End-of-Life University Ep. 563 Death Wings Project: Art and Storytelling for Loss and Grief with Bess Welden and Laura Cleminson
Learn how a creative art project can help foster conversations about loss and grief and how a playwright and an end-of-life doula collaborated to develop it.
About the guests:
My guests this week are Bess Welden a playwright who wrote the play Death Wings and Laura Cleminson an end-of-life doula and the founder of Pre-Dead Social Club. Together they have developed the Death Wings Project and Toolkit to invite people to come together in community and foster open conversations about loss and grief. They share how art-making and storytelling are used in their workshops to help people navigate loss together through creativity. Learn more at the following websites:
In this episode:
- How Laura was inspired to become an end-of-life doula
- What inspired Bess to create the play Death Wings and to make her first pair of Death Wings
- How Laura and Bess were inspired to work together on this project
- What Death Wings are and how they are constructed
- How the creation of Death Wings help people create meaning and memories of their loved ones
- Why “putting our hands into grief” allows us to open to it
- How Death Wings might be used in schools to help children with grief
- The value of rituals for grief
- You don’t have to be an artist or crafter to participate in this project
- Creativity as an opportunity to open conversation about the end of life
- Using Death Wings as a gift for someone experiencing grief
- How to host a Death Wings workshop in your own community
Links for this episode:
Resources
- Order the Death Wings Toolkit here
- Learn about Workshops here
- Soulcode Post: Grief, Creativity, and Growing the Soul
Related episodes
- The Ash Rose: Transforming Grief into Beauty with Ian McCartor
- Rituals and Ceremonies for Life, Death and Grief with Megan Sheldon
- Memory Bears and Grief in Community with Michelle Sebern RN
Other links
- 7 Lessons for Living from the Dying by Karen Wyatt MD
- Latest post on Substack: Letting Go of Guilt
- What Really Matters Podcast: How Do I Forgive Myself?
- Leave me a message by email: [email protected], Twitter, Facebook or Instagram
- Support your local bookstore by buying my books on Bookshop and Indiebound: 7 Lessons for Living from the Dying and The Journey from Ego to Soul
- Join the team at Patreon.com/eolu
- Buy me a coffee
- Donate on Paypal
If you enjoy this content please share it with others and consider leaving a review on iTunes. Thanks again to all supporters on my page at Patreon.com/eolu and thanks to Colin Quigg for buying me a coffee and to Trish Rux for making a donation on Paypal! Your contributions make all the difference and ensure this podcast stays ad-free.