Fall Institute Retreat
$350.00
Join us in October 2025 for the Fall Institute Retreat!
All called to nourish and strengthen the work of holding space for birth, breath, and death are welcome.
*CCLD members and Institute members receive 50% off of their tuition. Use 50off as a code to access this benefit for the Fall Institute Retreat. All are welcome to join the Institute ~ membership is lifelong.
Description
The 3rd Annual Fall Institute Retreat at
the Center for Conscious Living & Dying
Friday, October 24 ~
Sunday, October 26
Asheville, North Carolina
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The Institute for the Study of Birth, Breath, and Death
& The Center for Conscious Living & Dying
invite you to a nourishing 2025 Fall Institute Retreat!
Join us for meditation, ritual, song, silence,
healing, laughter, hope, reflection, education, & restoration.
Here is the itinerary for the weekend.
Fall in the Blue Ridge Mountains is gorgeous!!!
We will begin at 7pm on Friday, October 24 and conclude at 1pm on Sunday, October 26.
The 2025 Fall Institute Retreat will be held 15 minutes from Asheville, NC
at the Center for Conscious Living & Dying, located at: 83 Sanctuary Road, Swannanoa, NC 28778.
*All participants are responsible for their own lodging, food, accommodations, and childcare.
Here are local accommodation suggestions to consider.
Aditi Sethi, MD ~ (she/her) is a hospice and palliative care physician, end-of-life doula, and Executive Director of the Center for Conscious Living and Dying. Featured in the forthcoming film The Last Ecstatic Days, Aditi is an emerging and important voice for shifting our culture’s understanding and approach to dying, death, and bereavement care. As a child under the guidance of her parents (Kapil and Ranjit Sethi) and grandparents from India, Aditi studied devotional music from the Sikh and Hindu traditions.
Her other music pursuits include playing music with her husband, Jay Brown, a musician and hospice music therapist. Aditi and Jay recently formed a group called The Appalucians, with Angie Heimann and Cas Sochaki. Releasing their first CD “Bright Hills” in 2018, the Appalucians play music from the mountains of Western North Carolina, featuring spirited songwriting, tight harmonies, and a lovely layered interplay between dobro, guitars, harp, bass, and banjo. Aditi and Jay are the parents of three amazing children. Learn more here.
Center for Conscious Living and Dying (CCLD), an organization in partnership with the Institute. CCLD is working to reclaim, practice, and share a timeless wisdom: community support in end of life transitions. The Center for Conscious Living and Dying (CCLD) is organizing and training a diverse group of volunteer caregivers who will provide free non-medical end of life care as well as education on options to supplement support for the emotional and spiritual needs of families facing this universal experience.
Paule Johanne Toussaint-Parrish (Joie) ~ (she/her) holds an Ed.S in Counseling from Rider University. Joie is the founder of Joie de Vivre Family Services. She is a Master Teacher, Educator, Birth Doula, Life coach, Parent Coach, Wife, and Mother. Joie holds an Administrative
Melody LeBaron ~ (she/her) started her career—in her teens—as a professional organizer, helping her clients get decluttered and organized. She added Feng Shui, Space Clearing, Kundalini yoga and pranayama to her offerings and along the way, for more than 35 years, she’s also been called in to work with the dying and their caregivers, to help them partner with the environment (the land, the home/facility, and especially the room) to support the transformative process of dying.
In her 70 years, Melody has lived in 30 homes across the US and Canada, giving her a vast spiritual geography, an understanding nature is alive and intelligent and longs to partner with us….and a knowing that the energy inside our dwellings is ALSO alive and intelligent, and longs to partner with us. In her book “Transforming Death: Creating Sacred Space for the Dying,” she shares how to set up the room in which a death will occur in ways that support the (physical, mental, emotional and spiritual) “tasks” of dying.
LeBaron wrote “Transforming Death: Creating Sacred Space for the Dying” for each person who will someday die, for those who seek a more conscious death, and for those who care for the dying. “Each dying person needs a team,” she says. “The room needs to be treated as a member of the team.” The book is available for purchase on Amazon in Kindle and paperback formats.
Trained by Francis Weller, Melody also works with the bereaved to catalyze the difficult emotions evoked through grief, and claim the gifts of the grieving process. For more information, visit Melody’s website.
Saskia Meckman (She/her) is a Registered Yoga Teacher, since 2003. She was first introduced to yoga in 1994, on a whim, thanks to her brother. Over the years, she has studied, received certifications, and attended workshops and conferences with a wide variety of yoga instructors, influencing both her life and her teachings. Saskia holds certifications in Kripalu Yoga, Prenatal Yoga, Radiant Child Yoga, Stand Up Paddleboard (SUP) Yoga, and Yin Yoga.
In addition to yoga, Saskia is a Certified Reiki Practitioner. She brings her loving light and energy into each of her yoga classes. Over the years, she has studied meditation and mindfulness, weaving these practices into her Mindful Yin Yoga class.
Born in the US to an Ecuadorean mother and a Dutch/Austrian/Danish father, Saskia grew up in Europe for 14 years. With her family, she lived in France, Germany, Luxembourg, and The Netherlands where she attended school and learned the languages and cultures of each country.
Saskia has spent the past 25 years training and coaching global executives and their families relocating internationally, assisting them in creating smooth transitions – taking yoga off the mat and into daily life. She holds a BS from Tufts University, MA in Child Psychology and Education with a minor in Dance and a Masters in Intercultural and International Management with a focus on HR and Training from School for International Training (SIT), VT. She now uses all of these experiences to coach women going through all transitions in life.
For over 20 years, Saskia has lived and taught yoga in Boston, MA and South Florida. In 2019, she moved to the Triangle Area of NC and now resides in Hillsborough with her husband and daughter. She loves creating community and spreading the love of yoga.
Katie Patton (she/her) is a ceremonialist, teacher, herbalist, doula, singer of songs, dancer of dances, and dreamer of dreams. She lives on the unceded ancestral lands of the Cherokee people in what we refer to as Swannanoa, NC. There she grows a bountiful garden, abundant with food and medicine. Katie listens deeply to the land, which holds us through these times, and does her best to live in the spirit of reciprocity.
Katie has long been called to stand as a guardian at the gates between life, death and rebirth. She’s humbled to serve these thresholds and reverently celebrates the potency of transformation found in such liminal places. Learn more about Katie and her offerings via her website liminalbounty.com
