Consent + Power in Grief, Death + Dying
Join Helena De Felice + Angela Fama for a nourishing and heart-centered exploration of embodied consent and power in grief, death, and dying.
The 3UP Project: A Pop-Up Dinner on Grief + Nourishment
A nourishing 3-course, family-style, plant-based meal + conversation co-facilitated + co-created by Vera Decena + Angela Fama.
This is a pilot project, the tix are at cost and seats are limited!
https://griefpopupdinner.eventbrite.ca
Spring Equinox · Community Brunch
A gathering to mark the turning of the season
As day and night come into balance, we’ll gather in community to reflect, connect, and welcome the light returning.
This Spring Equinox gathering will include:
Potluck Community Brunch
Bring a dish to share (details to follow). This is an informal, relational space to reconnect and meet new faces in the ABE community.
Workshop with Joan Trinh Pham
Joan will guide us through a seasonal practice rooted in reflection and renewal. More details on the theme to come, but expect a thoughtful, embodied offering to mark the transition into spring.
ABE Collective Facilitated Circle
We will close with a gently held circle space facilitated by members of the ABE Collective — an opportunity to share reflections, intentions, and what is emerging for each of us in this season of change.
This gathering is open to community members, collaborators, and those curious about The ABE Project’s work.
Space will be limited. Please email us at hello@theABEproject.org to register.
Death Café
Overview
A space for community-making in listening and sharing about loss and change; a space for curiosities, experiences, and anxieties.
Through group-lead discussion, this event creates the opportunity to hold eachother in care around our experiences, curiosities, ideas and challenges with loss, change, and death. It is a free-flowing, open and dynamic space, rooted in community connection; it is a space for laughter and a space for tears.
What is a Death Café?
Emerging from London in 2011, Death Cafés use food, conversation and community as a means to challenge how taboo death and discussion of death have become. While these are the roots of the Death Café, how this manifests is unique and adaptive.
Note: This is not and is not meant to be a substitute for grief or berevement counselling. That being said, discussion of grief can arise, naturally. As we cater this space to the dynamic emotions and challenges we experience in our modern world, a soft reminder that all types of grief and loss are valid. While human-to-human loss is often where the mind first lands, topics such as ancestral grief, ecological grief, pet grief, anticipatory grief, relational grief, etc., may also resonate with you.
Come with an open heart and mind<3
Please arrive for 6!
Tea and snacks will be available!
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/death-cafe-tickets-1984227579103
Exploring Assisted Dying: Join Tracy Chalmers + Angela Fama for a Facilitated Conversation
Tracy Chalmers + Angela Fama invite you into a facilitated online conversation exploring grief, death, and medically assisted dying using the Death Conversation Game and three newly co-created add-on questions developed through The 3UP Project.
https://endwellnorthshore.thinkific.com/products/live_events/Exploring-assisted-dying
Consent and Power in Grief, Death and Dying
Join co-facilitators Angela Fama and Helena De Felice for a nourishing and heart-centred exploration of embodied consent and power in grief, death, and dying. Everyone is welcome.
This offering welcomes curiosity and gentle awareness towards topics and areas that are often avoided: grief, death, and power.
We are inviting an opportunity to notice where consent may be or feel more or less accessible and available, and how to bring more care towards ourselves and others.
You are invited to explore through choice-based guided somatic practices and inquiries, supported by various expressive modalities, including dialogue, drawing, and writing.
Learn More: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/helenadefelice/1988685
Kuker Busó: Close of Winter Season - Community Procession & Ritual Fire
February 15, 2026 (Sunday)
Closing of the Winter Season
Community Procession & Ritual Fire
Join our friends at Kuker Busó as we gather to mark the closing of winter.
Together, we will release the weight of the darker months and move toward what is returning through fire, movement, music, and shared presence.
Time
Meet at 5:15 pm
Procession begins at sunset, 5:32 pm
The gathering will unfold as long as it feels right.
