Next Meeting–Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012

The next meeting of the Minnesota Threshold Network will be on Tuesday, January 17, 2012 at 7 pm.

Where:  Home of Julie Tinberg, 6801 W 83rd Street Terrace, Bloomington, Mn. 55438

 Agenda:

1. Griefwalker movie. (shown at last meeting on 11/14/11)

2. Prairie Oaks cemetery tour

3. Crescent Tide and Wilwerscheid Funeral Home

4. Honoring Choices documentary on TPT

5. Old/New business

6. Other/ Announcements

New Minneapolis Star Tribune Article

The Minneapolis Star Tribune carried an excellent article about the home funeral of a Minneapolis couple.  It quotes four members of  the Minnesota Threshold Network, including a supportive funeral director. Read it at: http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/134800073.html?page=all&prepage=1&c=y#continue

 

 

 

Autumn 2011 Events

If you missed Twin Cities Public Television’s excellent 26-minute documentary “End-of-life Choices:Through History,” you can view it at http://www.honoringchoices.org/documentaries/3-end-of-life-choices-through-history/.

The section about the Minnesota Threshold Network begins with the narrator saying, “In the Twin Cities, one group is working to educate the public about a broad set of options available for end-of-lilfe planning, including home-based funerals, steeped in the traditions of the past.”

Under the main box, you can click on the photo of MTN member Heather Halen for a five-minute  description of her husband’s home funeral. This clip includes more of her interview than is featured in the television program, which will be rebroadcast in January.

Upcoming events:

Green cemetery tour at Prairie Oaks Memorial EcoGarden, Monday November 14 at 11:30 am. Wear sturdy shoes or boots. 8225 ArgentaTrail, Inver Grove Heights. For more information, visit mygreengrave.com.

Meeting at the home of Linda Bergh,4315 Xerxes Av, Minneapolis 55410, Monday November 14 at 7pm. The film Griefwalker will be shown. This 70-minute documentary from the National Film Board of Canada features a Harvard-educated theologian and leader of a palliativecare counseling team at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital who has made it hislife’s mission to change the way we die. See a one-minute trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muLZFdIkOXk

News, Fall 2011

End-of-life Choices: Through History – Channel 2 Oct. 28, 8pm

 Twin Cities Public television is broadcasting part 2 of its 3-part documentary, End-of-Life Choices: Through History, Friday Oct. 28, 8-8:30pm.  Members of the Minnesota Threshold Network appear in this segment. It will be repeated several times, including:

Sat Oct 29, 2011 @ 2:00 am on tpt 2.1

Sat Oct 29, 2011 @ 2:00 am on tpt 2.2

Sat Oct 29, 2011 @ 8:00 am on tpt 2.2

Sun Oct 30, 2011 @ 8:00 pm on tpt 2.2

Mon Oct 31, 2011 @ 2:00 pm on tpt 2.2

For a film clip and other air dates, visit honoringchoices.org/documentaries.To view part 1, which aired last month, scroll down to Honoring Choices at the End of Life, and look to the right for the box WATCH THIS SHOW NOW. It’s 27 minutes long.

 

Prairie Oaks Memorial EcoGarden Tour 

Minnesota Threshold Network members have another chance to tour Prairie Oaks Memorial EcoGarden, Minnesota’s first commercial green cemetery, Monday November 14 at 11:30 am. Wear sturdy shoes or boots to walk through this new nature preserve, which accepts no embalmed bodies, metal caskets, or vaults. Address is 8225 Argenta Trail, Inver Grove Heights.  For more information, visit mygreengrave.com.

Griefwalker Film Showing at Next MTN Meeting Nov. 14

The next meeting will be at the home of Linda Bergh, 4215 Xerxes Av, Minneapolis 55410, Monday November 14 at 7pm. The film Griefwalker will be shown. This 70-minute documentary from the National Film Board of Canada features a Harvard-educated theologian and leader of a palliative care counseling team at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital who has made it his life’s mission to change the way we die. See a one-minute trailer at youtube.com/watch?v=0g38BFfiZyM

 

Full Circle Project

News from Theresa Purcell: “This summer Trust for Natural Legacies became the Full Circle Project. While owning and operating a conservation cemetery is still a long-term goal we have decided to focus more time on education and advocacy in the community. Our new mission is to provide after-death education, advocate for natural burial, build connections in the death-care industry and be a local resource for after-death choices. We are currently developing a new website which will be at www.fullcircleproject.organd will begin work this winter on an after-death resources guide for the Twin Cities area.”

 

News from Willwerscheid Funeral Home and Cremation Service

News from Stephen Willwerscheid of Willwerscheid Funeral Home and Cremation Service:“We have created a new website regarding natural burial and home funerals. We have made an effort to recognize the importance of clergy, family members, and end-of-life transition guides role in natural burial and home funerals. We have a News section and would be honored to post any information about Minnesota Threshold Network. Additionally we are always looking for relevant articles to post. Please encourage members of the Minnesota Threshold Network to visit our web site, www.naturalburialandcremation.com, and Facebook page. I believe through your organization and ours we have a wonderful opportunity to educate the public.”

Minutes of Sept. 26, 2011 Meeting

Update from National Home Funeral Association Conference in Boulder: The conference was successful–lots of information. One development was that NHFA may offer a bi-annual conference schedule, with regional conferences possible in the alternate years.

About 20 people toured Prairie Oaks cemetery with developer Chip Fort. People thought the cemetery was lovely, and they like the variety of ecosystems. Some people felt that costs were high, but understood that green burial plots require double the space for a conventional grave. Steve Willwerscheid of Willwerscheid Natural Burial and Cremation said that some metro area cemeteries are open to shrouded bodies and bottomless vaults, and that many cemeteries will start to open areas for green burials once they perceive a demand for them. Since several people were unable to attend the Prairie Oaks tour, another one will be offered Monday, Nov. 14 at 11:30 a.m.

