Greetings and Aloha from Doorway Into Light
It's been some time since our last newsletter and it seemed timely to send one out as we come to the end of 2020 and witness the ending of so much.

There are now over 1800 of you on this list.
We are so very grateful for all the prayers, well-wishes and financial support you send this way.

Doorway Into Light has come a long ways since our start in 2006
and the opening of our funeral home and The Death Store in 2012.

Besides myself, there is my co-director Reverend Michelle Renee, 2 funeral directors two assistant home funeral guides and death doulas, and a number of people who help when needed.The Death Store now features a sand play therapy table for children and adults who are grieving and a ceremony area for memorials and family viewings.
. Open on Saturdays, people are finding their way here as more Maui folks
find out about us, and of course, death may be more prominent for many.

More and more people on Maui (and all of Hawaii) and in fact, all over the world are connecting with our services, and our educational programs.
We have a stellar, world-known death doula training
and our 6 month certification program has graduated a number of death doulas!

We continue to be the only nonprofit funeral home in Hawaii (gluten free!)
and it's only certified green funeral home. We are now burying bodies in our hand crafted caskets and in cardboard boxes, at a local nonprofit cemetery.
Our green burial and ocean body burial services, which we started in 2012, have gotten busier. "Green" is catching on. Cremation is a toxic and energy consuming (oil and gas) practice and not the best last carbon footprint to make.

  • We are working on setting up a branch of Doorway Into Light
on the Big Island of Hawaii.
  • We just received a small grant for audio and video equipment to offer Zoom and live-streaming funerals and memorials.
  • We are setting up a small recording studio at Doorway Into Light for classes, long-distance counseling, as well as for people to record legacy videos.
Reverends Bodhi Be and Michelle Renee at work
If found dead call The Death Store! When we have a cemetery, I'd like to offer free burial to poor people and hand these shirts out to the homeless, so when they're found dead......
Hadley painting a cardboard casket white in preparation for family and friends to decorate.
Her friends and family decorated and wrote on her cardboard casket. She's heading into our refrigeration unit until cremation.
One of our locally crafted urns, this one a Maui grown gourd. We have hand crafted urns from local woods, biodegadable paper urns, ceramic pet urns and urns made from corn starch.
One of the ships we use for our ocean body burials
A recent burial of a dear friend
We follow State and Federal laws and guidelines, wrap the body in a cotton canvas shroud, weighted with bags of sand to insure it sinks.
The altar for our recent ritual for Honoring The Dead, which was on Zoom on November 1st.
We've been hosting Grief Rituals and recently at Thanksgiving we hosted a Gratitude Ritual.
We facilitated a burial for one of the first women Marines. These officers flew over to Maui for the full honor guard ceremony: gunshots, bugle .playing Taps, family and friends present. Bodhi hand crafts these simple pine box caskets
The only way to go!
How do we grow old gracefully, face forwards and maintain our innocence and curiosity.
These are the NDE's we see in our work. Too, the ones most of us have experienced.
One of the most important messages of our organization. We will die and we don't know when. Everyone we love and care about will die and we don't know when. Do we act like this statement is true?
Doorway Into Light recently published a booklet, 'Preparations For Death' It's available on our website's store and at The Death Store. We have been teaching classes based on this book.
Our weekly radio show on Maui and can be found at KAKU.org at 3pm HI Time on Tuesdays.
Rockin' in the studio
A recent view of our 'Before I Die' blackboard outside The Death Store.
Last year's Death Doula Training on Maui. One of Ram Dass's last public appearances.
In 2020, we were unable to host the 4th Annual Death Doula Training on Maui. So we filmed 7 programs, with all the registered students, on Zoom, each program featuring the
7 teachers we had invited to the Maui training. The whole program is offered for free on our website. We are now designing the curriculum for the 2021 death doula certification program.
A labyrinth at the center of our planned burial ground.
The 10 acres we are looking to purchase and the map of our plan.
The land we are looking to purchase.
Thanks to you, and many others, we have raised over $130,000 that is held in a land fund account. Our fundraising efforts continue, seeking donations, grants, a loan to secure the land, and potential investments. You can view the entire plan at www.ipuka.org or click on the link below. You can contribute to our land fund at www.ipuka.org. Or become a sustaining contributor, a 'Beacon' of Doorway Into Light, as a number of you have, at www.doorwayintolight.org.. ANY size contribution welcome!
Some of the installations we're planning
Instagram @thedeathstoremaui
Transforming how we approach dying and death. Transforming how we care for the dying and the dead. Transforming how we live.
The Death Store; Our community educational resource center for the dying, their families, the grieving, and all those who may die one day. A book store, lending library. home funeral supplies, caskets, urns and more. Contained within Doorway Into Light's funeral home where we are reinventing and revolutionizing the funeral home experience.
'To change our culture, to change our lives, requires the transformation of consciousness, and few things shift consciousness as quickly as the awareness of death.' Bodhi Be