Wrapping Up!
Looking Back at Fall
What a delight to devote time to sharing impressions, questions, ideas, and plans for the future! Yesterday, graduates of Francesca Arnoldy’s Death Literacy Educator Program met to discuss the experiences of those who hosted the Living Fully, Dying Prepared Community Series, sponsored by a Compassion & Choices grant. The meeting prompted me to re-read the feedback received from the two groups I facilitated. My experiences held similarities and differences. The groups, from two counties, wanted to read the book, share personal stories, ask questions, make plans for their someday, one-day deaths, and find a safer space to open up about topics not often discussed in families or among friends. The differences were around the ways in which the groups approached these elements of the series: the desire for logistical information (What is a green burial? Why might I need an estate lawyer? What is MAID/Medical Aid in Dying and what’s happening with the legislation in NY?), the depth of conversation about personal relationship-oriented challenges, and the engagement in introspection and quiet moments (versus almost continuous discussion). Here are just a few of their comments:
The series:
“… made me aware of the need to both think about my death and to make the most of my remaining life.”
“… motivated me to plan death and live life more fully. Saying yes to more things now.”
“… met my needs. It was thought provocative; covered the hard conversations when it deals with oneself.”
Several of us spoke about how participants are continuing to meet after the series’s conclusion—to have this special “container” to talk and stay accountable. It is a testament to people’s appreciation of the book, the work they accomplished, and the desire to be in community, talking about these (often considered) taboo topics.
This year, I gained new knowledge and skills in creating rituals, which I am now using to
support meaning-making and conversation around the tender areas of grief, loss, and transitions. On December 6th, I hosted, Experience the Alchemy of Nature, Ritual, and Creativity. It was a multi-layered and rich experience with women who were ready to explore, create, and share what was on their hearts on that day. The Padlet I created, which we could easily use to view everyone’s work, became a gorgeous gallery. Perhaps even more fascinating was listening to each person tell her story about the questions she was working with, the personal meanings of the materials she chose, how they contributed to the design, and their feelings upon completion.
Continuing to Offer Spaces for Conversation of (Generally) Taboo Topics
The Death Cafés I host in my county and for a Creative Mornings Club are also inviting spaces for open, relaxed conversation. Last month we talked about broaching the topics of dying, death, and planning for quality of life with family, the challenges of working through unfinished business with a family member who has died, how often people don’t know how to talk with us about our grief, the devastating impact of loss of our close relationships, that grief isn’t linear and there isn’t a fixed timeline for healing, resources exist and yet we often forget to look for them as our focus becomes so focused—on our pain and grief. Every Café is different, dependent on who attends and what is on their mind.
Looking forward into Winter
Before the year’s end, there are two death cafés (in person)—December 28th in NYC through Creative Mornings, and December 30th in Suffern, NY.
I’m excited to offer Welcome in the New Year through Nature, Ritual, and Creativity on January 3rd at 11 AM ET online.
For those who love Appreciative Inquiry, using it as a lens to look at all
of life, I will offer an Appreciative Living Learning Circle, beginning on January 31st, for four weeks.
It’s my plan to offer another in-person series of Living Fully, Dying Prepared in the new year, and I would like to expand the opportunity and create an online group, too. The online group will begin in February, and the in-person series will begin in the early spring.
These different gatherings are opportunities for self-reflection, exploration, discovery, and creation within the experience of a safer container. They are described more fully on my calendar.
And, if you feel that one-to-one coaching is the best modality for you for these experiences, please reach out to me. If starting on any of these journeys is made easier by reading books or listening to podcasts, I’ve developed a curated list of resources. If you’d like a conversation to suss out what will best support you, or the list of resources. Send me an email or use my calendar link for a brief conversation.
I see connection and opportunity almost everywhere (a blessing and a curse, I believe). Two weeks ago, I took a fabulous course with Ramiro Davaro-Comas, a professional muralist and instructor at the Art Students League in NYC. (Ramiro has been painting murals for 15 years, painted over 200 murals, and facilitated more than 150 additional murals. You can find his work here, 
adjustments necessary to create the desired effect with the spray paint—which nozzle I was using, how close my hand was to the wall, and what angle I needed to get a tight straight line as opposed to a wide swath of paint. Sustained, hyper-focused attention to the details of my drawing is not so common for me—I most often work in well-known ways that are almost second nature. It was a great lesson in microlearning.
I have developed a daily art practice. One project took me into rather unknown territory—working with a combination of acrylic paints and pens, gouache, collage, gel matte as a fixative, and mixed media paper. While I’ve worked with almost all of these materials before, this particular sequence and the combinations were new and held challenges (the weight of paper was not quite right for all the media, using gel matte with gouache is tricky {there’s a story there!}, and more. I’m also the gal who follows the “recipe”/directions the first time I do something, and then I change it up. I tried to follow the plan this time but then abandoned part of it. (I gave it a good try twice and didn’t like the results, so I found my way.)
I started an online course over the weekend and discovered a few key factors to my success and happiness with my effort:
Here’s a Query!
Mere words cannot express the fun, the collegiality, and most importantly, the impact of the work we accomplished at the #StanfordLEAD #Me2We2024 event last week. (Perhaps that’s why I’ve included a visual to represent my gratitude for the experience of being a member of an international team, in which each individual contributed something unique to the dynamics of the team and the event.)
As host of the table and showcase space for the first day of the event, I had the opportunity to meet so many of the attendees, share information about Drawify—our purpose and intention for being at the event—and encourage them to share their appreciation for their professors in their program. (They wrote on file cards, which were made into a gift for each of the professors in the program.) As you can imagine, people were curious. I loved sharing my passion for visualization with those who wanted to have a conversation.
While I had never created tags with snippets/key phrases from the sessions, I loved it! The opportunity to capture a key idea for a session, draw and letter quickly on the Neuland Tag It, and offer it to others as a remembrance was a kick!