Location: Spanish Banks Meeting outside the Spanish Banks East Beach Café concession
What to expect
A short procession along the beach
A ritual fire
Impromptu music and dance
A few bell-adorned, feral beings may also appear
Intention
To collectively acknowledge the closing of the winter season, to offer what we are ready to release to the fire, and to bless the returning light, movement, and life ahead.
More details can be found here: https://kukerbuso.wordpress.com/next-gatherings/
Imbolc · Early Spring Gathering · The 3UP Project Viewing & Website Launch
ABE × Death Conversation Game
As Imbolc marks the quiet turning toward light in the Irish natural calendar, we gather for an evening of shared witnessing and reflection.
This intimate community gathering brings together the ABE Collective alongside mentors, teachers, collaborators, and friends to view the ABE × Death Conversation Game 3UP Project collaboration, created with Angela Fama.
In November, members of our community recorded responses to newly developed conversation prompts. These reflections were captured through stop motion, allowing words, pauses, and gestures to emerge slowly, frame by frame. What unfolds is tender, attentive, and deeply aligned with the season’s themes of renewal and quiet emergence.
The evening is simple and unhurried. We watch the recordings together, sit with what they open, and spend time in conversation. Light refreshments are shared.
For some, this is a first experience of ABE and how we gather. You are warmly welcome.
This gathering is intentionally intimate. Space is limited.
ABE Collective · Community Portraits Day
Meitheal in practice
As we continue forming the ABE Collective, we gather for a simple and generous offering rooted in meitheal, shared work in service of the whole.
Angela Fama offers portrait sessions for members of the ABE community, supporting the launch of the ABE Collective website page and helping us communicate our mission as we grow programming and secure funding.
This is a small studio session designed to create cohesive, thoughtful portraits that reflect the heart of our collective work.
The images support:
The ABE Collective website
Grant and funding applications
Program materials and communications
Blog and board features
All imagery is handled with care and consent. Participants are warmly invited to use their portraits for their own creative and professional pursuits.
This offering is optional and extended in the spirit of shared contribution. Sessions are brief and intentionally scheduled to create a gentle flow.
Community-building is not only what we speak about, but how we show up for one another.
Space is limited.
Winter Solstice · Forest Therapy Evening Walk
A guided forest bathing experience to mark the longest night
On December 21, as light reaches its quietest point of the year, we gather in the forest to slow down, listen, and honour the turning of the season.
Guided by Tracy Chalmers, certified Forest Therapy Guide with the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy, this immersive evening invites participants into a mindful practice rooted in stillness, sensory awareness, and connection.
Forest Therapy, often called forest bathing, is not a hike. It is a gentle, relational experience of place.
Together we will:
Move slowly (less than 1 km) with intentional pauses
Sit or rest on the earth, as you feel comfortable
Engage the senses through guided invitations
Gather in circle to share reflections, if desired
Welcome the forest as teacher and witness
The intention of the evening is to gently shift from head to body, from urgency to presence. Invitations are offered throughout — you are always welcome to engage in whatever way feels right. There is no correct way to forest bathe.
Tracy brings a background in education, end-of-life care, and grief support. As she often says, the forest is the therapist. The guide simply opens the door.
We close the walk in quiet community, honouring the longest night and the subtle return of light.
Space is intentionally limited. Please email us at hello@theABEproject.org to register.
Midwinter · Holiday Community Dinner
A seasonal evening of nourishment and co-visioning
As winter approaches, we gather around the table for an evening of warmth, reflection, and shared imagination.
The ABE Community Dinner is part of our seasonal series, intimate gatherings designed to strengthen relationships and shape what this work becomes next. Over a home-cooked meal, we reconnect, welcome new voices, and begin envisioning what ABE is growing toward in the year ahead.
