Approaching the return of the light at mid-winter, and the festivals of Hannukah and Christmas can also be a precious time of remembering our loved ones who have crossed the Threshold, perhaps missing them, and yet, sensing their loving presence alongside us through the Holy Nights.

Since launching the first Quietude course in September 2020, seventy students have joined the Quietude journey.  The fourth cohort will be completing their training in January 2025. We changed the format for the last group, with an eight-day residential at Emerson in June, ’24, followed by ten online sessions, with further teaching and whilst the assignments were completed.  Each year I have been deeply moved and humbled by the quality of the students’ assignments, and this year has been no exception.  With the new format, people can now join Quietude from many parts of the world.  I am inspired by the number of Quietudians who are starting groups in their own areas, (including Italy, Iceland, Israel, and the UK) where the themes of death and dying, as well as bereavement can become open hearted conversations.

The taboos in our society around talking about death and dying mean that when a life limiting illness or terminal diagnosis arrives, or death seems suddenly and unexpectedly imminent many people can feel totally unprepared, taken by surprise.  Indeed, it may seem counter intuitive to prepare for death while one is happily enjoying life.

Quietude® is a training course for people who wish to offer spiritual and emotional support to those on the journey of death and dying. One of the first questions I ask my students to consider is what would you do (differently) if you knew you only had a year left to live, how would you feel if you had just one month left? One week. One day.

This exercise challenged a particular student. Despite being a mother, with two young children, she had felt an intuitive push from inside to join the course.  She had arrived feeling burdened with the responsibilities and the exhaustion of being a mum but after completing the seven modules, she left feeling she had reclaimed her real self, and her joy and passion for living.  Every day is now precious for her in a new way.

It is a paradox to say that as we think about death and inwardly prepare, even if the moment may not come until decades later, it frees us up to live our life with more awareness, inner peace, and happiness.  The practical preparation, particularly making a will, is of course essential as well!

To offer spiritual and emotional support to those who are close to death, one needs to be fully and authentically available.  So, I invite my students to look at their own journey with loss and bereavement, unfinished business and how they may feel about dying and life after death. We do this in a variety of ways, including colour work and interactive exercises, journaling, dialogue, and meditation practices, having established a sense of real safety in the group.  

We are blessed to have some wonderful guest teachers: ~ for example Naamah Pinkerfeld leads the group in singing together, Diana Fischer teaches Eurythmy, Vivian Gladwell explores the Threshold with the group through clowning, and Sophia Smith shares her research about life before birth.

People are drawn to the course for many reasons. Some because they have an elderly parent or other relative who they wish to support when the time comes, others because their experience of accompanying a loved on already has led them to wish to explore the journey more fully. Others may already be involved in health care, for example as a G.P., a hospice counsellor or chaplain, an occupational or speech and language therapist, acupuncturist, homeopath, reflexologist.  Some of my students are birth doulas, or kindergarten teachers and recognise that the gateway of birth and death are the same.  Others come to the course looking for a change of career path, or simply because the serendipity of life has led them here.

I have been inspired personally by the work of Rudolf Steiner, who during the first world war, gave very many lectures about death and life after death, at a tender time, when a whole generation of men were dying in the war.  A phrase he often repeated was “the dead are with us’, explaining how those who died live on and how we can continue to support them and receive their support in our daily lives, through our love and prayers. 

I have also studied the Tibetan Buddhist approach to death and dying and discovered many similarities with what Rudolf Steiner has taught.  An example of this is that after we die, my understanding is that we review our life backwards, and experience directly the impact we had on others throughout our life, by feeling what they felt because of our actions or words, kind or cruel. 

This idea brings us full circle to thinking about the quality of how we live our life now, and that we cannot evade the consequences of our thoughts, words, and deeds.  To quote my husband’s best friend: ~ “just be kind”.  Whatever we may think about life after death, this is helpful advice!

Everyone can offer heart felt listening and kindness to others and discover the transformative and powerful effects of wishing loved ones, friends, people we don’t know well, even our so-called enemies, and all living beings, happiness, wellness and inner peace.

“May you be well, may you be happy, may you be at peace” most especially at this turning point from one year to the next.

Annie Blampied-Radojčin

The next cohort of Quietude® begins in June 2025, click here for more details and to register.