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Interview with the workshop instructor Lee Warren

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Transcript of Interview with Lee Warren

Courtney Brooke (CB): Hi folks, I’m here with Lee Warren. Hi Lee.

Lee: Hi Courtney Brooke.

CB: Good to be with you and we’re here to talk about an exciting upcoming offering through Earthaven Ecovillage that Lee is offering with helping us do our end of life paperwork. So yeah I just had a few questions for you Lee. One is could you tell us why you’re wanting to offer this beautiful work through Earthaven Ecovillage.

Lee: Yes, thank you, um…So from the spring of 2016 to the fall of 2018 we had five deaths at our ecovillage, Three of those folks died at home, all five of those folks had home funerals and home burials and some kind of, you know, magical evolutionary programming kicked in in so many of us and we harmoniously created uh processes for both caring for the dying, tending to the dead, and tending to our own grief in in some of the most profound community experiences I’ve ever had in 25 years of community.
And so many of us came out of that experience over the course of those two and a half years pretty transformed and realized that we wanted to offer the world some taste of that.
And because of my background in in finance and economics and sort of systems organization design, I really wanted to marry the tenderness of that process with helping people step by step go through uh thinking about their intentions and their end of life paperwork.
So it’s this interesting combination of the left brain and the right brain and we we really blend that in a powerful way during this workshop and that really all sort of grew out of a lived experience of of being with the dying.

CB: Wow that is beautiful. So could you speak to just how the course is formatted, like what what will we be getting out of the course?

Lee: Yeah after a series of years doing this I’ve really come to a format that seems to work pretty well for adult learners.
So the workshop is eight full hours and we structure it in two half days. So we do four hours and then a week later we do another four hours. So we have a week in between and I find that this topic, because it’s slightly taboo in our culture and a lot of people don’t touch this topic very often in their lives, there there’s a lot of integration and processing time that’s needed and so we really create a powerful container where people feel safe to explore and digest and discuss and contemplate and get inspired about possibilities. So that takes a little time and I really find that this is the best of all formats for this for this particular workshop.

CB: Wow beautiful. So I hear there will be some integration of just the process of getting getting cozy with the fact that we are mortal and that our life will come to an end and making some peace with that and then also actually getting down to some practical filling out paperwork that will make that transition better more easeful more clear.

Lee: Yeah.

CB: Yeah, go ahead.

Lee: Well my intentions for the workshop really, you know at a fundamental level, are to introduce people to resources to increase our death and dying literacy and ability to articulate um and again as I mentioned contemplation and inspiration, but also to start some, you know to really start some paperwork, we have about four or five pieces of paperwork that we’re starting.
Some people finish it, some people actually identify some next steps and get a checklist and figure out what they’re going to do by what date.
And part of the beauty of the collective in this context is that we create a buddy system for accountability and support so that they don’t just sit in a pile on your desk but they actually get done by the dates that people want them to get done.
And then even more exciting for me from a collective perspective is how do we build a death literate community, how do we create comfort for this conversation, and how do we build, you know, how do we build in the long term a structure of support where we can actually help each other through not only the conversation but through the dying process.
So all of that we’re having conversations about and we’re wading pretty deeply into.

CB: Well that sounds very rich Lee. Could you share with us a little bit about like what happens when someone does or doesn’t and your experience in your life like when someone has done this preparation and then when someone has not done this preparation. Like how how that that is a seed that gets watered for different experiences.

Lee: Yeah that’s a really great question.
I find that when people actually have spent some time in their life before they’re dying to contemplate these things that they actually can go into the dying process with a little more ease, Right?
They can um they can have a they’re more likely to be able to have what’s called a good death. And how I define that is how one of my mentors defines it, which is a good death is walking towards it.
So if we’ve got some things in order we can actually settle in and surrender to the pretty sacred process of dying that not only is our process but the process of everybody around us who loves us and that can be a very liminal magical experience especially if we can put down the physical world because we’ve sort of crossed our t’s and dotted our i’s.
You know it’s never black or white or one thing or the other and death can be challenging particularly if it’s a painful death process but my experience is if we have decided to um put our intentions down it can pave the way for a process that can be pretty miraculous and and I would even venture to say beyond conscious, potentially joyful potentially ecstatic.
I think we’re we’re pioneering these realms, but my sense is preparation paves the way for those things.
And on the on the opposite side, you know, um people who maybe aren’t as prepared (and you know death can go in any mysterious ways so it’s sometimes people don’t do anything and they have a fabulous death and they do all this preparation and they have a challenging death so it’s not cut and dry) but I think one example that I can think of is that someone had actually about a month to live, a dear friend had a month to live and the doctors, the oncologists told him, “oh you have a year or two,” and he didn’t get to his paperwork and then um who was the beneficiary on one of his insurance insurance policies was an ex-partner, an ex-marriage partner and that created a whole bunch of infighting between the family and other people and it was the post-death experience for the people who were left was agonizing and painful and it went to court and it was lots of high drama and I don’t imagine that that was helpful for any of his beloveds to really sink in and be able to process his death in a pure way because there was so much conflict around it. So those are just some examples. It doesn’t have to go those ways but it is really nice to get things in order because as we do we leave instructions for the living and when the living have instructions they’re very interested in carrying out the wishes of the dying and the dead and it can create a lot of harmony and good will.