These evenings offer space to:
Share a nourishing meal in community
Reflect on the season that is closing
Explore potential programming and gatherings
Co-envision the next chapter of ABE together
Conversation is gently held, with room for organic dialogue and thoughtful dreaming. The tone is warm and relational, not formal but intentional.
Dinner is shared family-style, with care for dietary needs and space for small potluck contributions.
Space is intentionally limited to preserve intimacy.
Community Attendance · Book Launch: The Nature of the Journey
On November 14, members of the ABE Collective gathered in support of Tracy Chalmers for her book launch at Banyen Books & Sound.
As a Collective, we believe in showing up for one another’s work in the world. This evening was a celebration of Tracy’s writing, her contributions to end-of-life care and grief work, and the wider community that holds this practice.
Gathering in a space long devoted to contemplation and inquiry, we joined friends, readers, and colleagues to witness and honour the offering of her book. It was a reminder that ABE is not only programming and events, but relationship.
We continue to uplift the work of Collective members as it unfolds across the community.
ABE × Death Conversation Game · 3UP Project Recording Day
Exploring dialogue, mortality, and meaningful connection
On November 14, ABE partnered with the Death Conversation Game for a recording session as part of the 3UP Project.
This collaborative day invited members of our community into thoughtful dialogue around mortality, meaning, and how we speak about what matters most. Through guided prompts and facilitated conversation, we explored how structured dialogue tools can open space for honesty, curiosity, and deeper connection.
The Death Conversation Game offers an accessible entry point into conversations that many people avoid. By bringing playfulness and structure into discussions about death, participants are often surprised by how naturally reflection unfolds.
The recording session formed part of the 3UP Project, documenting innovative approaches to community-based dialogue and connection.
This gathering reflects ABE’s commitment to normalizing conversations about death and dying in ways that feel relational, grounded, and human.
Samhain (Start of Winter) · Kintsugi Pottery & Community Dinner
Marking the threshold into winter
On October 29, we gather to honour Samhain, the Celtic festival that marks the beginning of winter and the thinning of the veil between worlds.
Samhain is traditionally a time to acknowledge endings, remember those who have gone before us, and step consciously into the darker half of the year. In this spirit, the evening weaves together ritual, creativity, and shared table.
The gathering includes:
Kintsugi Pottery Practice
Inspired by the Japanese art of repairing broken ceramics with gold, participants are invited into a reflective practice of mending. Kintsugi reminds us that what has been fractured is not hidden, but honoured. The break becomes part of the story.
Community Dinner
We share a warm meal in intimate company, creating space for remembrance, conversation, and quiet connection.
Throughout the evening, gentle facilitation invites reflection on cycles of loss and renewal, both personal and collective. There is space to speak the names of those remembered, or simply to sit in presence.
This gathering reflects ABE’s commitment to marking seasonal thresholds with intention, acknowledging that death and dormancy are not opposites of life, but part of its rhythm.
Space is intentionally limited to preserve intimacy.
Cónocht an Fhómhair (Autumn Equinox) · Sauna, Cold Plunge & Dinner
Marking balance, harvest, and gratitude
As Cónocht an Fhómhair marks the midpoint of autumn, we gather to honour the balance of day and night and the turning of the season.
Traditionally, the autumn equinox is a time of harvest, abundance, and gratitude. It invites reflection on what we are gathering in our own lives and an opportunity to give thanks in community.
This seasonal ABE gathering begins with a shared sauna and optional cold dip, offering space to release, reset, and arrive fully. We then continue the evening over dinner, extending the time for conversation and connection.
The gathering creates space to:
Pause and mark the seasonal turning
Reflect on what is ripening or completing
Strengthen bonds within the ABE community
Honour balance in body and spirit
Participation is flexible. Some join for the sauna, others for dinner, many for both. The tone is relaxed, nourishing, and relational.
Capacity is intentionally limited to preserve intimacy.
Lughnasadh (First Harvest) · Community Dinner
Honouring the first harvest
As Lughnasadh marks the beginning of the harvest season, we gather to acknowledge what has come to fruition and what is ready to be gathered.
