Death as Our Teacher

Welcome fellow brothers, fathers, sons, uncles, elders-in-training, and the like. With our hearts open and tender, strong and resilient, we humbly and enthusiastically invite you to something special.

What Is This?

Death as Our Teacher is a friendship-led, land-based, relational healing experience that dares to face what most men avoid—our mortality—to discover how to live with radical aliveness.

This isn't therapy or a lecture. It's a ritual container, a sacred pause where we gather as brothers to explore the great teacher that death offers us. In our culture, we've been taught to fear, avoid, and sanitize death, leaving us disconnected from life's preciousness and our own authentic power.

Within this workshop, we create space for the emotions that live in our bodies grief, fear, rage, tenderness, emotions that may have been suppressed since boyhood. Here, witnessed by other men, these feelings can finally be honored, expressed, and transformed.

Death as Our Teacher isn't about morbidity, it's about removing the masks we wear daily and meeting the vibrant, sensitive, powerful man who lives beneath the armor. It's about discovering what happens when we stop running from the one certainty we all share and instead let it guide us toward what truly matters.

With deep roots in contemporary men's work spanning over 40 years, this experience is held by facilitators who understand that our healing happens in relationship—with ourselves, each other, and the natural world.

The Experience

Your journey begins 24 hours before we gather. You'll receive gentle prompts inviting you to live one complete day as if it were your last—not with frantic urgency, but with profound presence and intentionality. This preparation opens the doorway to the deeper work we'll do together.

When we come together on Saturday morning, expect to be held in a container that honors both strength and vulnerability. We begin in circle, the ancient form where every man's voice matters equally. Here, stories are shared and witnessed without judgment or advice, creating the foundation of trust that allows transformation.

Breathing practices will ground and center us, teaching you to access the deeper states where authentic feeling lives. These aren't complex techniques they're simple, powerful tools you'll carry with you long after the workshop ends.

Creative expression becomes a pathway to truths that words alone cannot reach. Whether through art, writing, or speaking, you'll discover your authentic voice. There's no skill required, only willingness to let whatever wants to emerge come through you.

Ritual space marks this passage together. We'll create meaningful ceremony that honors both the ending of old patterns and the birth of new possibilities. These are inspired rituals from other cultures which they arise organically from our collective wisdom and current need.

Throughout the day, expect deep listening, both to others and to the quiet voice within that knows what you need. Expect moments of profound silence and moments of belly laughter. Expect to feel the support of men who understand your struggles because they are their own.

Brotherhood is woven through every moment, creating connections that extend far beyond our time together. You'll leave with a network of conscious men committed to living with greater authenticity and presence.

An Invitation to Wholeness

This work calls to men who are ready to explore:

Connecting with what truly matters. When we face our finite nature, the trivial falls away and what's essential becomes crystal clear. You'll discover what deserves your precious life energy and what you've been giving it to out of habit or fear.

Releasing patterns that no longer serve. Many of us carry ways of being that made sense when we were younger but now limit our capacity for joy, intimacy, and authentic expression. Death as teacher shows us what's ready to die so new life can emerge.

Discovering authentic voice in community. For too long, we've carried our deepest questions and fears in isolation. Here, you'll experience what happens when men speak and listen from the heart, creating space for truths that transform.

Honoring both strength and sensitivity. Our culture taught us to choose one or the other. This work reveals how our greatest strength often emerges from our willingness to feel deeply and let ourselves be moved by beauty, loss, and love.

Creating meaningful ritual and passage. Life's transitions deserve to be marked and honoured. You'll learn to create rituals that acknowledge change, loss, and new beginnings—skills that serve not just you but your family and community.

What to Expect

Expect to feel things. This isn't intellectual work. It's embodied, emotional, transformational. You might find yourself crying—not from sadness alone, but from relief, recognition, or the simple joy of being truly seen by other men.

Expect laughter. Deep work doesn't mean constant solemnity. When men gather authentically, humour emerges naturally—sometimes in the most unexpected moments. Laughter and tears are often companions in healing.

Expect tender heartache. We'll touch the places where you carry grief—for dreams unrealized, relationships lost, parts of yourself you've had to hide. This heartache isn't something to fix or avoid—it's a doorway to greater aliveness.

Expect healing touch. Appropriate, consensual physical connection—a hand on the shoulder, an embrace when welcomed—reminds us that we don't have to carry our burdens alone. Many men are starved for nurturing touch, and we create space for this basic human need.

