Stardust Meadow & Village Deathcare Offerings
Alternative Funeral Design & Guidance
What kind of funeral best suits the needs of your particular situation? Every funeral should be as unique as every life. There are many choices and possibilities. Learn what options are available and how a Home Funeral may work for you and your loved ones. Guidance or full coordination available.
Legacies, Stories & Keepsakes
Writing your own legacy letters to your loved ones is appropriate, beautiful and tender work at any point during your life! Store your letters and gifts in a safety deposit box on your own or ask about help with storage and a special time release plan. Individual guidance or group workshop.
Death Midwifery/Death Doula
Assistance with bedside care, sitting vigil or open gentle conversation. Assistance with errands or outings. Available for temporary respite, extended periods and through post-mortem care and guidance.
Burial Ceremonies for Pets
Pets and animals are amazing teachers and companions. Burial ceremonies for beloved pets can be very healing for everyone. They are especially important for children whose first experience of a close death is often with a pet. Guidance or full coordination.
End-Of-Life Celebrations & Bon Voyage Parties
Ever wondered who will come to your funeral? Sometimes, it feels right to have a celebration of your life while you're still alive! Though tears will definitely flow, these gathering are intended to be uplifting and healing. Guidance or full coordination.
Death Salons & Guided Meditation
Talking about death should feel natural- yet, often it feels more like taboo. Death Salons are open conversations or a focused topic about mortality and the preciousness of life. Participants leave feeling more alive! Available for businesses, families, or gatherings. Location of your choice.
Line and Labyrinth: Walking Through Life and Death
With a 3.5 foot high tightwire and a 25' round medieval labyrinth, contemplate the many ways of walking through life and death. Practice balance, breathing, patience and kindness toward your self. Watch for upcoming workshops.
Ceremonial Fire, Herb and Mist
Hand poured 100% pure beeswax candles. Tea lights and votives available only in natural color. Hand rolled candles come in a great variety of colors. Hand made herbal smudge sticks featuring sage, lavender and calendula. Essential oil mists for cleansing, uplifting and transitioning.
Message for prices. and availability
End-Of-Life/Death Plan & Ethical Will
Planning in advance of your death can save your loved ones much confusion at a time when emotions are heavy and unclear. Assistance with everything from organizing your records to making arrangements for your body. The process is challenging, intriguing and very healing. It can bring great peace of mind and heart.
Offerings in Summer and Fall 2018
Life-Cycle Ceremony Creation & Officiating
Baby Naming/Welcoming
Funerals
Memorials
Weddings
Adoption Welcoming
Important birthdays (double digits, teens, or any age!)
Casa Luna Events
Casa Luna is located on Craftsbury Common in Vermont and welcomes ceremonies for up to 50 people. The ceremony grounds open in July 2018.
Village Deathcare
Alternative Funeral Design offered in May 2018
Previous Events & Photo Gallery
Anne-Marie Keppel
An advocate for those whose voices are unheard, weak or forgotten, Anne-Marie believes Community Deathcare and open conversation about life and death is crucial for the health of individuals and the planet. With gentle timing, and an uplifted manner, she believes conversation about death makes our own lives and the lives of those around us more precious.
A childhood of magical play in faery forests, a barn full of animals, and teenage years in the circus formed an independent and reflective spirit. At the age of 19 Anne-Marie gave birth to her first child which only deepened her inner love and patience for herself and her wee one. Today, Anne-Marie has three children ages 21, 16 and 2 and has held fast to her circus days by teaching tight wire as a form of body/mind awareness practice.
Experience and Training
After a decade of professional event coordination for weddings, fashion shows, concerts, festivals and conferences, Anne-Marie halted everything to work with the elderly. Propelled by her work with the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers and her love of an elderly homeless man, she became a Hospice volunteer in 2013. She continued her path of care as a licensed nurse assistant from 2013-2016 and worked with the elderly in residential care and as a private duty nurse. She was the only full time over-night "nurse" and cared for a home of 12 elderly residents. During this time she also studied herbal healing and received a certificate from Mandala Botanicals' 9 month training in Community Herbalism.
When working as the Director of Meals on Wheels in Montpelier her understanding of how often the elderly struggle living on their own with loneliness, physical ailments, embarrassment and confusion only deepened her desire to engage the able bodied in assisting the elderly. She believes that the more conversations about death and dying that spring forth in communities, the more empathy will be generated, and the better the chance the elderly, sick and dying will have companionship and a feeling of value at the end of life; this is the core of Community Deathcare.
Anne-Marie's work with people is not just generational, as she is the Head Teacher at Karmê Chöling's Family Camp in Barnet Vermont and teaches Teen Retreats year round. The newest program that she offers is called Line and Labyrinth: Walking Through Life and Death. This program has been adapted to fit the interests of teenagers but will be offered to adults as well.
Anne-Marie is a Master level Reiki practitioner, meditation instructor, has 12 years training in Shambhala Buddhist teachings and has completed Level I Dying With Confidence training in Phowa with Anyen Rinpoche. She currently leads Death Cafés in Craftsbury and Hardwick Vermont and is a board member of Green Burial Vermont. Casa Luna on Craftsbury Common is both her home and a center for ceremonies she hosts.
Death Midwifery/Death Doula/Community Deathcare
A Death Midwife or Doula is an individual who assists those in end of life considerations, through the dying process and possibly with post-mortem care as well. Anne-Marie is a graduate of the BEyond Yonder Virtual School of Death Midwifery (Community Deathcare). This four month course of intensive death care training (6 days per week with an average of 20 hours of work per week) covered pre-death needs to post mortem care and disposition. She is qualified to guide families in home funerals and encourages individuals to consider this as a possibility. Understanding the sudden fog that gathers when a loved one dies, Anne-Marie hopes to offer options and assistance with proceedings in a time of great pain and confusion. She currently is available to her community for consultations.
*Trainings for Death Midwives and Death Doulas (all the same thing) vary greatly. Be aware that some trainings are more thorough than others. Research the school your Death Midwife and/or Death Doula has a certificate from and always check credentials.
Life-Cycle Celebrant Certification
After an 8 month training in the fundamentals of celebrancy, ceremonies and ritual, Anne-Marie received her certification as a Life- Cycle Celebrant with a certificate in funerals and memorials. She is a graduate of the Celebrant Foundation and Institute.
*Trainings to become a Certified Celebrant vary greatly. Be aware that some schools have better reputations and more thorough training than others.