ARLINA Ritual ©: Tending the Well
ARLINA Ritual “Tending the Well”
5.-8. November 2025
A 4-day ritual gathering on the Gut Stolzenhagen in the “Unteres Odertal” Nature Reserve
TENDING THE WELL
A collective space
for grief,
for joy,
and for imagination
rooted in nature, somatics, and ritual.
We invite you into “Tending the Well”, a 4-day, place-based ritual gathering in Stolzenhagen, a rural village on the German-Polish border.
At a time when crises touch so many threads of our lives, we believe we need spaces to listen — to each other, to the land, and to the more-than-human world. We need to remember that we are ecosystem.
This gathering welcomes 15–20 community weavers, artists, facilitators, and changemakers from Berlin, Brandenburg, Poland and beyond — and invites us to explore:
- How can we create embodied spaces for collective grief and communal joy?
- What does it mean to listen to a river in mourning, to parched soil, to migrating birds?
- How do we imagine — not alone, but together?
This is not a retreat.
It is a field of practice — of presence, listening, and collective care. Through somatic movement, creative expression, grief rituals, and joyful celebration, we’ll tend the well of our shared humanity.
We are guided by:
- Migratory birds — wild geese and cranes as teachers of rhythm and shared direction
- The River Oder, still grieving ecological loss from 2022— how do we listen to its sorrow?
- The parched soil, whose silence calls for care — how does the land grieve?
- The trees, holders of memory — how do we let ourselves be held?
Through somatic movement, tending grief, joy practices, storytelling, and creative expression, we explore the body as anchor, grief as doorway, and joy as radical resource.
Who This Is For
Our practice is rooted in place, relationship, and collectivity, and welcomes:
- Facilitators, community builders, artists, and activists from urban, rural, and translocal contexts
- Changemakers from Berlin, Brandenburg, Poland and around the world
- The more-than-human world of the Oder Valley – river, birds, trees, and soil
- Civil society networks, system ecologies and co-learning communities
Why It Matters
We believe that collective imagination regenerates our capacity to care — for each other, and for the Earth. This gathering will ripple into:
-
- Everyday Practices: How changemakers hold space, relate to land and community, respond to grief, and cultivate joy.
- Local & Translocal Networks: Participants will carry embodied insights back into their contexts — from Berlin to rural Brandenburg and beyond — informing grassroots initiatives, movement spaces, and creative work.
An Emergent Ecosystem: This intentional gathering contributes to a wider, cross-sector ecosystem of civil society, creative arts, and regenerative movements — weaving new patterns across languages and bioregions.
At its core, this project seeds a shift:
From extraction to reciprocity,
From burnout to collective resilience,
From fragmentation to the remembrance that we are an ecosystem,
– Imagination is our way back into inter-relation
What’s included:
- 4 days and 3 nights of guided ritual, nature-based practices, movement & reflection
- Hosting by Christa Cocciole, Julia Hoffmann, Maegan Gorbett, and Philipp Grosche
- Shared lodging (mostly double rooms) & vegan/vegetarian meals
- A small packing list & travel info will be sent in advance
The ritual will be held in English
Costs
The contribution is from 150-1200€, you are invited to decide depending on your financial situation. You find a more detailed explanation of our financial approach here: https://www.arlina.eu/kurse/preise. If this doesn´t align with your current financial situation, please don´t hesitate to reach out to philipp@arlina.eu – we´re happy to find a way.
Was ist die Trauerwoche?