Expect realness. No performance is required or welcomed. We're not here to impress each other with our insights or spiritual attainments. We're here to be real, messy, and human together.

Expect to be encouraged toward wholeness. This means embracing all parts of yourself—the parts you're proud of and the ones you've tried to hide. Wholeness includes your anger, your tenderness, your wisdom, and your confusion.

Expect support for breaking down and breaking through. Sometimes what looks like falling apart is actually the breaking open that allows new growth. You'll be held with skill and care as old patterns dissolve and new possibilities emerge.

Why Is This Happening?

As beings socialized as men, most of us were taught at an early age not to show certain emotions. But the truth is, we do feel deeply. We are sensitive beings. We experience loss, love, and sorrow. We feel our shames and fears. We are moved by beauty. We hold anger and rage that isn't inherently destructive, but is a deep cry of the heart.

Death as Our Teacher is a space to dive deep into the waters of collective depth, attunement, and belonging together.

We do this tender work so that we can show up for ourselves, our families, and our communities with more fullness and presence. We do this with the intention of learning how to acknowledge and transform our personal and global approach to death into something that opens us up to the true preciousness of life—something that is beautiful, generative, and nourishing for each of us, our loved ones, and the greater web of life of which we are all a part.

What Participants Gain

Immediate Outcomes:

• Crystal clarity on personal values and priorities

• Reduced anxiety about mortality through direct engagement

• Deeper connection with other conscious men

• Practical tools for ongoing self-reflection

Long-term Transformation:

• Regular practice of "death contemplation" as life guidance

• Stronger capacity for authentic relationships

• Decreased attachment to ego-driven pursuits

• Increased courage for meaningful action

Post-Workshop Integration

• Optional follow-up circle for continued connection

• Resource list for ongoing men's work

• Private online community for participants

• Individual integration session available

Held With Care

This container is crafted for safety. Everything shared stays within our circle. Participation is always voluntary. Emotions are welcomed and supported with skill and tenderness by experienced facilitators who have walked this path themselves.

Your Facilitators

Kosta Michalopoulos - Co-Facilitator Kosta is a father of two, photographer, musician, and community nurse with over 20 years of experience supporting individuals through vulnerable and complex life circumstances. His journey has been shaped by personal encounters with grief, loss, and emotional hardship, which led him to discover the strength found in self-love, resilience, and authentic connection.

As a men’s work practitioner through The Men Spirit, Kosta brings a grounded presence, deep compassion, and an intuitive ability to hold space for transformation. His work is dedicated to creating safe, heart-led environments where men can shed old layers, reconnect with themselves, and experience the healing power of being witnessed in community.

Sammy Haywood - Co-Facilitator Sammy Haywood is a father, death walker and digital product designer with over 20 years experience in designing and delivering soul expanding experiences. His work is to empower embodied belonging through Truth, Healing, and Wholeness. A chance encounter with the wilderness saved his life after a rare blood cancer diagnosis and inspired him to live and learn in a soul opening way.

He currently lives with his partner and three year old son in the inner north of Melbourne, and can often be found singing, dancing or breaking bread wherever the village fire is burning bright. You can discover more here - www.linkedin.com/in/sammyhaywood

Shane Brabazon - Elder Shane is a journeyman in life and in Eldership. With extensive experience working in community organisations, he has supported individuals and families as they navigate life’s challenges, helping them cultivate personal awareness and resilience.

He holds a deep passion for men’s development, health, and well-being, and has also carried a longstanding interest in metaphysics and the profound questions it raises about self-identity, life, the universe, and death.

Frequently Held Concerns

Workshop Details

Date: October 25, 2025 Time: 10am-2pm AEST

Time Commitment: ~4 hours (+travel time)

Cost: $120. Early bird $100 (ends 1st October)

Location: The Dome at Essential Healing Centre: 26 Tortice Drive, Ringwood North, Victoria, 3134

This invitation asks you to sense into a healing, life-giving relationship with mortality that many of us have never experienced but are longing for. We don't claim to have all the answers—we aren't experts dispensing wisdom. We are simply men answering the call of our hearts and inviting others to answer theirs with us.

The question isn't whether you're ready. The question is: Will you answer the call of your heart?

Ready to begin your first day alive?

"You spoke as if you had one day left. Now go live as if today is your first."