Blessing Your Journey
With Hilarie Hauptman, Leeann Tourtillott and Karen Lohmann
September 11 - 15, 2025
Thursday Sept 11 Dinner through Monday Sept 15 Breakfast
You’re invited to a supportive, experiential and reflective retreat in a uniquely beautiful setting to do deep work in the company of others; contemplate your own death and the death of significant others.
We will listen, write, draw, sing and be sung to. Prepare for guided conversations and rituals around the intimate topic of death and what most matters to us. We will look at the emotional, relational, physical, environmental, and spiritual aspects of dying.
Explore what happens to your body when you die. We will cover legal alternative disposition methods; Aquamation, Natural Organic Reduction, as well as conservation, green/natural burial. Deepen your understanding of home vigils, shrouding and altar building.
Together we will explore this shared inevitable reality with both depth and lightness, creating an emotional safe space for embodied practices and preparations.
From past retreat participants: A profound experience. I learned so much about myself and my relationship to death and dying. The best growth experience ever. You gave us so much to think about, reflect upon and envision for the future. A beautifully organized, lovingly led retreat. Wonderful and deepening experience. Evocative – Top Notch!
Come into community, be held in natural beauty, ponder death
I’m going to die one day. I know it’s coming for me too. I’ll be a mountain. I’ll be a stone on the beach. I’ll be nourishment. – Mary Oliver
Program Fees:
Program fees are all-inclusive and cover accommodation, food, and program specifics for the entire program. Participants may choose their accommodation type preference (Plumbing, Non-Plumbing, RV/Tent) and may select to work on daily staff (3 hours commitment per day) for a substantial discount.
See Accommodation Types here: https://www.indralaya.org/home/guest-information/accommodation-types-indralaya/
Non-Accommodation rates are for program and meals only. Daily Staff discounts for non-accommodation rates cover meals.
Registration Instructions:
- You may register one or more persons in a single registration. To register more than one, select multiple persons for your accommodation type.
- If you are selecting Daily Staff please indicate in notes who in the party is taking the daily staff discount (available to adults, young adults, teens). Daily staff discounts (except for No-Accommodation rates) are indicated by checking Daily Staff as an additional item. The discount will be applied on checkout.
- You have an option of making a donation to Indralaya as part of your registration.
- On checkout, please indicate if you are a “Friend of Indralaya” (if you are not you can become one by selecting this option) – this will confer a 5% discount on your camp accommodation fees.
Cancellation Policy
- Free cancellation through May 7 – $0
- Cancellation fee May 8 – May 23 – $50
- Cancellation fee May 24 and later – $100
Leaders
Hilarie Hauptman, she/her: Hilarie is passionate about connecting people to resources to empower them to move toward the kind of aging and death experience they desire. Grounded in working within the aging field for 40 years as a program developer and trainer, she facilitated numerous workshops on health promotion, caregiving, and advance care planning in professional and community settings. In wanting to share more ground-breaking options, she co-founded the Green After Death Collaborative, helped plan the 2021 North American Green Burial Council Conference, and presented at the North American Jewish Cemetery Conference. She gets her deepest nourishment from walking in…
Learn more about Hilarie Hauptman
she/her: In Leeann’s Environmental Education career, she taught college, wrote instructional materials, did research, and consulted with nonprofits and government. Also, as an educator, she started working for Hospice, mostly in family bereavement services. In her role as an interfaith minister, she has supported families, as a loved one approaches and meets death. Assisting and coordinating home funerals are also in her death care resume. Leeann is a trained Advanced Care Directives Facilitator, presenting that information to organizations since 2017. She consults privately, helping individuals and couples work through advance directive paperwork, getting their thoughts and priorities clarified, and documented. …
Learn more about Leeann Tourtillott
Karen Lohmann, she/her: Karen is a grandmother, plantswoman, artist, ritualist and celebrant. She has worked in the fields of death and dying for the past 18 years. A lay-ordained, Buddhist (Upaya), Sufi, and interfaith Chaplain, working for hospice at present. Annie McManus (a former Indralaya Family Camp Coordinator) and Karen ran “Blessing the Journey” -a home funeral service, for 4 years; Karen continues this work. She has studied with Francis Weller, and Sobonfu Some, students of Maldoma Some, and she has trained with Joanna Macy, and Joan Halifax. Karen is FES Certified in Flower Essence Therapy. She designed and created gardens including Olympia’s Seven Oars Parks,…
Learn more about Karen Lohmann
