Camille Barton: The Urgent Art of Grief Ritual

Life is a Festival #170

In a world beset by tragedy its important to learn how to grieve.

If you don’t feel your feelings you’re going to have problems, but how exactly should we tend to our grief? Today, we are welcoming back Camille Barton to celebrate the publication of their first book, Tending Grief: Embodied Rituals for Holding Our Sorrow and Growing Cultures of Care and Community. In our conversation today, you'll learn how untended grief can have harmful consequences.

We begin with one of my favorite topics: healing culture and the difference between grief and the ubiquitous concept of trauma. We explore how Camille's journey, from rave culture to recovering from an abortion, led to writing this book. We touch on colonization, the idea that hurt people hurt people, and how, at some point, we were all colonized. We discuss the limits of psychedelic medicine and delve into something Camille calls the Void. Lastly, we cover the Dagara people's grief-tending practices and Camille's grief rituals, including how to make a grief altar.

Camille Sapara Barton is a writer, artist, and embodied social justice facilitator dedicated to creating networks of care and livable futures. As a facilitator, consultant, and curator, their work spans grief, pleasure, and drug policy. Camille is certified in the Resilience Toolkit and developed the GEN Grief Toolkit. Based in Amsterdam, they directed the Ecologies of Transformation master’s program at the Sandberg Institute from 2021 to 2023. Camille’s recently book "Tending Grief," explores collective grief and its impact on communities.

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Timestamps

(04:15) - Grief, trauma, and healing culture
(15:30) - How Camille came to writing their book from rave culture to recovering from an abortion
(23:45) - Colonization: hurt people hurt people
(43:45) - Limitations in psychedelic medicine
(50:00) - The Void
(1:01:00) - How the Dagara people tend grief
(1:09:15) - How to make a grief altar