Beholding the Light: The Power and Gift of Death

Join us for a three-part series exploring the power and gift of death. We will explore the moment of death, the power of a community vigil, and the soul's journey between death and rebirth. 

It is impossible to live the full spectrum of the human experience without also experiencing the power of death and dying. We face this within our own lives, and we also meet the profundity of loss when someone we love crosses the threshold. As we approach All Souls Day on November 1, the yearly remembrance of those who have crossed, we will enter a process to more deeply understand the moment of death, the power of community vigil, and the interval in between death and rebith that contains much wisdom for living a fully realized and conscious life.

Join us for leading thoughts from Kyoko Kyamara, Patrick Kennedy and Marianne Dietzel, and be nourished by conversation and reflections facilitated by Linda Bergh, Kathleen Bowen, Jennifer Fox and Sandra LaGrega. Together we will create a mood of reverence and sharing to help foster deeper understanding, healing and peace. 

REGISTER HERE
Updated information about other fall events can be found HERE.

What: Three 90-minute sessions, plus a BONUS session on All Souls Day 

When: October 11, 18, 25 and November 1
Wednesdays at 4pm PT/ 7pm ET for 90 min via Zoom

The November 1 session will be open for registration as a stand-alone event for those who wish to join without taking part in the whole series. It is included for all who register for "Beholding the Light: The Power and Gift of Death" More info coming soon!

Not able to attend live?  This program will be recorded and distributed to all registrants. We encourage you to attend live to receive the benefits of community connection and conversation. 

Contribution Levels: 
Suggested: $60
Supporter: $90
Youth and Equity: $40

Schedule

October 11: Holding Vigil and the Wisdom of Natural Death Care
with Kyoko Katayama & Linda Bergh 
How does a vigil support the family and friends of the one who has died, and how is it a way of holding sacred spiritual space for the living?

October 18:The Moment of Death and the Vigil from a Spiritual Perspective 
with Rev. Patrick Kennedy & Kathleen Bowen  
What is the journey of the soul during the three days after death?  How does a vigil support that journey and our connection to our beloved?

October 25: Journey between Death and Birth 
with Marianne Dietzel, Sandra LaGrega and Jennifer Fox 
In this session we will hear more about what happens in the journey of the soul between death and rebirth. We will explore how this can help us in our living. 

November 1: At the Threshold: The Container of Community
with Linda Bergh, & Marianne and Dennis Dietzel
This reader’s theater was originally performed at the Sacred Gateway Conference hosted by the ASA in Harlemville, NY 2019.  
Find out more about this event here

REGISTER HERE

May love of hearts reach out to love of souls
May warmth of love ray out to spirit light
Even so would we draw near to you
Thinking with you thoughts of spirit
Feeling in you the love of worlds
Consciously at one with you 
           Willing in silent being              
-Rudolf Steiner

Meet Your Presenters

Kyoko Katayama was born in Japan and emigrated to the U. S. with her mother and stepfather when she was seventeen. She obtained MSW and later Ph.D in Transpersonal and Transcultural Psychology. She was a psychotherapist for nearly 40 years, having worked with many women of color with trauma histories. She lost her beloved husband in 2011. His death and the grief that followed was devastating yet ultimately transformational. She authored Wings Above the Sea, a chapbook of poetry and paintings about the experience. She is a senior member and dharma teacher at Common Ground Meditation Center where she taught Befriending Death: Meeting Impermanence with Courage, Love, and Equanimity from 2011 to the pandemic. As she approaches her elder years, she has a practice of noticing when she feels deeply alive, inviting others to see beauty in surprising places, and to hold love and grief, grace and suffering  in one heart.

Linda Bergh, facing the loss of her only daughter and two husbands, published her daughter’s poetry, She Would Draw Flowers, and helped create the film The Most Excellent Dying of Theodore Jack Heckelman,. She was a founding member of The Minnesota Threshold Network., and a leader in the ASA Sacred Gateways Conferences. Passionate about Biography and social art for decades as a Facilitator, she is now embracing eldering -  with space to explore legacy work, catch dreams, draw flowers, be in nature and with soul friends. Most of all, she is striving to listen to what is essential to the heart - from both sides of the threshold. 

Rev. Patrick Kennedy is a co-director of the Seminary of the Christian Community in North America, along with Jonah Evans.  In April of 2006 Patrick was consecrated into the priesthood in Chicago, Illinois.  Prior to attending the seminary in Stuttgart, Germany, Patrick studied and worked in the field of Early Childhood Education and received his bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz in Cultural Anthropology.  His first sending as a priest was to the congregation in Devon, Pennsylvania.  From November 2007 to November 2015 he served as the resident priest in the Washington D.C. area congregation.  He now lives in Toronto, Canada with his wife and two daughters.

Kathleen Bowen is a Certified Biography Worker, Coordinator and one of the founders of the Center for Biography and Social Art. She is an adult educator; master fiber artist and early childhood educator. Being a lover of human beings and possessing a deep interest in anthroposophy, she realizes she has been training her whole life for this work. Kathleen lives in Northampton, MA.

Marianne Dietzel  was a Waldorf early childhood educator before her daughter, Nina, and Nina’s best friend, Kirsten, died in a car accident in 1996. From 2006 - 2017 she worked as a hospice bereavement coordinator, and played music for healing and transition on the lyre as a Certified Music Practitioner. She was a co-founder, in 2008, of the Minnesota Threshold Network, which educates and supports families in caring for their own deceased. In 2010 she published a book, Laughing in a Waterfall: A Mother’s Memoir, the story of Nina’s life and her death, the events surrounding it, and the first three years of her family’s grieving. It is woven throughout with a sense of wonder in the face of tragedy and loss. 

Jennifer Fox is a life-long seeker, elder, grandmother of five, and great-grandmother of three.  Upon meeting Anthroposophia many years ago, Jennifer has devoted her life path to deepening her understanding of these "great mysteries of comings and going" - diving into them anew through studying, practicing and teaching Biography and Social Art locally and nationally.  Through the blessing of accompanying many family members and friends cross the threshold with consciousness and reverent care, these beings have been and remain her greatest teachers.  Jennifer has been a part of the ASA's Sacred Gateways events in the past.  She also founded The Tucson Naural Death Care Circle in 2018 and supports this growing movement locally and nationally.

Sandra LaGrega was a founding member of the Sophia Center for Life Studies in central NC and served as president and chair for 25 years until recently. She has helped hold the space for natural death care to develop through educating, supporting and assisting many families in caring for their own at death. Forming small death care communities around one’s choices for the end of life is a passion of Sandra’s. Sandra has been a student of Anthroposophy for almost 40 years with a special interest in Biography and Social Art and “staying connected to the dead”. She was on the founding board of the Center for Biography and Social Art and presently participates in the Association of Biography and Social Art Workers. Social art is integral in her work with death care. She is a member of the Center for Conscious Living/Conscious Dying and the National Home Funeral Alliance. She is in the process of moving from Greensboro, NC to Asheville where she can be in her beloved Blue Ridge Mountains.

Poster artwork by Nikolaos Gyzis