a lighthearted term for someone in the early stages of grief who feels the desire for physical intimacy or connection.
Led by Moyer we talk about how death doesn’t end a relationship but cements an enduring connection. We share silly memories of people we loved — how Charity and her son did an “elevator dance party” when a lift’s doors closed and the music started; how Laura’s husband forgot the words to songs. We talk about the meaning that we have found in our grief, such as how Marni’s son taught her that “we all move to the beat of a different drummer”. Yet we also understand that finding meaning doesn’t mean that it is worth the cost.
We perform rituals, building a shrine and lighting candles for the loves we have lost. Then we go outside to collect handfuls of stones that represent the grief felt by each of us. We carry those rocks by moonlight, past the astral pink glow of Mount Shasta, to a waterfall in the pine forest. Deafened by the water we stand together behind the falls and throw them into the rushing water. “F*** you,” shouts Charity. “F*** you,” we all shout, laughing about what people must make of this mad group of grieving middle-aged women.
The next day we write on pieces of paper things that we want to let go and throw them into the flames of the fire pit. Humanity has always had traditions for grief; I realise now that we still need them to help manage our mourning.
I re-enter the real world profoundly changed. It is not that the trauma has vanished, but rather that it has transformed me. I now understand Moyer’s mantra: to grieve fully is to live fully. I leave her retreat feeling more alive than ever.
Katie Glass was a guest of Heather Moyer Wellness, which has four nights’ all-inclusive from £1,668pp (heathermoyer.co). Fly to Sacramento
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