Viral Grief, Rebellious Mourning: A Virtual Grief Circle

April 21, Tuesday, 7pm EST. Online via Zoom.

Cindy Milstein

In their recent anthology Rebellious Mourning: The Collective Work of Grief (AK Press), Cindy Milstein assembles stories from the front lines of “unnecessary losses,” like murder by cop, evictions, rape, or capitalist-fueled climate catastrophe. The collection explores how loss, grief, and resistance are bound together, both to better allow us to live and mourn well, in self-determined and collective ways, and in doing so, potentially lessen suffering and reduce those unnecessary losses.

As the COVID-19 crisis has suddenly thrown almost everyone into overwhelming experiences of profound losses and grief, can practicing “rebellious mourning” pull us out of despair, and instead “pry open spaces of contestation and reconstruction, empathy and solidarity”?

In this “Virtual Grief Circle,” Cindy will briefly introduce the concept of “rebellious mourning,” and then invite participants to share their own stories of loss, grief, and resistance, prompted in part by a short writing-reflection exercise and the creation of a collective altar. This event is limited to 20 participants.

Facilitator: Cindy Milstein is the author of Anarchism and Its Aspirations, coauthor of Paths toward Utopia: Graphic Explorations of Everyday Anarchism, and editor of the new anthology Deciding for Ourselves: The Promise of Direct Democracy. Long engaged in anarchistic organizing, contemporary social movements, and collective spaces, Cindy is currently compiling the ever-growing “Collective Care Is Our Best Weapon against COVID-19″ directory of mutual aid projects, and is especially honored to be doing grief care in this moment.

Time: Tuesday, April 21, 7-9pm EST. Online via Zoom. This event will NOT be recorded.
Cost: In solidarity with everyone affected by the COVID-19 crisis, all our events are currently offered on a enable-as-you-can basis. For this event, we suggest a donation of $10. All donated funds will be given to Mutual Aid Disaster Relief projects.
On Mutual Aid. We don’t want you to think of it as paying money for our seminars and events. We do hope that you will enable our work, will replenish the ruins in which we are struggling to create education and learning community anew. The idea of mutual aid originates with anarcho-communist Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921). Simply put, it means: we voluntarily provide one another with the material means necessary for all of us to go on. We will continue to create seminars for you as long as we are able to do so. You enable us with material aid. In this way, we mutually benefit one another.
Readings: Participants are encouraged to read Rebellious Mourning, in full or part, but it’s not necessary. AK Press is currently offer the e-book version for $1.99.
Participants: Please bring paper and pen for the writing-reflection, and an object of your choice for the collective altar.

Registration

Please fill out this form and pay below. You can “buy” multiple $10s by entering the corresponding number into the box. For example, 6 = $60, etc. Alternatively, you can donate whatever amount you want via Venmo (@inciteseminars). A Zoom link will be sent on registration. If you are unable to contribute at this time, please fill out this short solidarity form. You are warmly invited to join us!