Education & Trainings
Loren has a passion for teaching and has developed and taught spiritual care models for hospice volunteer and staff across multiple organizations. She currently serves as core faculty for the Willow Farm Contemplative End-of-Life Care training program, educating hospice professionals, death doulas, volunteers & caregivers, and leads regular retreats exploring the Mystery of death.
Recent Trainings
"This retreat gave me more to guide my path through the dying process than I could ever describe in writing. Within two days, Loren gently guided me to reach deep into my own soul and begin to curiously grasp the process of my own death, as well as my sister’s. Loren’s amazing ability to bring truth and beauty to end-of-life realities carried me to a sacred acceptance of death and all its mysteries..."-Jamie S.
Standing At The Threshold: Journeys Toward the Mystery of Death & Dying
Retreat offered Jan. 17-19, 2020
Most of us have never been invited to approach the mystery of our own dying. In a largely death-phobic culture, we are not often encouraged to invite relationship to this inevitable and profound transition until it is upon us.
Our Death lives within our Life, and like anything, we can choose to turn toward or away from it. If...we open a relationship to our dying, how might death begin to make it’s gifts known to us? How does drawing near to the mystery of dying, as we are living, help develop the presence required to meet our death and the death(s) of those we love? In this two day retreat, we will explore what life tells us about what unfolds at this exquisite psycho-spiritual threshold. Through guided journeying and personal inquiry we will begin to touch and invite relationship to what "lies beyond what we know", at the juncture of matter & spirit, life & death
Ongoing & Past Trainings
"Loren's capacity to hold a group through the curiosities that live in the realm of end-of-life care is remarkable. Her kind, gentle and poetic approach leaves us all in awe and wonder for the world we are about to step into..." ~ Siobhan A.-Death Doula
Psycho-Spiritual Dimensions of End-of-Life
*This ongoing training is taught bi-annually as part of the 'Cause To Pause Contemplative Care Training' program held at Willow Farm
- Cultural contexts of end-of-life
- The dissolution of ego during death/dying and the transformative opportunities this process presents
- Meaning-making at end-of-life
- How to work with what arises for us as caregivers when we are in the presence of suffering (not fixing, judging or turning away)
- Gateways for developing presence and self-compassion that arise on the caregiving journey
Being with Self, Being with Other, Being with Dying
Offered June, 2017 & 2018
How does our conscious presence with ourselves—our bodies, minds and hearts—directly inform and enhance our presence with others?
This embodied journey gets to the “heart of the matter”, directing us toward an intimate personal encounter with the active and dynamic continuum between Self and Other. Here, we will gain tools for sitting in the belly of suffering—our own and others, living and dying. This day-long retreat will introduce a variety of presence-practices. Background in meditation practice(s) of any form or tradition is encouraged.