The next meeting will be Monday, Nov. 14 at 7 p.m. at Linda Bergh’s home, 4315 Xerxes Avenue South, Minneapolis. Linda’s phone number is 612 927 0894. We will be showing the film Griefwalker.

Educational outreach:

• Heather Halen and Rep. Carolyn Laine spoke to 200 attendees (including about 60 funeral directors) at the Forensic     Science Seminar sponsored by the Minnesota Coroners’ and Medical Examiners’ Association.
• Heather and Carolyn will speak this month to a group of about 100 deaf senior citizens.
• Heather, Carolyn, and Theresa Purcell, president of  the Full Circle Project (formerly Trust for Natural Legacies), will do a workshop at the Northland Bioneers convention November 12 at Macalester College. Gloria Steinem and Philippe Cousteau will be featured  speakers from the National Bioneers Conference.

Honoring Choices airs Oct. 28-31. The tpt website contains the programs that have already aired and all sorts of additional information, including extended interviews of MTN members Linda Bergh, Heather Halen, and Nancy Manahan.

Upcoming Events for Autumn 2011

Channel 2, TPT, is airing a 3-part Honoring Choices documentary. Segment 1, End of LIfe Planning: Family Stories, will be shown September 16, 8:00pm TPT 2.1 and repeated through Sept. 19.  Part 2, to be aired in October, features members of the Minnesota Threshold Network. For a film clip and air dates visit honoringchoices.org/documentaries.

On Sunday September 25 at 3:00pm the Minnesota Threshold Network has been invited to tour Prairie Oaks Memorial EcoGarden, Minnesota’s first commercial green cemetery.  Prairie Oaks accepts no embalmed bodies, metal caskets, concrete or steel vaults. Wear long pants and sturdy shoes or boots to tour this new nature preserve cemetery at 8225 Argenta Train, Inver Grove Heights, MN.  For more information, visit mygreengrave.com.

On Monday September 26 at 7 pm is the regular Minnesota Threshold Network meeting, at the home of Becky Bohan and Nancy Manahan, 21 E. Rustic Lodge. Ave. Minneapolis, MN 55419.  We will share impressions of Prairie Oaks as well as recent experiences of natural death care, home vigils, and family-directed funerals.

New class this fall sponsored by the Novalis
Institute:

DEATH AND DYING: Beholding the Threshold
Consciously

Wednesday evenings: Oct. 26, Nov. 2, 9, 16, 2011

October 26, 7-9: Introduction to Conscious Dying

$15 suggested donation. This class can be taken as a single class.

Movie : The Most Excellent Dying of Theodore Heckelman

Introduction to caring for our own and being responsible for our dying

 

 November 2, 6:30-9:30: Before and At Death

Preparation/advanced directives/family meetings/legal/spiritual issues; moving through stages of the dying process consciously

 

November 9, 6:30-9:30: After Death Care and Home Vigil

Legal, practical, spiritual, and social aspects of at home care, including body care and vigils

 

November 16, 6:30-9:30: Grieving, Remembering, and Staying Connected

Ways of staying connected that can profoundly affect the grieving process

 

The Nov 2, 9, 16 classes can be taken as individual classes. Each class is $45. All three are $120.

For more information and registration go to
website novalisinstitute.org or call 612-465-9582 or
email info@novalisinstitute.org.

Primary faculty: Linda Bergh and Marianne Dietzel will co-teach the last class.
Other faculty TBA from MN Threshold.

 

An Evening With the Author, August 22, 2011

 An Evening With the Author, Monday, August 22, 2011, 7pm,  Public Library, 515 Douglas Ave., Ames,  Iowa

Marianne Dietzel, author of Laughing in a Waterfall: A Mother’s Memoir, shares from her own experience the power of caring for a loved one at home after a death. Marianne’s teenage daughter was killed in a car accident in 1996. Sitting with her daughter’s body for three days was the beginning of an arduous and wondrous journey through grief.

For more information go to amespubliclibrary.org or mariannedietzel.com.

 

Radio Show on Home Funerals

Marianne Dietzel (center) with editors Becky Bohan (l) and Nancy Manahan (r)

Marianne Dietzel, a home funeral educator, is the author of Laughing in a Waterfall: A Mother’s Memoir.  A new hour-long radio interview includes the beginnings of the home funeral movement in Minnesota through Marianne’s retelling of he deaths of fellow home funeral guide Linda Bergh’s husband, Paul in 1995, and of their daughters, Nina and Kirsten in 1996.

Marianne also speaks about her spiritual and emotional journey following her loss, the role of writing in her grief process, and her continuing connection with those across the threshold.

Hear the interview at www.kruufm.com/station/archives/61

Order Marianne’s book at www.mariannedietzel.com

Potluck Meeting Cancelled

Marianne and Dennis Dietzel returned Sunday afternoon from book promotion events in Iowa to find their basement and yard flooded from the heavy rains. They will not be able to host the potluck scheduled for tonight, July 18.

We will notify you of the next meeting, which will probably be in September. We are sorry for any inconvenience that this late notice may have caused you.

Becky & Nancy

July 18 Potluck and Meeting

Potluck and meeting at the home of Marianne Dietzel, 2954 Hamline Ave., Roseville, MN, 55113. Monday July 18. Green potluck, 6-7pm, BYO dishware & utensils, no paper please.

Meeting, 7-9pm, will include time to share stories of caring for our own dead and the impact that had on our families, friends, and communities.  Twin Cities Public Television will be present for part of the meeting to film possible footage for a 3-part documentary on end-of life choices in Minnesota.