Weave The Water In The Wood:
a ten month mentorship
tending willow, tending grief, & making baskets
“Come, listen to my grief, the way it moves through my hands. Weave this wildness into a basket with me. Hear the depths of my grief, my life - in the way the willow rubs, bends, softens, and holds.”
What happens when we move our grief through our hands, through the willow, and into our baskets?
How might our baskets hold what is hard to hold?
+++ Welcome +++
This mentorship is a time to learn the craft of willow basketry and also explore grief as a creative and life giving force and wild vein in the body of the living world - vital, beating, shared. We will, as a group, become a collective basket of folks - weaving the colors and textures of willow round what hurts and letting the spark that sends us into learning a new craft speak to the gems that lie within the myriad forms of grief.
Over 10 months, a small group of up to 7 will braid the seasonal tending of willow, the craft of willow basketry, and the wild magic of grief tending - making baskets to hold everything at once, hold space, hold the impossible, hold what needs to be held .
I have taught basket making for years, but it was the birth and death of my daughter Poppy and the life-quaking grief that followed that inspired this offering. The way the process of making, the relationship with willow, and the physical basket created just enough of a container to fall apart.
THE MENTORSHIP:
“I am imagining these baskets as grief altars, each one made as a place of transformation and a home for the wildness and holiness of grief.”
We will meet once a month and alternate between in person and at-a-distance.
Our in person time will have us at the willow patch in Chimacum, WA, approaching the tending of willow as both a way to come into relationship with the being that will become our baskets and as a plant to companion or grief tending practice. I am curious about the alchemical relationship that exists between willow and grief and we will share in this together, follow willow’s rhythms. We will harvest and sort and plant.
We will come together in person on Marrowstone Island to learn different weaving techniques and forms over the 10 months that will provide a phenomenal foundation in the craft that will support an ongoing practice as a basket maker and also to create vessels to hold both the physical and metphorical loads of life. We will call on different ways of tending our grief individually and collectively and practice these ways along with the willow at the patch and within our basket learning and weaving times. We will also call on the qualities of the seasons and who else might fill our baskets. I am imagining these baskets as grief altars, each one made as a place of transformation and a home for the wildness and holiness of grief. Your final vessel will be one of of your design I am calling ‘grief vessel’ for now. See below for more details and dates on our time together.
the workshop where we will gather on Marrowstone Island
The at-a-distance months are our ‘integration’ months. A time for you to bring sticks to your respective homes and to re-weave what we did together as a group. A sure way to bring the weaving techniques deeper into your bodily memory and also let the grief move through your body and into another vessel. These integration months will include one virtual group meeting via zoom for 2 hours and one indivudal zoom meeting per person for 1 hour. A time to debrief, reflect, answer questions/curiosities, tend our grief and basket making journey, and bring our challenges and our discoveries.
our north star text and song companion:
All participants will receive a copy of So Many Ways To Draw A Ghost by Chelsea Granger as our north star text for our mentorship - companioning us as a group over the 10 months. Chelsea will also join us as a guest during one of our integration months via zoom.
About chelsea:
Chelsea Granger, is an artist and illustrator living and working in Massachusetts.
In 2022 she self-published a book titled So Many Ways to Draw a Ghost. After the death of her mom as well as a dear friend, she started seeing her art as a way to sing up life, with the hope that her art can act as a doorway to create conversations about death and grief. Chelsea’s art is of the everyday, inspired by the overlap of earth/spirit dimensions, and woods as church. She is interested in painting as medicine, painting as a portal, painting as a spell. Her work has been exhibited across the Northeast, and her murals exist across New England. Her work celebrates life while honoring death and walking gently into the unknown.
Website: chelseagranger.com
INSTAGRAM: @chelseairisgranger
We will explore sound and song as grief tending practice and to companion our weaving and time with willow. For this I am beyond enchanted to weave in Channing Showalter as guest facilitator over our time together.
