Bereavement Pilgrimages

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When you have had the funeral, and finished the counselling, what’s next? In Britain, we don’t really have many grief traditions for the longer lasting impacts of bereavement, but it is something that we are all guaranteed to experience at some point in our lives. We are developing more bereavement pilgrimages across the country to meet this need.

Why Pilgrimage?
We offer a range of regular guided pilgrimage events across the country and almost always have a pilgrim who is walking because of bereavement. Sometimes this is a journey to honour someone or to mark a significant date in their life. Sometimes it is a way for the pilgrim to find a new direction for themselves, a new beginning, as they accept and acknowledge an irreversible change. Sometimes it is simply a way to explore and understand the emotional elements of bereavement, whether it happened recently or many years ago. Pilgrimage offers the opportunity to engage in spiritual or ritual practice, on our own terms and in a way that also harnesses the therapeutic benefits of the physical, mental, emotional, social, communal, and environmental elements of these journeys.

Carry My Loved One

We know that not everyone wants to or is able to make a pilgrimage themselves, and as we are still growing and developing the programme places will be limited. However, we can walk on your behalf. Anyone can submit the name of a lost loved one along with a donation. Names of loved ones will be carried by the pilgrims, who will honour them during moments of remembrance and at the closing of the pilgrimage. The donations recieved helps us to develop more bereavement pilgrimages and enables more people to participate by keeping them cost-effective.

Our Journeys in 2025

Bereaved Parents Pilgrimage South East - 30th May - 1st June, Lewes to Cuckmere Haven

Bereaved Parents Pilgrimage North - in development

Bereavement Pilgrimage South West - in development

Bereavement Pilgrimage North - in development

To find out more about our journeys in development, including registering for a place when they become available, please join our mailing list. To submit a Carry My Loved One request, please click on any available journey and follow the register/donate process.

Our Approach

We bring together lots of different elements to make this powerful journeys. It's important to us that pilgrims are empowered to choose throughout their journey, and they can opt out of any pilgrim practices, places, rituals etc as they prefer. We include a range of different experiences to inspire pilgrims, and whilst not everything will work for everyone, each pilgrim will find their own moment of resonance. Our pilgrimages are an inner journey as much as an outer one, deeply connected to the land you move through but created as much by each individual pilgrim. We take you places of awe and places of stillness. We create moments for sharing, and moments of silence.

The Land - each pilgrimage is carefully grown from the land you move through. More than just a footpath, the wildlife, ancient places, human stories, spiritual places and the landform itself can all nuture profound moments and create new connections. Routes are carefully chosen and meticulously researched to ensure we offer the best balance between all these elements.

The practice - we offer a range of pilgrim practices intended to stimulate heart, mind and body. Each journey is different but they will usually include readings, songs, history and story telling, barefoot walking and time in silence. We invite pilgrims to try out different rituals to honour their loved ones but also themselves. We also create time at rest for sharing and dealing with the "messy" parts of grief, a chance to release those things which we might hold on to out of fear or social expectations.

The pilgrims - walking with someone who shares your experience is powerful in itself, and we create an environment that encourages informal conversation, safety to share the difficult things, and opportunities to form friendships that will help support each other into the future. Shared meals and shared sleeping arrangements all help to foster this bond.

Bereaved Parents Pilgrimages
Helena Grace and her son Matthew

Losing a child is the most devastating thing a parent can experience. The vision for a bereaved parents’ pilgrimage came from Helena Grace, following the death of her son Matthew aged 23. Based on her own search for healing, she wanted to create a place where grief could be experienced in community and be held by the magnificence and healing powers of nature. She wanted these pilgrimages to revive healthy grieving traditions, where parent’s loss could be shared and dignified and their children honoured and remembered in love. Find out more about 2024's pilgrimage here.

Since our pilot with Helena and Ipse Wilderness last year, the British Pilgrimage Trust has been working to develop these further, incorporating suggestions from pilgrims and other expertise. Anyone who has lost a child aged between 3 and young adulthood can join.

"It was an extraordinary 3 days. I found it profound and powerful. To be guided, have companionship and support in the gentle and strong practice of walking with intent meant I was able to explore, learn about, feel and leave behind parts of my grief."

How You Can Help

Development - Crafting profound and powerful journeys takes time and expertise - we need to be able to get our guides into different parts of the country to do this. Helping us with very basic costs of staff time and travel makes a massive difference. Donations towards this programme also help us to continue to offer free or subsidised places to pilgrims on low incomes, and keep costs low for everyone else. You can donate by submitting a Carry My Loved One or at our donations page. You can even sign up as a Giving Pilgrim, it all helps.

Help bereaved pilgrims find us - you probably already know someone who could benefit from one of these pilgrimages. Please share this with anyone who might like to take part.

Local Support - it's important to us that we work with local people in each pilgrimage location. Each journey will have a guide, a skilled supporter who walks with the group (who ideally is MHFI trained or has other relevant skills, and has experience with bereavement) and a logisitics supporter or two, who does not walk with the group but helps with things like baggage transfer or delivering food supplies etc. The aim is that this year's skilled supporter will become next year's guide, allowing our team to go on to develop a different location the following year. If you are interested in one of these roles, please join our mailing list to find out when and where these become available. We will be prioritising individuals who live locally.

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Tom Jones

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