Learn how hand-weaving coffins from willow branches can create a container for grief and increase awareness of conscious dying.
About the guest:
My guest Dr. Tamara MacIntyre is a death doula, death educator, and community coffin builder based in Canada. She is a retired Doctor of Natural Medicine, chiropractor, and former Dean of Clinical Education who now through Conscious Death.org offers end-of-life education, Living Funeral Ceremonies, individualized care planning, and advocacy in addition to her artistic pursuit of coffin-building. We discuss how she serves as a guide for others so that they can choose an end-of-life passage that is in alignment with how they lived their life. Learn more at her website:
Included in this episode:
- How she came to this work as both a death doula and a coffin-builder
- Why coffin-building is often a doorway for people who aren’t ready yet to talk about death
- Why each coffin she builds is unique to the individual including the size
- How designing a coffin can take into account a person’s ancestry, culture, and personal legacy
- Who chooses to help make their own coffin and what that’s like
- How a handmade coffin can add meaning to a funeral and help with grief, especially as part of a community ritual
- How hands-on work like coffin-building helps slow down the process of acknowledging death and creates a deep container for grief
- The importance of death education and why we all should be teaching in our communities
- Why advance care planning doesn’t always prepare people for what they will actually face at the end of life
- Conscious dying asks us to be present for whatever is happening and leads us to find our own balance between pain and comfort
- How coffin-building contributes to mindfulness and the full experience of conscious dying
Links for this episode:
Resources
Related episodes
- Green Burial: A Will for the Woods with Amy Browne and Brian Wilson
- “The Natural Funeral” – Options for Disposition After Death with Seth Viddal
- Art and Conversations About Death with Molly Stuart
Other links
- Death Over Drafts – Pre-EndWell Registration
- Field Guide to What Really Matters
- 7 Lessons for Living from the Dying by Karen Wyatt MD
- Latest post on Substack: Mother Nature is Waiting for Your Visit
- What Really Matters Podcast: How and Why to Keep a Nature Journal
- Leave me a message by email: kwyattmd@comcast.net, Twitter, Facebook or Instagram
- Support your local bookstore by buying my books on Bookshop and Indiebound: 7 Lessons for Living from the Dying and The Journey from Ego to Soul
- Join the team at Patreon.com/eolu
- Buy me a coffee
- Donate on Paypal
If you enjoy this content please share it with others and consider leaving a review on iTunes. Thanks again to all supporters on my page at Patreon.com/eolu. And thanks to everyone who has bought me a coffee or made a donation on Paypal! Your contributions make all the difference and ensure this podcast stays ad-free.
NEXT ON EOLU PODCAST: Laura Starkey & Freddie Johnson on “Conservation Burial“