Traditionally observed in early August, Lughnasadh is a time to honour labour, ripening, and the quiet satisfaction of work brought to completion. It invites reflection on what has grown through the summer and what we are preparing to carry forward.
This community dinner offers a relaxed evening to share food and conversation with others walking the path of end-of-life care and community work.
The gathering creates space to:
Reflect on what has matured in our work and lives
Share lessons from the season of growth
Strengthen relationships across the ABE community
Mark the seasonal turning together
There is no formal agenda. The evening is warm, grounded, and relational. Conversation unfolds naturally over a shared meal.
Space is intentionally limited to preserve intimacy.
Grianstad an tSamhraidh (Summer Solstice) · Community Brunch
Honouring light, growth, and the fullness of life
On June 21, we gather to mark Gríanstad an tSamhraidh, the Summer Solstice.
While not formally counted among the Celtic fire festivals, midsummer has long been a natural moment for rural communities to come together. Feasting, storytelling, and simple rituals traditionally marked the turning of the season and the height of light.
As part of the seasonal ABE series, this solstice gathering offers a gentle afternoon of shared table and connection. We come together to honour growth, reflect on what is ripening in our work and lives, and strengthen community through presence.
Participants are welcome to drop in for part of the gathering or stay for the full afternoon. A shared meal anchors the day, with space for relaxed conversation and quiet reflection.
These seasonal brunches create space to:
Mark the turning of the year with intention
Deepen relationships within the ABE community
Reflect on what is flourishing and what is emerging
Celebrate light, life, and shared purpose
Care is taken to accommodate dietary and accessibility needs wherever possible.
Space is intentionally limited to preserve intimacy.
Bealtaine (Start of Summer) · Community Dinner
An evening of food and gentle conversation
On May 1, as Bealtaine marks the beginning of summer in the Celtic calendar, we gather for a relaxed evening of shared table and connection.
This dinner brings together those walking the path of end-of-life care for an informal and welcoming space. There is no agenda. The intention is simple: to connect, share stories, and nourish the community we are all part of.
These gatherings offer space to:
Strengthen relationships across the field
Exchange lived experience and emerging ideas
Support one another in meaningful work
Mark the seasonal turning in community
The tone is warm, grounded, and unhurried. Conversation unfolds naturally over a shared meal.
Care is taken to accommodate dietary and accessibility needs wherever possible.
Space is intentionally limited to preserve intimacy.
Spring Equinox · Community Dinner
An evening of shared table and connection
On March 21, as day and night come into balance, we gather for a relaxed community dinner with others working in end-of-life care.
There is no formal agenda. This evening is simply an opportunity to share a meal, exchange stories, and strengthen relationships across our field.
These gatherings create space to:
Connect with peers in an informal setting
Share experiences and emerging questions
Build trust and community within end-of-life care
Mark the seasonal turning together
The tone is warm, unhurried, and relational. Conversation flows naturally, guided by shared curiosity and care.
Space is intentionally limited to preserve intimacy.
Imbolc (Early Spring) · Community Dinner
Shaping the Future of End-of-Life Care
In January, ABE Care convenes a small group of end-of-life practitioners for an intimate dinner and working discussion.
This roundtable gathering brings together experienced doulas, clinicians, and community practitioners to explore how we can collectively strengthen end-of-life care through the ABE Care platform.
The evening is designed to:
Surface current challenges within the field
Identify opportunities for collaboration
Gather practitioner insight to inform platform development
Strengthen professional community and shared standards of care
Conversation is guided but open. The intention is not presentation, but listening. Practitioner experience and lived insight are central to shaping the next phase of ABE Care.
An honorarium is provided in recognition of time and expertise.
These roundtables form part of ABE Care’s commitment to building infrastructure that is practitioner-informed, community-rooted, and responsive to real-world needs.
Space is intentionally limited.