#139- DGB Newsletter - August 2026 | | |
Special thanks to everyone who attended our symposium
on spiritual bypassing yesterday. It was a fantastic event,
thanks to our brilliant presenters and attendees!
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JUST ADDED!
Sept. 20 - Portland, OR.
The Deathbed Dress Rehearsal
See full story below
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Aug. 21 - 25 - Seattle, WA
Annual Grief Therapy
Learning Retreat
with Dr. Robert Neimeyer
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Aug. 27-30 - Bellevue, WA
IANDS Conference
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Sept. 4-17 - Bali, Indonesia
Sacred Stillness Retreat
with Austyn Wells
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Oct. 26 - Nov. 1
Clear Light, Non-Duality
and Dark Retreat
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Various Dates
Adventures Beyond
the Body
with William Buhlman
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Join Us in Portland, Oregon for
The Deathbed Dress Rehearsal
This immersive learning experience is based on the traditions of the Quero shamans of Peru, as taught to me by Linda Fitch in her Dying Consciously workshop back in 2009. I've used it over the years to train hospice professionals and death studies students, and am now offering it publicly for the first time. It is an in-person event in Portland, OR., but will be filmed, and the video will be available later this year.
Please visit the workshop web page HERE for information, and see below for a full story. Also, tune in to my interview with Suzane Northrop on August 24 to learn more about it.
I'm very excited about this program, and also thrilled to be introducing a new event venue in Portland called The Lantern, which will be hosting many end-of-life and bereavement education events like this in the future.
I hope to see you there!
Dr. Terri Daniel, CT, FFGT
Clinical Chaplaincy, End-of-Life Educator
Bereavement and Trauma Support
office@deathgriefandbelief.com
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END-OF-LIFE, AFTERLIFE AND BEREAVEMENT
| | A Peculiar Subset of Near-Death Experiences | | "Those who study near-death experiences are occasionally confronted with cases that resist straightforward interpretation. The broader phenomenon is well established: Millions of people worldwide have reported NDEs. What these experiences ultimately represent remains genuinely open. But within this already puzzling field, there exists a class of cases that complicates matters further. The literature calls them "Peak in Darien" experiences—a name borrowed from Keats's sonnet about the first European glimpse of the Pacific Ocean. The metaphor captures the element of surprise characteristic of these reports: During their NDE, the experiencer perceives someone they believed to be alive among the dead" READ MORE... | | Helping Schools Support Children Dealing With
Illness, Death and Grief | | Dr. Karen Wyatt interviews Dr. Sally Paul and Bert Quintiens, who have developed a how-to guide for Compassionate Schools that support children who are coping with illness, death and bereavement. Sally is a senior lecturer in social work at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland where she teaches and researches in the areas of bereavement, death education, and public health approaches to palliative care. Bert is a researcher at the End-of-Life Care Research Group at Vrije Universiteit in Brussels, Belgium. He focuses on compassionate communities and compassionate cities, and how initiatives like Compassionate Schools can help normalize conversations about death and caregiving. LISTEN HERE | | What to Say to a Person Who is Grieving | "Offer practical, specific forms of help. Saying, “let me know if there's anything you need,” is useless, because the person doesn’t know what they need, and wouldn’t ask even if they did know. Instead, take charge. Sit them down and help them make a list of tasks that need to be done, and then assign those tasks to members of the support team that has gathered to help (friends and family)." READ MORE... | What are Wind Phones,
and How Do They Help with Grief? | |
"The wind phone began in Japan in 2010, when Itaru Sasaki, a garden designer, built a phone booth in his yard so he could “talk” with a deceased relative. Months later, the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami hit; in a matter of minutes, more than 20,000 people died.
"Sasaki opened the phone booth to his neighbors, who urgently needed a place to express their grief. Word spread, and soon people came on pilgrimage from around Japan to speak through the “phone of the wind” to those they loved.
Since then, wind phones have spread throughout the world." READ MORE...
| | Pope Updates
"Just War Theory" | "'Today, more than ever, without prejudice to the right to self-defense in the strictest sense, it is important to reaffirm that the ‘just war’ theory, which has all too often been used to justify any kind of war, is now outdated,” he writes in Magnifica Humanitas.Does that mean he wants to jettison a theory that, going back to St. Augustine, has been a staple of Catholic moral theology?" READ MORE... | | | Texas Brands Muslims a "Terrorist Group | "CAIR has spent decades positioning itself as the country’s leading Muslim civil rights organization. But Republican leaders’ attempts to brand it as a terrorist front has... cast suspicion on the group or anyone who associates with it.The organization, which has chapters around the country, is now fighting fraying trust inside some Muslim communities... READ MORE... | | |
Indigenous Resistance is Integral
to Moving Forward as a Nation
| | "Earlier this [year] , leaders of the Oglala Sioux Tribe in South Dakota said four unhoused, tribally enrolled citizens were detained during a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in Minneapolis; they reported that one man had been released and three were kept in ICE custody at Fort Snelling (federals officials say they have no record of detaining the Oglala Sioux citizens). Tribal leaders in Minnesota have reported numerous instances of Native community members being stopped and questioned by ICE, seemingly in acts of racial profiling. Several tribes in the state have warned their citizens to carry their tribal ID with them in case of being stopped by ICE." READ MORE... | |
WORKSHOPS, CLASSES
AND PROFESSIONAL TRAINING
| Portland, OR. - September 20, 2026 | | |
In this immersive, interactive half-day workshop, you'll witness -- and participate in -- a guided role-play process that explores the perspectives of a dying person and the people gathered at the bedside.
You'll explore compassionate communication, family dynamics, grief, spiritual diversity, death anxiety, and not only the process of dying, but the emotional issues and family dynamics that can accompany it.
Four CE credit hours available for nurses, social workers, psychologists and more.
Who Should Attend?
End-of-life professionals
Death doulas
Funeral directors
Counselors and therapists
Chaplains and clergy
Physicians, nurses, healthcare providers
Spiritual seekers and teachers
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You will explore:
Your end-of-life hopes, fears and intentions
Expressing your wishes to loved ones
Planning your ideal deathbed scenario
Working with ancestors
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You will practice:
Cultivating a non-anxious presence for helping others
Supporting the bereaved
Navigating difficult family dynamics
Offering spiritually-inclusive care
| | | Navigating the Social, Emotional and Spiritual Journey Through Aging, Illness and End-of-Life | | Endwell Advisors offer hands-on, compassionate assistance to help you address the concerns you may not feel comfortable discussing with friends, family or even your health care providers. We can literally walk beside you, meeting with your family to facilitate a difficult end-of-life discussion, helping you fill out an advance directive, or planning every detail (and even officiating) a memorial service. Visit us at www.EndWellAdvisors.com | | |
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