A weekend workshop on thoughtful + creative engagement with mortality
About this event
This class is a philosophical and practical series of writing exercises, meditations, and guided visualizations.
We will define what a death practice is, set goals, understanding, and engagement in what that looks like on a personal and societal level. Developing a death practice is a way to delve into the finitude of all things and can be a way to grow, understand, and expand into yourself and the world in ways that feel more meaningful, fun… and alive.
Death Practice will commence on a Friday evening and end on a Monday afternoon
Prerequisites
Willingness to approach death and what that means for life.
Commitment
You acknowledge that you have agency over your experience. This is not grief counseling or therapy – but a practice in deepening your sense of mortality, the cyclical nature of life on this planet, and how wild it is to be alive.
This is a bring-your-own food retreat. We will be cooking and sharing food together in a communal kitchen.
Practice + Discussion Descriptions
Guided Death Practice The Foundational Guided Meditation. A blend of silent meditative periods with guided visualization. Metaphorical death and exploration of impermanence.
Cartography of Death Discussion -The Art of Creative Death Maps – Participants practice making connections to their current relationship with death, what they hope to develop in their own death practice, practical + philosophical ways that death is always in our lives.
Decomposing the Anthropocene Discussion – Diving deep into what the Anthropocene is, the importance of decomposition as an actual and metaphorical tool, and how to move through times of deep uncertainty and grief for what no longer is, or can be.
Walking Plant Meditation – a walking meditation focused on the seasonality of the flora and cyclical nature of life + death.
Insight into Endings Guided Visualization – a guided meditation where participants are shrouded and laid to rest followed by a gentle talk through of physical death and though this does not get as graphic as many practices do, it is not metaphorical. Participants are talked through the stillness of death, the decomposition of the body, and a return to earth.
Breathwork : Breathwork can mean many things, but the type of breathwork Nora facilitates is an active three part breath (inhale into the belly, into the chest, and exhale) it tends to shift lots of energy in the body and is a good tool for release, investigation, and inquiry.
Cave Death Meditation : Hike out to a cave; meditate on death, geologic time, and the short blip that is a human life span.
A eulogy to what needs to die : Lighthearted and comical eulogies to what you want to stop, ie habits, tendencies, things that no longer serve you. Participants remember that with death and impermanence comes some satire, irony, and laughter at the absurdity of it all.
Program Outline
Friday
Participants arrive early evening, get settled
Intro to Nora and Death Practice Journal end with Insight into Endings guided Visualization + Journal prompts
Saturday
Cartography of Death Discussion
Guided Death Practice
Breathwork for creativity
Sunday
Decomposing the Anthropocene Discussion
Cave Death Meditation
A eulogy to what needs to die
Monday
Guided Death Meditation + final Q+A
Walking Plant Meditation +
Students depart afternoon
Nora is a death worker, breathwork facilitator, and writer. She lives in the desert but grew up on the ocean. Get to know her more here and here.
If you have any questions feel free to contact deathpracticejournal@gmail
More ticket options at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/death-practice-journal-workshop-tickets-349953519397?aff=uni