Tending the Heart: Healing in Community (Live Music Event)

RSVP HERE

Grief asks for company. It asks for breath, for hands, for sound, and for a room where nothing needs to be fixed.

On Saturday morning, heart2heartnc offers a space to love fully, grieve deeply, and bring comfort to ourselves and to one another.

Cathy Brooksie Edwards will lead us through a journey of breathwork, light movement, and healing touch. As we travel the transformative spaces of touch and sound, musicians Amy Durso and Lolly Dunlap of Bear Roots, along with friends, provide a soulful soundscape. Hands-on healers will be present to offer light energy work during the rest period of the soundscape.

Loving presence is one of Emberlight's core values, and it lives in a morning like this one: deep listening, compassion, and bearing witness, offered through breath and touch and attention. We would love to welcome you into this circle.

The night before, on Friday, August 28, from 5:30 to 7:00 PM, Amy and Lolly of Bear Roots join Tami Schwerin in the Lighthouse for an evening of live music and storytelling celebrating Tami's book, Welcome to Death Faire: Love, Loss and Healing in a Small Southern Town. You are warmly welcome to make a weekend of it.

We are also featuring Tami for an in depth conversation with Emberlight founder Aditi Sethi in our virtual Author Series, Stories at the Threshold, on Wednesday, August 26 at 12pm.

What to bring

Please bring your own yoga mat, water, blanket, and any props that support your comfort as you relax into the stillness of your tender heart. Chairs will be available. Feel free to arrive several minutes early to prepare your spot and settle into your sacred space for participation.

About heart2heartnc

Since 2018, heart2heartnc has been dedicated to helping individuals navigate end of life with a greater sense of ease, and to supporting families and communities through the grief journey as they walk the path of healing. Their community-based events and services are grounded in the power of human connection and in the understanding and proven practice of various modalities, from touch and sound to movement and mindfulness.

heart2heartnc is part of Sanctuary at the Burrow, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit conservation green burial ground which supports natural burial and cares for the deceased with reverence and respect. Alongside heart2heartnc's services, they collaborate with the Sanctuary to offer nondenominational end-of-life services and to help families and communities create a meaningful experience that honors the dead and comforts the living.

About Cathy Brooksie Edwards

Brooksie is the founder, director, and facilitator of heart2heartnc, and a licensed clinical counselor with more than 25 years of experience (NCLCMHC #2733, LMBT #692). She graduated from SUNY Plattsburgh in 1996 with a Master's in Community Counseling and an undergraduate degree in music performance, then moved to North Carolina to study massage and bodywork therapy, earning her certification from The Body Therapy Institute. Her private practice allowed her to deepen her work as a somatic practitioner. In the spring of 2018 she traveled to Hawaii to study with Ram Dass, whose spiritual teachings drew her toward the process of conscious death and dying. She returned home, became a hospice volunteer, and completed her Death Doula Certification through Doorway Into Light, training that prepared her to walk with individuals, families, and communities from the moment of diagnosis and well beyond. She is also a certified Kundalini Yoga teacher, and she brings movement and music into the grief journey.

Through heart2heartnc, Brooksie offers hands-on healing, energy work, body talk practices, gentle guidance, and music to support people through loss, grief, transition, and fear. She works from the orientation that deep stillness, unconditional love, non-judgment, and kindness hold a holy healing space.

Brooksie is also one of the contributors to Welcome to Death Faire.

Where to meet

We gather in the Lighthouse at Emberlight, 83 Sanctuary Road, Swannanoa, NC 28778. Parking is limited on site, so please consider carpooling when you can.

Suggested donation

Your contribution supports the mission and vision of Emberlight: Center for Conscious Living & Dying and the practitioners who hold this morning. This event is open to all, with a suggested donation of $35 so that cost is never the reason someone cannot join us. We encourage you to give what feels right and possible for you. Every contribution is a gift and helps sustain this work and the care at the heart of it.

Please note that all event tickets are non-refundable, except in the case that Emberlight cancels the event for any reason, a full refund will be issued.

Questions? Please contact the Events Team at events@emberlightway.org.