Walking into that good night: a practice of living and dying.
12th-17th April 2026
Photo Hilda Krusell
This program
This program has been originally created by Joyce Harvey Morgan and Meredith Little, in Death Valley, USA, where Carine assisted and supported as the fire keeper on several occasions.
This is now an integral part of "The Practice of Living and Dying", a body of work we are delighted to be able to offer for the first time in Sweden.
The invitation
Death is the elephant in the room. However physical death is the ultimate rite of passage that we are preparing for on some level throughout our life. Sometimes this “preparing” looks like denial; sometimes sudden illness or life-threats surprise us into looking squarely at the inevitable truth. The more consciously we can turn our attention to our mortality, the more able we are to turn our life’s focus toward that which truly matters to us during this precious lifetime.
In today’s world we carry the challenge and opportunity of making important health decisions with modern medical advances. This changes what our “dying” may look like, and necessitates significant conversations with our loved ones, as well as soul searching within ourselves. Here are some of the questions that may arise. How do these decisions affect my loved ones? What are my biggest fears? My greatest hopes? What is my relationship with chosen death or suicide at a certain point in my dying process? How much am I in control? How does the certainty of my own mortality inform my living and even infuse my life with meaning and beauty?
There is no final answer to these and many more fertile questions, rather an opportunity to deepen our organic, creative relationship with death that matures as we do.
What to expect
We will come together and be in conversation with the land, each other, and ourselves about our mortality, expectations and fears, relationship with mystery and the unknown. We will individually discover what arises from the tension of being life-filled, while inevitably walking toward our death.
Night walks under a darkening sky will be the solo time each day, with one full solo night out. During this time you will explore and cultivate your own personal tools for walking in the darkness. During the week you will also be guided in the ceremonial making and decorating of a Death Mask, which will be initiated in the night.
Photo Hilda Krusell
By whom
Carine Roth (she/they) is a Swiss eco spiritual healer, photographer and rites of passage guide. They are founder of Ceux d’ici and co-founder of the Swiss-based organisation Rite de Passage, promoting healthy modern rites of passage in Nature for youth and adults. Trained with The School of Lost Borders, Carine has been following the lineage of the school for years and has had the privilege to sit in circles and share many ceremonies with founder Meredith Little. She is carrying on with *The practice of Living and Dying, the work Meredith and Scott Eberle started in 2003.
Lien De Coster (she/they) has been holding ritual spaces for more than a decade. They are passionate about blowing life into the big ceremonies that make for a healthy and regenerative culture and to translate them to contemporary times. Their focus is on guiding processes of death and rebirth through grief rituals, rites of passage work with queer teenagers on the way to adulthood and holding sitouts, vision fasts in the northern European tradition, for adults. Lien studied with Dutch shamanic practitioner Linda Wormhoudt, among other the ‘rouwvrouw’ or soul woman training on supporting death and dying. For more info about Lien, click here.
Read Lien’s interview with Meredith Little about the cycles of living and dying.
Dates
April 12th-April 17th 2026, from Sunday 4:30pm till Friday 2:30pm.
Location & transport
We gather at Kärlingesund Retreat Center which is beautifully situated at the Swedish west coast of Bohuslän province, a couple of hundred steps from the ocean. The center is tucked in the middle of Kärlingesund nature reserve, which is famous for its pastures, the typical ice-pushed boulders, beautiful oak and beech forests and closeness to the meandering waterways of the Nordströmmarna (Northern Streams).
Traveling by car:
Kärlingesund Retreat Center, Kärlingesund 316, 451 97 Uddevalla, Sweden
Traveling by public transport:
From Gothenburg the easiest is to take the Lysekil Express (bus 841 / 845) from Gothenburg central (Nils Ericsson terminal) to Källviken bus stop via a short stop at Torp Terminalen. The trip takes approximately 1.5 hours from Gothenburg. There is a very nice walk on a gravel road to Kärlingesund from the bus stop, approximately 1,4 km. There is a sign “Kursgärd” (course center) by the main road. We can also pick you up at Källviken bus stop if you let us know a day in advance. For detailed local bus schedule visit Västtrafik.
For more info about Kärlingesund Retreat Center, click here.
Photo Hilda Krusell
Costs
Workshop:
*€340/3757 sek (incl. €10 for supported rate)
*€440/4862 sek: support rate
*€240/2652 sek: supported rate
Wondering where you fall on the sliding scale? Take a look here.
Venue:
€145/1600 sek per person/per night
The venue costs include sleeping in a single room plus three vegetarian meals a day.
Language
Even though we are using English as our main language there will the opportunity for one-on-one conversations in Dutch, German, Swedish and French.
It will also be possible to share in these languages if you are finding it challenging to express yourself in English.
REGISTER NOW
Retreat center Kärlingesund
What to Remember When Waking
In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake,
coming back to this life from the other
more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world
where everything began,
there is a small opening into the new day
which closes the moment you begin your plans.
What you can plan is too small for you to live.
What you can live wholeheartedly will make plans enough
for the vitality hidden in your sleep.
To be human is to become visible
while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others.
To remember the other world in this world
is to live in your true inheritance.
You are not a troubled guest on this earth,
you are not an accident amidst other accidents
you were invited from another and greater night
than the one from which you have just emerged.
Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window
toward the mountain presence of everything that can be
what urgency calls you to your one love?
What shape waits in the seed of you
to grow and spread its branches
against a future sky?
Is it waiting in the fertile sea?
In the trees beyond the house?
In the life you can imagine for yourself?
In the open and lovely white pag
-- David Whyte
