Alexandra Grace Derwen, Founder and Managing Director of Sacred Circle CIC

AG Derwen (they/them) is a white, queer, person of Cymraeg (Welsh), Irish and Scots ancestry who now lives in Eryri (Snowdonia) in North Wales, UK. Derwen is a performance poet, keener, lamenter, ceremonialist, death doula and community educator, author of the Lost Rites trilogy of books on Death Rites, an inspirational speaker, intuitive and deeply experienced facilitator of groups. Derwen is AuDHD and lives with chronic lifelong pain from endometriosis. Derwen's work in the world, through youth work and social work, ceremony and education work... has always, actually, always been about "psychopomp" in some form; the accompaniment of the soul or souls of the Dead. 

All of the above makes Derwen a very interesting dinner party guest for sure, but they also have 3 university degrees including a post-grad degree from Warwick Business School and an MA in Peace Studies. Derwen runs the business of the Sacred Circle Social Enterprise as its managing director and steered the company through the turbulence of the pandemic to remain in the black and sustainable without ever receiving grants or investments. Derwen has worked as a consultant to the public and third sector since 2008 specialising in community engagement in policy and ethical policy development. Derwen is also an honorary lecturer in Spiritual Care at Bangor University and often acts in the capacity of Master of Ceremonies (servant of ceremony) for conferences and festivals; usually reducing the audience to tears with an opening poem and setting the tone for a human and authentic event.

In recent years Derwen has found their perfect peer, collaborator and partner in Tuomas Rounakari who has recently come on board as co-director of the Social Enterprise and with whom Derwen shares a common destiny rooted in the ancestral lament traditions but reimagined for the 21st Century.  

Derwen is a committed anti-racist human rights activist, dedicated to deep decolonisation personally and collectively, and an outspoken critic of Light Supremacy (ascendant new age spirituality as it intersects with fascism).

Derwen's poetry carries transmissions of spells that unravel and untangle the morass of the Unseen landscape; and while willing to name and address the global systemic collapse we are living through, while holding space for the systemic grief of all that is dying at these times, Derwen does this with grace, humour and no small amount of hope. Foul mouthed, wild edged and incredibly irreverent Derwen walks between the worlds, takes no shit and suffers no fools... with immense Love.

Derwen, Tuomas and our team are open to suggestions of how we can serve your community or organisation; get in touch at [email protected] for a conversation that will surely lead to hospicing something dying and midwifing something new.