CB: Wow that is really beautiful. I just wanted to share that I’ve also gone through my own paperwork for my my process and my paperwork isn’t complete but um it wasn’t because I was sick or because I was anything just because it came my way and came into my awareness and I and I did that and it was it was a really rich experience that I would highly recommend. Also to just really gave me like more life, you know, like i was being like you know, i grew up in a culture, we all grew up in a culture where it’s like “oh just don’t talk about that,” we just put that somewhere else. We just think that we’re going to live forever and have all these you know buy things that keep us young or whatever that’s gonna be like and yeah it was really rewarding to just like “how would I like to die and and where would i like to be?” and to be able to voice it to my beloveds, even to my mother and to my friends. It brought a lot of intimacy into my my life and my relationships.

Lee: Yeah really death does open a portal to the mystery and talking about death opens a portal to the mystery I think even in our eight hours together something really mysterious does open and we we have this comprehensive overview but it’s really quite a deep dive and I think people are changed because of our time together because of touching on this topic and swimming in those mysteries for a time together.

CB: Wow, well I’m feeling so excited and grateful that you’re going to bring these offerings to Earthaven and be offering them through an online offering through earthaven.org and that’s where people can go to find more information and to register and these offerings are up and coming so is there anything else you’d like to share or touch in on before we go?

Lee: Just join us for the journey, it’s you know it’s a lot of resources a lot of focus, but also playful, heartful, and frankly fun.

CB: Thank you so much Lee for helping us take care of this sacred threshold of our lives called death.

Lee: Thank you Courtney Brooke.

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Hard to believe this is our first newsletter since January, but it’s been busy and intense all around. Yes, another beloved senior member has taken her last journey—Patricia Allison left the planet (as far as we know) on March 19, after a relatively short bout with cancer. What we will do without Patricia is still a doleful question. A beautiful funeral was held in her honor, as well as a memorial party and (true to Patricia’s spirit) a workday at Medicine Wheel, the neighborhood she began developing with her family many years ago. Meanwhile, long-time Medicine Wheel co-leader Lyndon Felps and not-so-newcomer Deborah Clark are at the helm of the Wheel, following the intensive gardening paths Patricia spearheaded and continuing to house, teach and inspire students and work-exchangers throughout the coming years.

Patricia came to Earthaven as a budding Permaculture teacher, teaming up with Chuck Marsh, Peter Bane and Goodheart Brown, training Earthaven members as well as quite a few folks from around the country, in the basics of permaculture design and the essentials of its application. A Texan with a passion for simplicity, she loved permaculture and teaching it, and inspired hundreds, probably thousands, of students through classes and PDCs at Earthaven, as well as at several other developing communities and conferences. She was a dedicated consensus practitioner who also taught those principles on the road and at home.

For the sake of joy and teaching, Patricia collected songs. She laughingly referred to her favorites as her “eco-feminist spirituals.” They served as a calling in and meal-blessing when folks would circle up for dinner in the Medicine Wheel kitchen, and often had a place within her classes, and daily life. The recording she made of them in 1996 is available in digital form, for free, and on a CD for the cost of shipping. To obtain a copy, please write catherinebrooke@gmail.com.

above: Patricia (left) and students at Medicine Wheel.

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Written by Arjuna da Silva

It was hard to lose three of our most outstanding members last year, though it sure showed us what kind of folks our community is made of. Kimchi, Goddess of Beauty and Determination. Suchi, Queen of Loyalty and Cooperation. Chuck, Champion of The Good Fight and Lama of Permaculture—they all carried the banner for Earthaven for over a decade (Chuck having been a founder). These principled people helped make us who we are today.

