Facilitator: J’aime Morrison, Ph.D.
This inclusive workshop welcomes all who have experienced grief and loss in their life. Understanding that grief comes in waves, and we must learn to ride them, this workshop engages movement as a meditation, as a mode of transformation, and a creative force for healing. Join us in honoring and expressing our grief, both individually and collectively. We’ll tune into how grief shows up in our bodies and learn how to move through it, creatively, from the inside out.
Participants will:
- Honor any and all grief they bring.
- Share a piece of their grief story with the community if they choose to.
- Connect breath to movement.
- Identify, locate, shift and move through bodily sensations of grief and loss.
- Release physical and emotional pain, stress and tension associated with grief and loss.
- Embody the transformative power of movement through somatic exploration and moving meditation.
- Receive a specifically curated Mourning Surf playlist so they can continue to explore movement for grief.
Please pre-register as space is limited.
Cost: $30/person
"This was such a healing experience for me. I have personally disconnected so much from my body in order to keep functioning. With your knowledge I am starting to listen to my body so that I can thrive."
~ Mourning Surf Workshop Participant
Born and raised in Santa Barbara, CA, J’aime Morrison is a Professor of Movement at California State University, Northridge and she holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from New York University. She was also a faculty Fulbright Scholar in Movement in Lisbon, Portugal. She has taught Master Classes in Dance and Movement in Lisbon, Shanghai, Dublin, Belfast, London, Los Angeles and New York City. A dancer, choreographer, educator and most recently a filmmaker, Dr. Morrison is an expert in movement, physical expression and somatic studies. With Mourning Surf, she turns her attention to grief and the body, specifically how grief is expressed physically and how movement is an essential part of the grieving and healing process.
After losing her beloved husband Jim to brain cancer in 2015, J’aime began working on a short film titled Upwell, which composes a visual intersection of body movements to translate her experience with grieving, illustrating the role of both dance and surfing in her journey. The film has been an Official Selection at numerous film festivals and won “Best Experimental Film” from The Santa Barbara International Fine Art Film Festival and the California International Shorts Film Festival and was awarded “Outstanding Excellence” in “Direction” and “Original Concept” at the Depth of Field International Film Festival.
Dr. Morrison developed a series of expressive grief workshops for the international organization, Hope for Widows, offered via Zoom throughout the pandemic. She continues to build on this work by offering movement for grief workshops in collaboration with Groundswell Community Project, Camp Widow and Yoga Soup. J’aime is delighted to be offering this workshop for the Ojai community. You can follow her @mourningsurf on instagram.