Painting by Ninetta Sombart © Photo: Raffael-Verlag

Welcome to our Quietude Practitioner Training 2025

This is a Blended Course: Ten days summer residential followed by ten 3-hours online sessions.  The Residential Retreat will run from the 3rd to 13th June 2025 and will include approximately 55 hours of teaching.  

Do you sense a calling for this work? 

Are you looking for a new direction? 

Are you involved in end of life care? 

Summer Residential at Emerson

The 10-day summer residential offers participants an in-depth understanding of the journey that leads to the threshold of death. We will also consider ideas about the continuity of consciousness especially, but not only, from the teachings of Rudolf Steiner and Tibetan Buddhism. Group work, singing, improvisation, eurythmy and artwork will support participants to process and digest their learning experiences. There will be time to reflect, connect with nature and enjoy the midsummer beauty here at Emerson. 

Online*

Jul ’25 to Jan ’26 (for provisional dates see our Programme section below)

After the residential, the work to become a Quietude Practitioner will continue and deepen through practical work and assignments. Everything you are learning and experiencing will be integrated through ten 3-hour online sessions where further aspects of spiritual and emotional accompaniment will also be taught and your practice deepened through continuing group work together.  We will complete the training course with two sessions close together, each four hours long, to allow time for each participant to share the fruits of their project work.

*We understand that online learning is not for everyone. Anyone wishing to explore a retreat-only option is warmly invited to contact registrar@emerson.org.uk

Quietude® is designed to train and empower people to become true soul companions to those on the threshold of death. It is a path of development for people of all faiths and doubts, open to the idea of the continuity of life beyond the gateway we call death.

Our new Blended Course format of ten days summer residential followed by ten 3 or 4-hour online sessions has been designed, by popular request, to meet the needs of international participants wanting to embark on the journey of Quietude, as well as those living in more distant parts of the UK. 

The course creates a safe space in which to open the language and conversation around death and dying in a conscious, compassionate way, and provides a deep level of skills, knowledge and understanding of what is possible. Through this training you can deepen your ability to offer spiritual and emotional support those with a life limiting illness or the elderly frail who are in need end-of-life care.

DOWNLOAD OUR COURSE INFORMATION BOOKLET

WHO IS IT FOR?

• Caring or medical professionals and volunteers
• People seeking to volunteer and support those at end-of-life
• Chaplains, interfaith ministers, faith based spiritual or religious leaders or facilitators
• Carers and/or family members
• Complementary health practitioners
• Birth or death doulas
• People with an intuitive calling for this work
• Professionals looking for a change of career
• People looking to explore and gain a deeper understanding of death

Quietude® is open to people of all faiths or doubts.
An openness to the idea of the continuity of life after death is helpful.

WHAT WILL YOU LEARN? 

This course is a path of development and has been shown to enhance your own spiritual awareness and trust in the spiritual world, as well as deepen your ability to accompany people in what can often be a time of crisis, vulnerability, and questioning.

The course teaches:

• What can happen in the stages of dying, at death and after death
• The types of support needed by those losing a loved one, and those who are bereaved
• How to give comfort and relief through the art of gentle therapeutic touch: ‘M’ Technique®
• The practical tasks around death (e.g. writing a will, planning a funeral, helping someone think how and where they would like to die)
• How to come to a place of peace in your personal journey with grief and loss, and your own feelings about death and dying
• How to deepen your own sense of Presence needed for the art of accompanying
• The importance of self-care to support you in your journey as a Quietude® Practitioner
• How to support someone in talking about and reflecting upon their life (biography work)
• To develop a spiritual practice through meditation, mindfulness, quiet contemplation, and open-hearted listening
• To become confident in offering blessings or prayers for someone who is dying, and/or their family
• To become familiar with the ways we can support those who have already died and moved into the realms of the Spirit.

The spiritual philosophy behind the course will be based mainly on the work of Rudolf Steiner. Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and practices around death and dying will also be taught.

HOW THE COURSE MIGHT BENEFIT YOU

The journey of dying can also be seen as an opportunity for renewal, healing, and forgiveness for those we accompany.
In taking this course, you may also discover a renewal of meaning and choices that you wish for in the rest of your own life. The supportive holding of the group space, creative exercises, conversation and activities, as well as teaching presentations are all designed to help you in deepening your own journey.

Many participants find that they discover or strengthen their own inner wisdom and feel this course to be a container where their voice can be truly heard.

‘I came to Quietude with an intention to be able to assist dying people and their families with bereavement in a helpful and respectful way. I believe I got that. But what moved and surprised me even more is that Quietude brought me “back to life “and as a mother of two very lively young children I was able to tune in, into the rich supply of universal energy and I truly, consciously enjoy every day ever since.’
– Anna Duncan

The course also aims to nurture the confidence and the skills needed to develop in your existing profession or embark on a new professional or vocational path.

‘The opportunity to be able to share thoughts around subjects that rarely get spoken about is wonderful, to explore more deeply within a safe, supportive environment is priceless. The space to think about past wrongs, and ‘to let go’, so redeeming. And to feel validated and understood is invaluable. To experience this and then put that into practice, to help the people we support and will be supporting in the future is incredibly special.

When I was counselling the quality of the (therapeutic) relationship was the most important aspect of the work, and I believe that most people, when provided with a safe space to express themselves authentically, will be able to work through many of the issues that they are trying to deal with. To be able to say things out loud, to a trusted person, they can then start to process and hopefully reduce that constant noise in their heads, to break into it and free themselves from that cycle, to help heal themselves.

Thank you, Annie, for creating this course and I hope to be able to take all I have learned forward and dearly hope to create something as special within the Hospice.’

Jane Pantony, Head of Counselling at Hospice in the Weald