Folks feel so much gratitude that we were able to help them as much as we did, when their lives were ending. It brought us such a strong dose of sobriety about the precious value of a human life—and more connection than we ever might have felt had we not shared these experiences.

Another dear early Earthaven member, David Tree Malpass, also passed away last year. Tree helped design the Council Hall, and participated in much community planning from the very beginning. When feeling light-hearted, I say they left to work things out for us in eternity.

(remembering, from left to right: Kimchi Rylander, Susan (Suchi) Lathrop), Chuck Marsh, David Tree Malpass.

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Above: 2017 Ancestor Feast Altar featuring Chuck, Suchi and Kimchi

by NikiAnne Feinberg

Rituals to help land-based and regional communities process what has happened and is happening in our world are so powerful. We look to ritual to help us digest the unsavory and the unpalatable. We connect with teachers whose wisdom, guidance and experience can help our concentric rings of community continue to process the grief and sorrow we experience, to some degree on a daily basis.

So many of us are skilled at honoring birthdays, seasonal holidays, and the memory of famous people, but how many of us are ready to authentically honor the changes and losses of life?

Here at Earthaven, we’ve buried three community members this past year. The ritual tools Sobonfu Somé shared with us have been enormously useful in helping us know what to do when tragic events occur. They gave us a common language for addressing our grief, as well as a solid foundation from which to build our own rituals based in connection to the natural world and each other. We’ve had quite a bit of practice these last two years in how to process grief in the present and transform it into a sense of well-being, of life moving forward…. (So many of us are still longing to honor and grieve Sobonfu’s passing…and will have an opportunity to do so in the upcoming Transform, Connect, and Heal Ritual Weekend here May 4-6.)

There are many ways to use these emotional and spiritual tools and practices:

• for the loss of loved ones.
• for the untended historical trauma over the extermination of indigenous peoples.
• for the fear and dismay at what is going on in the nation’s political arena.
• for outrage at the racial injustices in our institutional and governmental policies.
• for the powerlessness we feel over ever more major, irreversible environmental atrocities.

We want to continue practicing the language and expression of emotions and communion with the ancestors in the presence of others. We also want to learn new rituals we can grow into (and with) as community. We want to use ritual to honor the land we live on and make offerings of gratitude for all that it provides for us.

I want to be a voice for Earthaven being a place that has learned to welcome death as a part of intentional and integrated living. Through demonstrating and also sharing what and who we learn from, we contribute to our community’s dual missions of transformative lifestyles and education.

These trainings have been essential to Earthaven’s journey of maturing into a community that embraces death, not only by gracefully accepting it as a reality in life, but by skilling up on tending to our own beloveds’ deaths.

Led by two of Sobonfu’s long-time students and friends, Susan Hough and Jennifer Halls, the Transform, Connect, and Heal Ritual Weekend will focus on the practice of ritual, in which the true outcome might not be understood until long after the end. On the immediate level, however, ritual is a powerful way to transform inner and outer situations, connect to Spirit, and deeply heal on many levels. I invite you to join me and others from all over the country in this powerful ritual of honoring and growing.

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When you fall in love with community-mates, over time and through all kinds of circumstances, you develop a relationship very much like family. When they leave or die, it’s an amazing loss and also a treasure trove of meaningful connection and nourishing memory. We can’t say enough about them, but we try….

Susan (Suchi) Lathrop lived and created sacred space at Earthaven for fourteen years, and was stricken with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), a disabling encroachment on natural body movement, not long after her best friend, Kimchi Rylander, was diagnosed with breast cancer.

It’s hard for us to accept and yet when it faces you square on, it challenges us to rise to the situation and lift things to their highest level. And rise we did, with Kimchi (who died in February) and again with Suchi.

Both women wanted to live their final days in the community they loved and so a large contingent of Earthaven members came together to do whatever was necessary to see these beloved women through their end-of-life transitions.

right: Suchi & Kimchi greet firefighters last year.

The following obituary is about Suchi’s life within and beyond Earthaven.

———————————————–

Susan (aka Suchi) Lathrop passed away in peace at home in Earthaven Ecovillage on May 17, surrounded by beloved friends. She had been suffering with a quickly declining condition of ALS. A wake and funeral were also held at Earthaven.

