To Honor all the Little Deaths we face in a lifetime

Spring Gathering: Thursday, March 14

Summer Gathering: Thursday, June 13

Autumn Gathering, Thursday, September 19

Winter Gathering: Thursday, December 12

5:30-7pm

Red Hook Community Center - 59 Fisk Street, Red Hook, NY

All The Little Deaths is a seasonal gathering hosted by Red Hook Community Center and facilitated by The Seventh Sense Care Collective where people of all ages, backgrounds, and beliefs come together to openly express and support one another through life's profound moments of loss. Whether it involves the profound pain of losing a loved one, a relationship, or a part of one's identity, this gathering invites participants to express their thoughts, questions, stories, dreams, poems, or any other mode of self-expression.

All The Little Deaths does not serve as a traditional grief support group, nor does it serve as a platform for offering advice or attempting to fix anyone. It serves as a communal space where we collectively support and hold each other from a place of compassion, fostering openness, respect, and non-judgement.

The gathering's name was inspired by Francis Weller, the author of The Wild Edge of Sorrow who says:

"We face many little deaths in our lifetime — a friendship ends, a business venture folds, or the inevitable changes we encounter in our aging body. What is key is how we choose to respond to them. Loss and grief are an initiation into a changed landscape, reminding us that everything is passing.

By dying before we die, we are able to accept this fact and embrace this amazing chance we have to be alive."

What if Elderhood was honored as a rite of passage that we prepare for early on in life? What if Elderhood was something we looked forward to?

Aging is inevitable but oftentimes the years after retirement go uncelebrated, unwelcomed and unplanned. Our culture tends to view those years of life as “a slow decline toward death” instead of a whole new chapter with its own profound significance.

“Planned Elderhood” is an intentional workshop crafted to empower people of all ages, from young adults to elders, helping you take control over your aging journey and nurture a strong sense of autonomy throughout the process. Engaging with your own mortality through planning for your death will help alleviate some of the anxieties that come with aging, allowing you to be more present and authentic in this chapter of your life.

This workshop will provide:

• A framework for Life Review at whatever stage of life you are in.

• A detailed walkthrough of the Advanced Directive paperwork specific to New York State.

• The creation of a Compassionate Care Booklet designed by The Seventh Sense Care Collective, where you can document your bedside care and after death wishes, ensuring your preferences are honored as you age.

All of these are designed to be working documents that you can update as you and your preferences change and evolve.

This workshop has only 12 spots available so please sign up by emailing: programs@redhookcommunitycenter.org

Location: Red Hook Community Center - 59 Fisk Street, Red Hook, NY 12571

Dates: Saturday and Sunday March 2-3

Time: 11-1pm

Cost: Free - RSVP required

Vigil is a time for devotional watching. A period to stay awake - to keep watch, to stay present.

Our vigil circle is the core of The Seventh Sense. We work in harmony to create a circle of presence around the dying person. Our intention is to create a safe space, a nest to allow comfort, dignity and peace for the dying. We offer support for the dying, and their circle of care so that this becomes a time of reverence for the transition that is occurring. We hold space through the active transition, and the time after death.

Our vigil circle training will help guide us to stay awake in our own lives so that we may be present for ourselves as well as for the death of others. We will offer practical tools to accompany us in the many situations we may find ourselves in. We will also practice active listening, meditation and other energy techniques to support ourselves, the circle of care and the dying.

The course will run across 6 months in order to build a strong bond in our circle based on trust, compassion, respect and communication. This will enable us to act as a unified heart centered circle in our sacred practice in this work.

*We are now full. If you have interest in being in the next cohort, please contact us. We like to keep these trainings to 8 people because of the intimate nature of the work within the circle.

2024 workshop dates to be announced.

This is a 3-day experiential workshop to develop the innate abilities we all possess - that of sentience and presence, and how they intertwine to reveal the power of our own true nature. These are gifts we are born with, yet mostly do not have a knowing relationship with.

The body itself, the vessel that carries our mortality, is the source of great wisdom. It is not only the mind that has knowledge to benefit us. Nature has endowed us with powerful tools, once reawakened can help us to embrace a more vibrant and authentic experience of living. The exploration of “remembering” these fundamental aspects of our own nature can also help to foster safety, security and well-being, and a true and empowered sense of self.

The workshop focuses on the establishment and development of connecting with these parts of our humanity through individual and group exercises and meditations, through igniting the knowledge held within our senses (some known, others unknown), through getting to know the energetic body that surrounds our physical body, by tapping into ancestral and other memory that the body holds, and through the unfolding of what is revealed to us of our own basic nature that connects us all to one another and to all sentient life.

This workshop is designed for people who work with the dying ~ doulas, hospice workers, nurses, caregivers, to further develop the ability to hold space and be fully present. It is also appropriate for anyone who wants to invest in a deeper relationship with themselves; to embrace learning how to live more fully while alive, with the understanding that these tools may be able to help us when our time comes to shed this mortal coil.

We call our collective the Seventh Sense to honor the body’s remembrance of how to die.