MONTH TO MONTH :
BELOW IS A GENERAL VISUAL OF OUR TIME TOGETHER WHERE YOU WILL FIND THE DATES WE ARE MEETING AND SOME THEMES WE WILL BE INTEGRATING INTO OUR WILLOW WORK AND GRIEF TENDING. THE INTEGRATION MONTHS WILL HAVE SCHEDULED ZOOM MEETINGS TBD WITH THE GROUP.
January
9 & 10 - HARVEST/WILLOW PATCH
29 - 31 - HARVEST/WILLOW PATCH & HOOPS/FORMS
roots & stars, lying on the earth
February
26-28 - ROUND WORK
the all-around unseen
March
INTEGRATION MONTH - ROUND WORK
INVITATION TO WILLOW PLANTING 11 - 13
watery bones
April
23 - 25 - SHAPING ROUND, BIG VESSELS
swelling buds & tears
May
INTEGRATION MONTH - SHAPING ROUND VESSELS
fire sticks
June
25 - 27 OVAL FRAME BASE AND SCALLOMING
feeding flowers
July
INTEGRATION MONTH - OVAL FRAME BASE & SCALLOMING
aromas of grief, telling the bees
August
27 - 29 RIBBED BASKET
golden grief, baskets full
September
INTEGRATION MONTH - WORK ON FINAL GRIEF VESSEL DESIGN
holy decomposition, buried sticks
October
22 - 24 GRIEF VESSEL
ancient laments, ancestral sounds
COST:
$6000
What’s Included:
1 in person course weekend at the willow patch ( opportunity to participate in community harvest days)
6 in person 3-day course sessions
4 two hour group zooms sessions
4 one hour individualized zoom session with Mo
all materials for the both the in person and at a distance integration months
lunches for all of our in person days
a copy of Chelsea’s book So Many Ways To Draw A Ghost
all of the ineffable that has value and can not be named but fully lived
note that travel expenses and lodging are not included in the mentorship but there are ample camping spots and places to rent for your time on the peninsula. I am happy to help folks on a one to one basis to find what feels like a good fit.
AFTER APPLYING FOLKS WILL RECEIVE AN INVITATION TO PARTICIPATE IN THE MENTORSHIP BY DECEMBER 11, 2026.
DURING THE MENTORSHIP, PARTICIPANTS WILL HAVE ACCESS TO PAYMENT PLANS OVER 12 MONTHS @ $500/MONTH
A DEPOSIT OF $500 DUE BY DECEMBER 23, 2026
TIMELINE:
APPLICATION WINDOW OPEN NOV 16 - DEC 8 2026
INVITATION TO PARTICIPATE SENT DEC 11 2026
$500 DEPOSIT DUE DECEMBER 23 2026
FIRST IN PERSON MEET UP JANUARY 9 & 10 AT THE WILLOW PATCH IN CHIMACUM, WA
A NOTE ON THE APPLICATION - THIS IS BY NO MEANS AN APPLICATION TO MEASURE THE WORTHINESS OF YOUR GRIEF TO PARTICIPATE IN THE GROUP, BUT A HELPFUL GAUGE FOR ME AS FACILITATOR TO KNOW WHO IS COMING TO THE TABLE AND TO TAKE A PULSE ON WHETHER OR NOT I MAY BE THE TEACHER FOR YOU/THIS MENTORSHIP IS A GOOD FIT OR NOT. PLEASE KNOW THAT I ENCOURAGE ALL WHO FEEL DRAWN TO APPLY.
WEAVE THE WATER IN THE WOOD
Is a name that comes from one of the first basketry / deathcare zines I created -
‘Weave the water in the wood: poetic wanderings and shared knowledge on willow, weaving, living, tending and dying.’
Consider this mentorship that publication brought to life.
I am enchanted by all that will unfold in our time together.
with care and abundant Poppy seeds nested in the willow roots,
Mo