Indigenous Perspectives on Life & Death: A Dialogue with Amazonian Practitioners

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About the Evening

Emberlight is honored to host Dr. Adana Omágua Kambeba and environmental activist Álvaro Tukano (Chief Yepã Mahsã), from the Amazon basin of Brazil, for an evening of multicultural conversation about end-of-life care, mortality salience, environmental justice, and the roles of medicine and community in cultivating wholistic health.

What can we learn from Indigenous perspectives on personal well-being and healing rooted in community and land? How might they deepen our understanding of the sacred relationship between life and death, and of integrated medical and therapeutic practices?

At Emberlight, every day we practice ways to embrace death and support one another with loving presence. This evening widens that practice.We gather in curiosity and respect for all beings to listen as two keepers of ancestral knowledge share how their peoples tend to life, to death, and to the land that holds both.

The Conversation

The evening centers on a conversation between our esteemed guests and Emberlight founder Dr. Aditi Sethi, a hospice physician and end-of-life doula who is a leading voice in reimagining dying as something we can meet together, in community.

The conversation will be moderated by Emberlight's creative advisor and rites of passage ambassador Joel Karabo Elliott, and ample time will be dedicated for Q&A.

Emberlight community members are most welcome to join us for this inspiring conversation, as well as doulas, doctors, and palliative care practitioners from around the Asheville area.

How to Join

We will gather in the Lighthouse on the Emberlight campus, and the conversation will also be live streamed online. This conversation will be recorded, so please register to join and receive the recording, even if you can't join us live.

When checking out, please select the ticket that matches how you will join us. Seating in the room is limited, so please choose an In-Person ticket only if you plan to be with us in the Lighthouse. If you will join the live stream or watch the recording later, please choose an Online ticket, so we can save the seats in the room for those joining us in person.

Meet the Speakers

Álvaro Tukano (Chief Yepã Mahsã)

Doéthiro Álvaro Tukano is a Chief and Elder of the Yepã Mahsã (Tukano) people from the Black River region of the Amazon, where Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela meet. One of Brazil's important Indigenous political leaders, he helped carry the movement that secured Indigenous rights in Brazil's 1988 Constitution, co-founded the Union of Indigenous Nations (UNI) in the 1970s, and in 1990 founded the Federation of Indigenous Organizations of the Rio Negro to resist mining on ancestral lands.

He is an author, philosopher, and practitioner of traditional plant medicine, and his life and work are featured in the documentaries The Chiefs and Cobra Canoa, Spirit of Transformation. He divides his time between the Amazon, where he carries responsibility for the well-being of thousands of Yepã Mahsã people, and Brasília, where he continues his work as an Indigenous leader.

Dr. Adana Omágua Kambeba

Dr. Adana Omágua Kambeba is an Indigenous physician, spiritual practitioner, educator, and activist from the Omágua Kambeba people of the Amazon. One of the first Indigenous women of her region to graduate from medical school in Brazil, she carries both the knowledge of Western medicine and the traditional medicine of her people, and is completing the final stage of an eight-year cycle of dietas, a rigorous apprenticeship within her tradition.

Her work bridges two systems of knowledge that are often kept apart, and extends into the protection of Indigenous communities and the Amazon. In May 2025, she met with King Charles III alongside other Indigenous leaders to discuss illegal mining, river pollution, and their impact on the health of Indigenous children and communities. You can hear more from her here.

Dr. Aditi Sethi

Dr. Aditi Sethi is a hospice and palliative care physician, end-of-life doula, musician, and the founder of Emberlight. Her TED Talk, The Art of Dying Before You Die, and her companionship of Ethan Sisser at the end of his life, shared in the documentary The Last Ecstatic Days, helped plant the seed of Emberlight, a place where dying can be held in community with loving presence.

Joel Karabo Elliott

Joel Karabo Elliott is Emberlight's Creative Advisor and Rites of Passage Ambassador. His relationship with Emberlight began as a volunteer in 2022 and deepened through his work as Artist in Residence.

Joel brings creativity, culture, and a deep understanding of rites of passage to Emberlight's work. Through his music, teaching, and relationships with communities around the world, he helps carry Emberlight's vision outward while bringing new inspiration back home.

Pay What You Can

This is a Pay What You Can event, and a portion of all proceeds support Emberlight. The care we offer is free to every resident and family who comes to us, and it stays free because this community holds it up. Your ticket goes directly into that work.

We invite you to give what feels right for you, and for those able to give more, that generosity is what keeps a bed open and a hand held for the next person who needs one. We would love to welcome you into this circle whatever the amount.

Please note that all event tickets are non-refundable, except in the case that Emberlight cancels the event. Please contact events@emberlightway.org with any questions.