About ourselves, the nature of grief & about Malidoma Somé
John Scaife
John is a ritualist, storyteller and diviner. A decades-long student of shamans Martin Prechtel and Malidoma Somé. Inspired by these indigenous understandings from elsewhere, he crafts rituals and events for these lands and for our times. He co-leads a rites of passage for young women, and offers Fathers & Sons work, inspired by time with men’s work founders Robert Bly & Michael Meade.
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He first met Malidoma in 1993 and experienced his first grief ritual three years later. He under went various trainings with Malidoma, including divination and elemental healing rituals, as well as grief rituals. On enquiring if he could share this medicine, Malidoma replied, 'I have been waiting so long for you to ask me that question. Get going!'​​​​
Kathryn Edwards
Kathryn Edwards had a life-changing encounter with Dr Malidoma Somé in the late 1990s when she learned – experientially – how ritual creates and sustains community. She studied Dagara wisdom, including the theory and practice of ritual, with Malidoma for two decades in the US and in Europe. Kathryn was frequently invited to visit his village in Burkina Faso, West Africa, and eventually acted as co-tour-manager for Western study groups there.
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Kathryn was particularly inspired by the beauty and healing effects of Dagara funerals. Her spontaneous childhood practice had been to bury dead birds in a shoebox with pomp and flowers, so becoming a funeral celebrant for humans was a natural progression. She apprenticed herself to a progressive undertaker, to be better informed about the care of the dead. She went to weep at Malidoma’s own funeral in Burkina Faso in 2022.​
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Kathryn believes that working with ritual technology will fortify us, as modernity unravels in the face of the climate emergency.
Grief and Ritual. Some questions answered
In summer 2025 John and Kathryn were interviewed by Plant Spirit medicine teacher Lucy Wells, who had attended two grief rituals, benefitting greatly from them and wanting others to know a little more about their work.
What is a grief ritual ?
Grief in our UK culture
We will change these from time to time and add the old ones to a blog
Dr. Malidoma Somé
The late Malidoma Patrice Somé (1956-2021) is the foundation and founder of our Grief Ritual offering.​ He was a teacher and diviner born into a renowned family of medicine men in the Dagara people of Burkina Faso, West Africa. In traditional Dagara practice, an unborn child’s purpose is divined while they are still in utero, and they are named accordingly. Malidoma’s name means ‘friend to the stranger/enemy’: that is, befriending the stranger to avert his becoming an enemy.
He became uniquely placed to act as a cultural bridge between Africa and the modern world. When he was only four years old he was taken from his village to a Jesuit seminary, where he forcibly received a classical European education. At twenty, he broke away and returned to his village, where he survived the radical youth initiation process that is the traditional gateway to manhood.
He was ultimately sent by his elders to bring the healing wisdom of Africa to those of us living in modernity, in the western world. They viewed our incendiary lifestyles and the behaviours of the European colonisers in Africa as evidence that we had lost our way and could do with some help. For several decades Malidoma offered teachings and divinations, and conducted community rituals in the US and Europe, which included conferences in the company of men's work leaders Robert Bly and Michael Meade. He wrote three books, The Healing Wisdom of Africa, Of Water and the Spirit and Ritual, Power, Healing and Community.