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Through an Intimacy with All of Life
End of Life Planning & Paperwork Workshop

Two Part Workshop Series with Lee Warren

End of Life Planning & Paperwork Workshop

Honor your life and your loved ones by preparing for your death!

Join us for this two-part ONLINE series.

8 Hours at the following times:

Part 1: TBD 

Part 2: TBD

The dates for this workshop are not yet set. Late 2023 is most likely. Please leave your name and email address if you’re interested in updates regarding the timing. 

Please leave your name and email below if you’d like to be informed of the new dates for this course….

Contemplate important end-of-life questions and prepare the necessary documents in a supportive group process. 

End of Life Paperwork & Planning Workshop
Detailed Description:

Join me for this sacred journey to contemplate end-of-life intentions and prepare the appropriate documents.

Whether for yourself or for a loved one, intentionally preparing for death honors life and greatly increases the likelihood of having a good death.

Creating clear end-of-life paperwork is important for all stages of life and health. Written documents help loved ones know what to expect, guide our own inner and outer processes and, when the time comes, allow us to turn our attention to the mystery and magic inherent in the dying process. As we make the time and space to contemplate important end-of-life questions, we become more comfortable considering, discussing, and deciding on all aspects of the ideal journey.

This workshop series will focus on death literacy and provide an overview of the entire spectrum of end of life paperwork with a core focus on the Five Wishes. The Five Wishes document is an internationally renowned advanced directive often described as a “living will with a heart and soul.”

We will address:

  • The Five Wishes
  • Addendum to the Five Wishes
  • Dementia Directive
  • MOST & DNR
  • After Death Considerations 
  • Home Funeral & Home Burial Overview
  • Financial Considerations

During our time together, you will receive an overview of the entire spectrum of end-of-life paperwork, focus extensively on end-of-life directives, dive into after-death options, and come away with a profoundly expanded understanding of end-of-life options. 

Expect expert information, real-life examples, one-on-one and group discussions, opportunities for contemplation, resources galore, and easy discussions, as well as active encouragement for next steps. Working in a group context allows for a depth of sharing that is not accessible in an individual process. The supportive group atmosphere offers an exchange of ideas, experiences, stories, and support as you work through your process. And you may join in a movement that ultimately builds death-literate and death-positive communities.

A minimum of 8 hours together is needed to cover these topics and engage in the paperwork involved.

Sharing, conversation, contemplating, and discussion are an important part of this process. 

Schedule

Part 1
To Be Determined, 2023 or 2024. 2-6pm:

  • Overview & Intro
  • Death Philosophies
  • Introductions & Intentions
  • Five Wishes – Wish 1, Health Care Agent
  • Go Wish Card Game
  • Five Wishes – Wish 2, End of Life Measures
  • Addendum for Wishes 1 & 2
  • Detailed Discussions & Breakouts
  • End of Life Checklist
  • Homework Assignments
  • Check-out

Part 2
To Be Determined, 2023 or 2024. 2-6pm:

  • Five Wishes – Wishes 3, 4, and 5
  • Addendum to Five Wishes
  • Signature, Notarization, Next Steps
  • Advanced Dementia Care
  • MOST & DNR
  • Checklist Revisit
  • After Death Options
  • Home Preparations
  • After Death Options
  • Financial Overview
  • Community Next Steps
  • Closing

Instructor

Lee Warren has been fortunate to learn from the dying in the context of a village. Over the course of two years, from 2016 to 2018, there were six deaths at Earthaven Ecovillage, the place she’s called home for more than two decades.

Those deaths, and the generous people who experienced them, were incredible opportunities for service to the great mystery. From end-of-life paperwork preparation, to working with hospice and sitting with the dying, to collaborating with blood families on all aspects of the death process, to tending our beloveds for after death services, to creating home wakes, home funerals, and home burials, the village came alive with cooperation and the magic of synchronized flow.

These end-of-life ceremonies and rituals weave together the fabric of community, which gives meaning to every aspect of the death process. People, both from within and from outside the village, expressed how life-changing and heart-expansive these experiences were for them.

What Lee learned during this sacred time is the following:

  • Death is a gift for all involved.
  • We have everything we need internally for a good death.
  • Conscious and positive death experiences are possible.
  • Preparing in advance, both internally and externally, makes a good death more possible.
  • A village context is by far the best way to depart. So let’s build the village. Everywhere.
  • Tending to the dying creates a bond with the whole in a way that nothing else does.

Lee has woven end-of-life education into her community building work as foundation to becoming alive, present, and embodied humans. 

