Have you ever wondered why it is so hard to talk about, much less deal with, death in our society? Have you struggled with your emotions around the death of a loved one? Have you scrambled to find ceremony and meaning when facing death?

In this episode, we talk with Jessica Wertz, a ceramics artist and founder of “Spirit Vessel” where she creates personalized ceremonies to honor the lives of loved ones, with meaningful ritual and handcrafted, uniquely designed urns.

In this episode, we literally talk about life, death and the space between with Brad Wolfe and Dara Kosberg from Reimagine.

Reimagine is a non-profit founded by Brad Wolfe that draws on arts, design, and spirituality to transform culturally tabu attitudes around death and grief, to enhance how we live and how we die.

Brad Wolfe has a Stanford MA in Sociology and a Berkley MBA, with a human design focus. Dara Kosberg has an MA in education from Stanford, and is director of programming at Reimagine.

Alua Arthur is a death doula, attorney, adjunct professor, and ordained minister. Her goal is to bring grace and compassion to the cycle of life by planning for it and effortlessly tying up the loose ends. Going with Grace exists to support people when they answer the question, “What must I do to be at peace with myself so that I may die gracefully?”, and to support family members completing the affairs of their loved ones life after death.

Dr. Joshua Black is a researcher in grief dreams, with a special focus on dreams of the deceased. Josh is one of the leading researchers in this field.  In his research, Josh examines why some bereaved individuals dream of the deceased while others do not, the experiences of people’s grief dreams and how grief dreams help with grief recovery.   

In this final episode of 2020, Dr. Amy Robbins shares her thoughts on 2020.  This will be a year that will go down in history for so many reasons.  Hear Dr. Robbins’ take on what we learned and how death seemed to look us in the eye at every turn.

Michele Little is a Certified Death Midwife who helps us prepare for the end of this life at Beautiful Dying Company. Conducting monthly workshops online, called Exit Papers 101, Michele holds our hands as she helps prepare the essential final paperwork for the dying and the death – the medical directives, the family tree, the final wishes, funeral arrangements, the memorials and bequests.  Michele arrives at this calling the consummation of her history as a peace maker and life transformationalist, from leading women’s empowerment circles to Shamanic drumming in Ireland. 

Anna Swenson  is communications manager at Recompose, a provider of ecological death care in Seattle, Washington. Recompose invented and is the first company in the world to offer “natural organic reduction,” a process that gently converts human remains into soil. Since joining Recompose in 2019, Anna has led the company’s marketing, education, events, and public policy. Prior to joining Recompose, Anna led public relations for technology start-ups while volunteering in hospice and end-of-life care. She enjoys reading, cooking, therapy, and the ocean. 

Sara K. Schneider, Ph.D. is trained as a performance anthropologist, with degrees from Yale and NYU, and is the CEO & Founder of The Human Journey® . She consults to hospices, healthcare, and mission-driven organizations on learning and growth, and trains professionals to help families and support groups develop belonging, the capacity for meaning-making, and communication skills when they’re in the heart of change. 

Dr. Sunita Puri is the Medical Director of the Palliative Medicine Service at Keck Hospital and Norris Cancer Center of the University of Southern California, where she also serves as Chair of the Ethics Committee. Sunita is the author of  That Good Night: Life and Medicine in the Eleventh Hour, a critically acclaimed literary memoir examining her journey to the practice of palliative medicine, and her quest to help patients and families redefine what it means to live and die well in the face of serious illness. Sunita received writing residencies at the MacDowell Colony, UCross Foundation, and Mesa Refuge, and was a finalist for the PEN Center’s Emerging Voices Writing Fellowship. The recipient of a Rhodes Scholarship, her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Slate, and the Journal of the American Medical Association. In 2018, she was awarded the Etz Chaim Tree of Life Award from the USC School of Medicine, awarded annually to a member of the faculty who, in the eyes of the campus community, models and provides humanistic and compassionate care.

Dr. Terri Daniel, CT, CCTP is a hospice and hospital-trained clinical chaplain (interfaith). She is certified in death, dying and bereavement by the Association of Death Education and Counseling, and in trauma support by the International Association of Trauma Professionals. The focus of her work is to assist dying and grieving individuals to discover a more spiritually and socially-spacious understanding of death, grief, and beyond.