“We Add Our Tears” sought to create a grief ritual for people in Rhode Island amid the extreme isolation of Summer 2020. Three primary questions arose:

How can we allow mourning to be simultaneously private and collaborative?

How can we air the wounds of the year?

How can we safely make a three-dimensional ritual with active participation during the pandemic?

We centered our ritual on passage: grief is something we move through together, even as it moves us. We set our ritual on the grounds of an industrial mill complex that has been reimagined as an arts center. It is located alongside the Woonasquatucket River, which fittingly means “where the salt water ends” in Algonquin. This river once died due to the mills, but it has slowly started coming back to life. Our ritual was part installation, part soundscape, and part collaborative movement. Serving as guides for the participants, the four of us each adopted one of the following roles:

Attendant of the Book of the Dead

Attendant of Tears

Attendant of Stones

Attendant of the River

Participants arrived between 6:30 pm and 9 pm and began their passage through Keri’s wooden river sculpture that framed the dirt path. The Attendant of the Book of the Dead then greeted them before leading a standing meditation where participants traced the thing they “have lost or never had” on their palms. Each person’s body became their own Book of the Dead. Once participants reached the Attendant of Tears, the loss they had traced on their skin earlier was retraced in salt. As they moved on, participants dropped the salt into a large vessel to which the attendant added water. They were now tributaries of grief, and the water carried them to the Attendant of Stones. With her, participants threw as many rocks as needed into the river. The Woonasquatucket River rose with our collective rage, causing “something to rise in us together.”

Having confronted loss, called upon the dead, and evoked anger, participants were invited to gather their strength upon the dark bank where the Attendant of the River now kneeled on an altar. While they rested, the Attendant of the River created a rhythm by tap dancing on the altar. This rhythm was then played in a loop alongside her prayer. She told the participants that they were not leaving alone: the river mourns with them and “beyond this space, the ritual reverberates.”