Carole L. Trepanier

11/14/2025

Resource Recommendation: “Becoming Earth” by Robin Wall Kimmerer, for Emergence Magazine (Essay | 15-minute read)

What does it mean to belong to the Earth - not just in life, but in death?

In this powerful essay, botanist and writer Robin Wall Kimmerer invites us to reflect on reciprocity, grief, and what it means to return to the land as kin. With tenderness and clarity, she explores how our end-of-life choices can become acts of belonging... not separations from nature, but reunions.

As End-of-Life Doulas, we are often witness to the ways people seek meaning in their final days. This essay speaks deeply to those longings: for continuity, for connection, for becoming part of something larger than ourselves.

Whether you're supporting others at the end of life, or simply reflecting on your own path, Becoming Earth offers quiet wisdom and poetic guidance.

“To become earth again is not a punishment, but a gift.” - Robin Wall Kimmerer

🔗 URL: https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/becoming-earth/

11/10/2025

“We’ve been going to these pop-up discussion groups at the public library, where people discuss death. I don’t think Tony would go if it wasn’t for me. Most people don’t like to talk about it, but I have questions. Not so much about death anymore. But I have questions about living as I get old. You know how people always say that you walk forward into the future? It’s not true. You walk backwards into the future. You can’t see what’s ahead. Maybe occasionally you can look over your shoulder, and get a glimpse. But mostly you can only see your past receding behind you. And the past that’s receding behind me is getting bigger and bigger. I’m trying to learn to say goodbye, and move forward. But how do you do that? When every week you hear about some other beloved person who’s died, that you’re never going to see again? I feel like I walk around with a retinue of ghosts, beloved ghosts. All the time I see images from the past: the people and the pleasures and the adventures and the beautiful places. And I could just go there and live there. You know how they say about some people: ‘She’s lost in the past?’ I can see how it happens. I could get there. It’s comfortable there, and nothing is demanded of me. And it’s not just the comfort of the past. It’s the danger and uncertainty of what’s ahead of you. I’m fine, and pretty functional, and strong. But I could have a stroke or a heart attack any minute. It could happen at any moment I’m walking down the street. Is this going to be it? Is this going to be the walk? I don’t think of it constantly. I can still be captured by a wonderful play, or a beautiful river, or a child that is so sweet looking at his parents. But it increasingly feels like I’m leaping over chasms from joy to joy.”

11/06/2025

Here's a quick peek at the "Memento Mori Art Show" currently on at Anina's Café in Vanier/Ottawa (my favorite coffee chats place in my 'hood). Pop by!

10/26/2025

There are spiritual healing ceremonies which can help us to renegotiate the subconscious defence directives which no longer serve us, unchain us from the prison of our inner repressions, and coax out of hiding our beautiful, shining, thriving Spirits. It is possible to feel ALIVE again.

10/25/2025

My mom used to get a kick out of me saying that “I took pictures with my eyes.” It was the reason I had little to no pics to show her of the places I visited over the years—Ghana, Peru, Nigeria, Amsterdam, Burkina Faso, etc. I preferred to be in the moment. Today, I took it a little further.

I spent the morning savouring the sun and the Dominion Arboretum (Ottawa) on a facilitated walk with Andrea Prazmowski of Forest Therapy Ottawa. Communing with all forest life is nothing new for me, but sometimes when you’re a facilitator of Earth-honouring ceremony for others, it’s soooo good to have someone else holding it down for you.

Andrea took a small group of us on a 3hr sensory journey of noticing--being present to/with—the feast that is the Arboretum. We focused on sounds, smells, what was drawing us in, what called for deeper relating, what was moving, what our skin was feeling. The women shared what was coming up for them, what they noticed, what they perceived, what the trees/birds/stones were whispering. We also shared some of what was stirring within us, in our lives, in our deaths. We then sat in circle under a weeping canopy of trees, made offerings, drank white pine tea, ate chocolate and apples, and appreciated each other’s presence.

Today I took many pictures…with my eyes, my ears, my hands, my body, my breath, my Spirit.

May your day also be sweet. x

10/21/2025

For the last 4 years, I've held space for a beautiful online circle of women/non-binary folks looking to rest, heal, explore their gifts, engage their Spirit helpers, be tended, express, and know all things as new over the winter months. The healing ceremonies are powerful, the bonds grow deep, and all who journey meet the spring changed.

This is a gentle reminder that "Shelter Together 2025/2026" starts in a few weeks. If you hope to join us this year, Beauty, please get your registration in. This circle requires no prior ritual experience; come as you are. You were never meant to do all this alone. ❤

All details here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1828221054766010/1828221084766007/

Art: "A Boat to Float In" by Josie Wren

10/20/2025

What a lovely afternoon spent with fellow deathcare practitioners and the Ottawa community at the "Return to the Earth" event. Ottawa's deathcare community offers such a kind, easeful, serene space for gathering. This year I spent some time engaging the interactive activities, and it was good to be mindful, in this space, of the dozens of people I've lost, the aftertimes, and my own heart.

I found myself enthralled by an artist's handmade shrouds/fabric bags--meticulous pieces made of Ancestral laces, wedding dresses, baby clothes, birch bark, beading, tablecloths, crocheted doilies.

We spoke at length about the personalization of burial shrouds and I wondered about what fabrics/adornments might speak to my own life lived--my mother's wedding dress, my father's hunting plaid, a sash of the Witches Tartan, roses, sweetgrass, Yoruba beads, cedar sprigs, etc... I'm loving the contemplation.

If you've never attended a community deathcare event, I'm telling you it is time well-spent. It is time with your own Soul in an honouring of your body and your humanity. More of that, please.

10/13/2025

Hey, Ottawa-area folks! Pop by this Saturday for Community Deathcare Ottawa's annual open house event! I'll be on hand to chat with about spiritual deathcare, animist healing and Earth-honouring ceremony/practices.

Come find me if you're curious about: spiritual death planning, spiritual companionship, Ancestral lineage healing, unburdening/lightening ceremony, Spirit engagement, pre-Forgiveness/Forgiveness ceremony, Death Rites, psychopomp (crossing/elevation/Ancestralization), grief ceremony/healing, rebuilding/Dreaming, Ancestral tending/ongoing engagement, home cleansings, etc. No questions are too vulnerable or weird! I got you.

There will be other deathcare practitioners on site, casket painting, shrouding demonstrations, self-guided activities and yummy snacks.

❤

What if you could return to the earth as naturally as a leaf falls from a tree? Join Community Deathcare Ottawa on October 18th for Return to the Earth, an immersive event exploring dying, death, and disposition through art, practice, and community connection. Discover how we can nourish the world after life.

Free to attend, family-friendly, Glebe St. James church from 2 to 4pm. Learn more at communitydeathcareottawa.com

10/02/2025

“My next great adventure, aged 90, is going to be dying. There’s either nothing or something. If there’s nothing there’s nothing, that’s it. If there’s something I can’t think of a greater adventure than finding out what it is. I happen to think there is something because of the experiences I’ve had, because of experiences other people have had. Very powerful ones.”

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What an incredible way to view death from Jane Goodall, who has been a global figurehead for international conservation for 6 decades! What an inspiration she is.

With love
Fiona
www.earthmonk.guru

From the wonderful Jane Goodall being interviewed on Channel 4 News.

09/25/2025

It's officially Spooky Season! The Perth Museum invites you to a Victorian mourning experience. 💀 Make a day of it! Perth also brings gorgeous park views, a chocolate factory, riverside coffees, antiques, fashion, pie shops, live theatre and much more.