Ecstasy of Impermanence: A Journey of Delight in Existence

A playful exploration of mortality through movement, meditation, and connection

with the Queen of Death, Lee Warren (queenofdeath.org)

This in-person weekend retreat is an immersion where sacred embodiment meets death awareness in a field of movement, meditation, ritual, and deep relational practice. Rooted in the body’s fluid intelligence and the understanding that nothing is separate, this work invites a direct experience of belonging—to self, to others, to the great mystery of life and death—so that delight, intimacy, and coherence become readily available. 

When:

Friday, July 3: 6pm to 9pm

Saturday, July 4: 10am to 5pm

Sunday, July 5: 10am to 5pm

Includes lunch on Saturday and Sunday, vegan and GF options available.

Where: The Lighthouse at Emberlight Center for Conscious Living & Dying

Lodging is not included, but local options are available, including staying over at Emberlight, or other nearby community partners. See your registration email for additional details. 

Host Bio:    

Lee Warren is a Death and Tantra educator and counsellor, somatic guide, and author of Dying Together: The Art of Community Deathcare due out in Fall of 2026. For more than a decade she has offered courses on end-of-life, community, and sacred embodiment. Her work can be found at queenofdeath.org.

Her work empowers people to transform the fear of mortality into intimacy with existence by blending practical and mystical approaches that unravel death phobic cultural narratives. Her work lives at the intersection of death and Tantra, which encourages us to use the sacred vehicle of our bodies to explore the blueprint of our own divinity.

Event Details:

Join us for an embodied, death-literate practice rooted in somatics, mystical inquiry, and community engagement. Ecstasy of Impermanence uses the living body—not doctrine or belief—as the primary teacher for cultivating intimacy with all of life, including death.

Through gentle movement and meditation practices—each adaptable and able to be done seated or lying down—and by resting into a supportive group field, we repattern our nervous systems toward greater trust, coherence, and relational ease. This work is deeply experiential, non-performative, and self paced.

These experiences are designed to help us more fully inhabit our form and, paradoxically, touch our infinity. We use the fact of our temporary nature as an organizing principle that enhances our gratitude and reverence for the generosity and awe embedded in this moment. By settling into the exquisiteness of the now, we begin to decondition our fear of mortality through direct contact with the wisdom in and around the body.

What’s Involved:

Somatic Practices

We will tune into the body’s innate intelligence and awaken an internal, felt sense of our own divinity through guided, body-based meditations, authentic movement, and somatic attunement. Working with slowing down, micro-movements, heart and breath coherence, and sound practices such as humming, chanting, or singing, we uncover deep layers of wisdom within. We also learn to ride the natural waves of emotion—including fear and grief—as they arise. The aim is to cultivate trust: in oneself, in the body, in the genius of life, and ultimately in the reality of our own dying.

Mystical Practices

It’s always been the job of the mystics to remind us that the fear of death is an illusion. That in fact, death is a friend. Through heart- and soul-centered prompts, poetry, and contemplation, we’re invited into gentle inquiry and reflection—opening ways of knowing that often lie beyond the rational mind. As we explore how our archetypal selves move in relationship with the boundlessness of creation; we unwind, organically, softening the barriers that keep us from the rapture of aliveness. This is an invitation into the right hemisphere’s vast and imaginal realm—a trapdoor to the eternal—where images and guidance arise to support us.

Community Practices

Through consent-based partner work, small group exercises, and whole-group discussion, we will play with our shadows, reveal our own beliefs about dying, and build the muscle of receiving—an essential capacity for dying well. In group dialogue, we are reflected and informed by the living wisdom of other humans who, like us, will die, allowing us to metabolize and integrate what is emerging within us. Community of this kind is invaluable: It becomes a living field that grounds insights and enhances our discoveries into tangible understanding, allowing the transformation to root deeply.

NOTE: No previous movement experience is necessary but a willingness to be connected with your body, your intuition, and sense of experimentation and play are required. Folks with mobility challenges are welcome; you choose your level of engagement based on your capacity.

Why This Approach:

At the moment of death, no matter who surrounds us, it is ultimately a journey with ourselves and our soul. Preparing for death requires strengthening this primary relationship. There is no information outside of ourselves that will bring us into contact with our infinite nature—it is an inside investigation.

Together, we step outside linear, goal-driven cultural conditioning and loosen our attachment to the mind’s stories about death. We turn instead toward the golden threads of self-presence, self-guidance, and deep listening, following paths of curiosity, nourishment, as the ultimate sources of connection to our highest selves.

The result is inhabiting this incarnation more fully—in body and soul—and restoring the body as a trustworthy home, however temporary. This is a mystery school devoted to becoming and belonging.