How we accompany one another through dying matters deeply.
Through story, music, ceremony, reflection and conversation, we'll discover the many ways this work is being carried into the world, and connect with each other along the way.
Come explore mortality as a teacher and share the calling that brings love, meaning and humanity to the way we accompany one another through dying and grieving.
Find Your People
Work with dying and grief can be deeply meaningful. It can also feel solitary.
This weekend offers something we do not often have enough of: time with others who understand the calling.
Meet people doing this work in different ways. Exchange ideas and resources. Discover new practices. Make connections that can continue long after the weekend ends.
Let Mortality Be a Teacher
Together, we will explore mortality not simply as something that happens at the end of life, but as a teacher of how we live now.
Through story, music, ceremony, meditation, conversation, and shared experience, we will explore some of the questions at the heart of this work:
How do we become more present?
How do we accompany without trying to fix?
What can grief teach us?
How do ritual, music, nature, and community help us navigate loss?
And what happens when we allow dying to deepen the way we live?
Experience, Not Just Information
This is not a weekend of sitting through lectures.
You will participate in interactive workshops and conversations, guided meditation, music and storytelling, grief practices, a natural burial panel, a fire circle, and time for reflection and sharing.
You will have opportunities to learn from experienced teachers and practitioners while also learning from one another.
And there will be space simply to be together.
Come for the Weekend or Stay Nearby
Stay with us at Claymont for the full retreat, or commute from nearby, or join us for Friday evening only. We’ve created some options so you can take part in a way that works best for you.
What You'll Experience
The Last Ecstatic Days
Film, conversation and music with Aditi Sethi, MD
Music, Meditation & Grief
Therapeutic music, guided meditation, ceremonial grief concert and fire
Holding Space for Birth, Breath and Death
An interactive workshop with Amy Wright Glenn
Natural Burial and
Body Disposition
Panel Discussion with practitioners working in natural burial
Reflection and Connection
Storytelling, shared practice and time to learn from one another
Meet Aditi and Amy
Dr. Aditi Sethi and Amy Wright Glenn bring years of experience accompanying people through some of life's most profound thresholds.
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Aditi is the founder of Emberlight and the hospice and palliative care physician featured in The Last Ecstatic Days.
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Amy is the founder of the Institute for the Study of Birth, Breath and Death and author of Holding Space: On Loving, Dying and Letting Go.
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At Claymont, they invite us into something more personal than a presentation: conversation, practice, reflection and answers to the questions that have shaped their own lives and work.
Ready to Join Us, We'd Love to Meet You
A Remarkable Place to Gather
Claymont has been a place of gathering, inquiry and transformation for more than 50 years.
Set on hundreds of acres in the Shenandoah Valley, the retreat center grew from the vision of J. G. Bennett, a philosopher and spiritual teacher who imagined a place where people could explore what it means to live consciously and in service to one another.
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That history makes Claymont an especially fitting home for this weekend. We come to a place created for questions, reflection and community to explore one of life's deepest questions:
How does knowing we will die change the way we choose to live?
Claymont Great Barn
Acres of Nature to Enjoy
The Weekend At A Glance
Each day offers different ways into the experience
Friday · Gathering at the Threshold
Friday begins socially. Arrive, settle into Claymont, meet the people you’ll be spending the weekend with and share dinner together.
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The evening centers on The Last Ecstatic Days, followed by conversation with Dr. Aditi Sethi, the film’s central physician and founder of Emberlight. The film takes us intimately into one young man’s choice to meet his dying openly, surrounded by community.
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Afterward, we’ll move from film and conversation into fire and music,
beginning the weekend not simply by talking about death, but by creating
space to experience what it awakens in us.
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Friday is especially for: those drawn to the film, Aditi’s work in community-supported end-of-life care and an evocative opening evening of music and fire.
Saturday · Holding Space, Grief &
Returning to the Earth
Saturday takes us more deeply into the practices of accompanying dying and grief.
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Amy Wright Glenn, author of Holding Space: On Loving, Dying and Letting Go, leads an experiential exploration of what it means to hold space for another person through life’s most profound thresholds.
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We turn toward the body and the earth through a Natural Burial Grounds Panel, exploring choices for natural burial and body disposition. Sarah Lasswell joins us with a handwoven willow coffin, bringing these possibilities out of the abstract and into something we can actually see, touch and encounter.
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Music continues throughout the day, including the Threshold Choir, and the evening moves into a ceremonial grief experience, music and fire ritual: a chance to give expression to grief rather than merely discuss it.
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Saturday is especially for: doulas, caregivers, practitioners and anyone interested in holding space, natural burial, grief ritual and embodied practices around dying.
Sunday · What Calls Us to This Work
Sunday turns inward and toward one another.
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Through, Death Meditation Bardo, group reflections and shared experiences, the pace becomes quieter and more spacious.
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And this is where one of the richest resources of the entire weekend comes forward: each of YOU who have been present in the room.
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What brought each of us here?
What have we learned from dying and grief?
What are we carrying into our communities?
What questions are still alive in us?
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There will be time to hear from one another, discover the connections among our different paths and gather what we want to carry home.
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Sunday is especially for: those longing for reflection, meaningful conversation, spiritual practice and connection with others called to this work.
Claymont Retreat Center
667 Huyett Rd, Charles Town, WV 25414
Quick Details:
When: Friday, October 9, 4:00 PM to Sunday, October 11, 1:00 PM
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Where: Claymont Retreat Center:
667 Huyett Road, Charles Town, WV 25414
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Lodging and Meals:
Residential participants stay at Claymont in shared rooms and receive meals throughout the weekend. Most rooms have 2–4 single beds; a limited number have double beds. Bathrooms are shared, and most bedrooms are upstairs. One ground-floor accessible room is available.
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Lodging and roommate requests can be made during registration
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Single Friday Pass: You are invited to join us Friday evening for dinner, music, fellowship and a screening of "The Last Ecstatic Days" facilitated by Dr. Aditi Sethi.
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Have a question about the weekend?
Click the envelope and send us an email>
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Detailed Schedule, Accommodations Floor Plan and Pricing:
Click the document for a complete PDF with details>
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​Cancellation Policy:
Registration is non-refundable. If Emberlight cancels the retreat, registration fees will be refunded in full.​
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