Potential Guest Speakers:

Melody Magdalene LeBaron

Transforming Space + Self + Loss

Melody began her career as a professional organizer, Space Clearing practitioner and Feng Shui expert, helping clients create sacred space for their lives and work.

And then, 30 years ago, Melody was tasked with using her skills to create sacred space for the dying and the grieving.

Melody rejects the beliefs that death is a failure and grief is to be avoided. Her work encourages us to bring the maturing experiences of death and grief back into the cycle of life.

Her book Transforming Death: Creating Sacred Space for the Dying helps the dying and their loved ones prepare well for life’s graduation.

Meredith Parker Springs

Funeral Director

Meredith grew up in High Point, NC and has lived in WNC since 2006.  

She earned her BA in Literature and Spanish from Duke University in 1999, and degree in Funeral Service Education from Fayetteville Technical Community College. 

Meredith has been licensed as a funeral director and embalmer since 2018, and is a certified crematory operator.  

She enjoys reading and practicing yoga, and her family are members of Skyland United Methodist Church.  Her husband, Kelly, works for the USDA and they adore their two sons, Wilder and Cohen. 

Karen Sanders

Patient Advocate & Transitions Coach

Meredith grew up in High Point, NC and has lived in WNC since 2006.  

She earned her BA in Literature and Spanish from Duke University in 1999, and degree in Funeral Service Education from Fayetteville Technical Community College. 

Meredith has been licensed as a funeral director and embalmer since 2018, and is a certified crematory operator.  

She enjoys reading and practicing yoga, and her family are members of Skyland United Methodist Church.  Her husband, Kelly, works for the USDA and they adore their two sons, Wilder and Cohen. 

End of Life Planning & Paperwork Attendee Testimonials

  • “An incredibly helpful workshop. Lee helped me prepare for my own death as well as prepare to serve the dying and their families in my immediate family and others in my death doula work.”

  • “From the opening moments of the workshop, Lee’s wisdom is apparent. Even through zoom, she connects and inspires as through she is in your room. It’s clear that she is a master of all the materials she presented.”

  • Lee’s teaching style has a lovely blend of organizational fortitude and down-to-earth compassion. She’ll keep everyone on task while being warm and genuinely open to input. I particularly appreciated the treasure trove of well-researched resources/experiences that she shared with us, the space she made for us to connect with each other, and her patience while we all navigated new technology.”

  • This topic has been avoided for years. Lee made it palatable: Engaging! I’m motivated to continue! I needed this!”

  • “I highly recommend this workshop. It’s deepest value is in providing an experience of community connection around the often challenging subject of dying and death.”

     

  • “Lee’s experience around death and dying lends to thorough and clear direction for exploring and documenting one’s final wishes. Participation in this workshop is invaluable for peace of mind around your death and for those left to carry out your intentions.”

     

  • “The workshop was as thorough as it was spacious. It covered difficult topics with grace and neutrality. Lee is gifted at managing group process while insuring she attended to individual needs and desires. I highly recommend Lee as a resource for the topic and encourage you to attend the workshop if it speaks to you.”

     

  • “This workshop offers a bounty of resources, including the participants who lend support, education and direction. It’s truly a beautiful unfolding of community in process! I feel so much more well-equipped to address the issues of approaching my end-of-life.”

  • “I highly recommend this workshop to absolutely everyone. And ASAP too! None of us can know when the moment will come that we must leave our body (and life as we know it) behind forever. Being as prepared as we can be for such creates more grace and ease in one’s living.”

Objectives/Outcomes:

  • Develop a comfort with end-of-life discussions
  • Understand our end-of-life philosophies
  • Engage with death-positive cultural mindsets
  • Discuss examples of external and internal preparations for death
  • Share about a deceased loved one
  • Experience inspiration for end-of-life preparation
  • Contemplate end-of-life issues
  • Discover the categories of end-of-life paperwork
  • Distinguish end of life paperwork that pertains to pre- and post- death
  • Discuss health care agents and their ideal characteristics
  • Contemplate personal health care agent choices
  • Understand the range of life-prolonging measures
  • Discuss personal desire for life-prolonging measures
  • Experience the Go Wish Card Game
  • Practice conversations with loved ones about end of life topics
  • Experiment with an end-of-life checklist
  • Engage with Five Wishes addendums
  • Discover the Dementia Directive, Medical Orders for Scope of Treatment (MOST), and DNR options
  • Discuss and contemplate choices for disposition of the body
  • Learn from the home funeral and home burial practices at Earthaven
  • Learn from others’ experiences
  • Understand end-of-life financial choices
  • Build capacity for end-of-life conversations
  • Learn about the movement and share the possibilities for death-literate communities

Please leave your name and email below if you’d like to be informed of the new dates for this course….

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