Keening

A Living Tradition

A Living Tradition

An 8-week experiential journey and educational course into the Keening traditions of Scotland & Ireland

1st October - 19th November, 2026
Thursdays at 10:30am PDT / 6:30pm BST

ENROLL NOW

May our time together draw us into the depths of our hearts, where love and grief intertwine, and where we touch the mystery of the unseen realms.

what is

Keening?

In this Weaving Remembrance offering, we return to ancient practices that once held grief and the rite of passage of death within the heart of the community.

Within this course we will learn about Keening – a raw, embodied lament that lives in the bones of Irish and Scottish tradition.

We will learn about the history and context of keening, and the difference between keening and laments. We will listen to keening sounds, stories, and Celtic perspectives, and share our experiences within a held community space.

The Keen is a vocal expression of grief, part cry and part song, offered at the thresholds of death. Traditionally heard at wakes, funeral processions, and gravesides, it arose from deep presence and embodied knowing. Women, often kin or hired keeners, would gather to call forth sorrow through wailing, chant, and improvised melody.

This was not performance, but invocation: a weaving of grief, memory, and love into sound. The Keen served as a bridge, carrying the soul onward, uniting the community in mourning, and giving voice to what words alone could not hold.

Though nearly silenced by cultural suppression, the spirit of keening endures and lives on.

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My Spot

Our Guides

Madge
Bray

Mary
McLaughlin

Phyllida
Anam-Áire

Sionnáin

Ó Seanáin

Hanna Leigh

Lana
Lanaia

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This course is a heartfelt container for exploring the themes of keening and lamenting, grief and love, death and life.

Together, we will explore the sounds of grief, remembering how to be with sorrow, how to honor what has passed, and how to listen to what still wants to be heard.

COME AS

You Are...

We begin with the breath. We begin in the place where grief and love meet.

Though severely diminished, the old ways have never died and are now being repaired and revived. We are reweaving the broken threads.

This course brings together some of our respected elders and tradition keepers from Ireland & Scotland, who are working deeply with the revival of these ancestral keening and grief-tending traditions.

It includes learning and receiving historical teachings, keening songs, stories, Celtic perspectives, and grief-tending rituals.

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My Spot

What You'll Receive

May this series touch our hearts & awaken remembrance of our original ways through:

8 × 2-Hour Live Weekly Classes

Join respected elders and wisdom keepers for a weekly 2-hour live experiential workshop.

2 × 2-Hour Community Calls

We gather for 2 community cauldron sessions in our 8 weeks together to share our hearts.

Wisdom for our Modern Times

Experience old ancestral practices to meet grief as a transformative and spiritual journey.

Online
Community Space

Access to a private community space to share what is moving for you through the 8 weeks.

Course
Recordings

You'll have access to the course content for 1 year on our private course & community platform.

Past Student Reviews

"The opportunity to sit with elders from around the world was incredible. The heartfelt sharing of the songs, both vocally and through the bagpipes, will live in my soul forever. Being included in these traditions is deeply healing for me, and I thank you (all of you) for extending the effort to reach out around the world to those of us in diaspora and invite us into relationship with you."

~ Malama, Course Participant 25'
"This course was life altering for me in so many ways. In the first week of this course, I ended up booking a ticket back to Ireland, and I hadn't been back in 30 years... I used the strength of this course, and of Mary and everyone in the course to allow me to go back. The life changing aspect - I never expected it, but the courage that I found within myself is perfect. I'm so, so grateful."

~ Helen, Course Participant 24'
"Thank you so much for this so wonderful warm evening with the Keening Ladies… it is still flowing through me deeply."

~ J.A., Workshop Participant
"This course is something that I will always hold in admiration, because I've discovered that my grief doesn't have to be something that holds me back... doing this in community is such a bigger impact. When one person grieves, it gives us all permission to grieve and we don't even have to necessarily understand what it is we're grieving in that moment."

~ S.R., Course Participant 24'
"Hanna Leigh helps people to connect more deeply with earth by bringing together teachers of traditional song, story and craft. Her work helps those yearning for ancestral European wisdom to recover what has been forgotten. She has been deeply influenced by her own experiences in Ancestral Lineage Healing. This is NOT TO BE MISSED!!"

~ Nala Walla, Grief Tender & Ancestral Healing Guide
"This course has been especially humbling for me. It really helped catalyze something and open my heart again to all those hidden, accumulated pockets of grief in my life and body. It also helped affirm grief as one of my superpowers."

~ Vanessa, Course Participant 24'
"At the intro workshop for this course, I was absolutely BLOWN AWAY by depth of knowledge and powerful presence of these women. I knew immediately that I wanted to spread the word to all of you who are thirsty for the deeper wellsprings of ancient traditions. For all those interested in reviving our rituals for grieving, this is an amazing opportunity to study with living elders and experts in the field."

~ L.P., Workshop Participant
"I am writing to say a deep thank you for yesterday's Keening workshop, and the introduction to your upcoming 'Keening: A Living Tradition' course. I sat here at 4am joining the call live from Melbourne, Australia, and was touched by everything shared."

~ A.M., Workshop Participant