Suchi was a beloved leader in her community, not just at Earthaven, but in and around Asheville. She was outspoken and generous, and was the innovator of many community functions that have since become Earthaven traditions, including the weekly Coffee & Trade event on Tuesday mornings. Her guidance and determination made a huge difference! She was the Earthaven Firekeeper (like a President, only more so), and had a voice in many key committees over the years.

right: Suchi at the Trading Post.

As a core member of the Hut Hamlet neighborhood, Suchi co-owned the Tribal Condo with her beloved friend, Kimchi Rylander, for over a decade. She was an ardent gardener and filled her greenhouse with food all year round.

Suchi grew up in upstate New York, focusing her academic studies in psychology and library science. She has been a dedicated supporter of the Palestinian cause in Israel, and a leading member of the local Friends group in bringing attention to the issues. She was also Clerk of the Black Mountain Friends Meeting for several years.

Suchi’s hope is that people who want to honor her life donate a day or two of volunteer support to local non-profits in her name and the name of her community, Earthaven.

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Kimchi Rylander came into my life 10 years ago at the Southeastern Permaculture gathering in Celo, NC. In the last year of her life, we were on “The Divine Feminine” committee for the gathering and when we met she would share her perspective, saying, “This is not ‘my cancer,’ this is ‘our cancer’ and what is playing out in my body is what is being done to our momma Earth!”

When she received the terminal diagnosis, she said, “I’m dying and the cancer has spread throughout my body. So I want to work on dying well and supporting a positive death-ing culture.” I still remember feeling such awe and inspiration, mixed with sadness and curiosity.

A few other examples of how Kimchi held up the light of her wildly creative heart in the face of death and said, “I’m going out with style!”:

– She decided to have a “give-away” because it was so important to her to share the stories of each precious object that might live beyond her.

– She created a “Guess which day Kimchi will croak?!” raffle, the proceeds going towards positive education about death.

I was blessed to be a part of a loving transition team as a death doula during her final weeks at Earthaven. As the cancer took over her body, she spoke much less, and when she did speak it was softer and slower. During one visit with friends she said, “It’s all about love; really, it’s all about love.” She was visited by a river of loved ones who were eager to share their gratitude and love with her.

Kimchi found comfort in being able to walk on her own until the day before her transition. She also wanted to send out a community voicemail I wrote down for her: “It’s time for me to go, and I’ve had a wonderful time in this play box of life. I was happy to do things together, but I have new projects awaiting me….”

left: Kimchi’s funeral procession.

Kimchi passed surrounded by loving witnesses, holding her sister Bridget’s hand. Her body was planted back into the Earth she loved so much on the exact day of her 56th birthday. In her honor, a song group continues to gather to send support during the 9-month Gestation Period some believe it takes to die and travel to the Land of the Ancestors.

above: At Kimchi’s orchard gravesite.

May we long remember the ways Kimchi challenged and inspired us, feel more alive as we remember the unique expression of her life, and sing gratefully and often in her memory.

Earthaven neighbor Sarah Anne Amazon is a dedicated meditator who loves to attend extended retreats, including with prisoners, and to support the little people for a better world. She also loves Nature, cooking, dancing, singing and NVC.

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Many of her closest friends and neighbors from Earthaven visited her at the hospice. Her daughter, Diana Leafe Christian, also an Earthaven member, and her son John Christian, from California, lived with Rosetta at the hospice during her several weeks’ stay.

A “Celebration of Rosetta’s Life” memorial was held at Andy and Julie’s house, next door to where Rosetta lived. Diana showed slides of Rosetta’s long life and her years working for United Airlines; living in Honolulu; her many travels to Europe, Asia, and Africa after she retired; and the introduction during her lifetime of talking movies, television, computers, and cell phones.

People shared fond stories of Rosetta as a friend and neighbor, recalling how extraordinarily healthy and functional she remained even until her late 90s. Many recalled how mentally sharp she was, her sense of humor, and her kindness.

Allie led us in singing “Pachamama, I’m Coming Home,” and then we sang “Rosetta, you are beautiful, Rosetta, you are strong….”

We ended by dancing to one of Rosetta’s favorite songs from the Big Band era— Glenn Miller’s In the Mood. Everyone agrees, “We’ll miss you, Rosetta.”

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Silent meditation before the altar with photos of ancestors and mentors.

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