Expand Inwardly

in order to more powerfully

Reach Outward

The best example I have of Transpersonal Community Action is of a past project, Doing Death Differently Decorah.

The pieces below showcase co-researcher quotes from my time as facilitator of the project from 2013 to 2016. The project formally began with 3 intimate community dialogue sessions that later morphed into a more organized community action plan to bring a wide range of changes to death and dying practices in Northeast Iowa. It was truly a deep honor to work with this caring, committed, and amazing community.

The thoughts and feelings expressed in these pieces reflect a glimpse of the leading edge of up-and-coming needed changes in how death and dying is handled in American culture. The project began with the transpersonal researcher (me) noticing an upwelling within the community. On individual levels, people were already (pre-project) experiencing discontent and discomfort with mainstream death and dying practices.

As a transpersonal activist, I felt it was my duty, upon making this observation, to provide a safe place to explore this upwelling, as it seemed significant and was marked with many synchronicities. I felt these individual concerns were indicating a larger upwelling within the collective, although to most this remains largely unconscious and will take time to fully bubble forth into the main-stream.

The energy of the project was akin to gently moving a pot of nearly boiling water– with the additional gentle influence, the water jumps into motion and catalyzes the process more fully into action. The project was the basis of my doctoral research, which can be accessed in its entirety at this link.