Aralyn Doiron left an established art career in the United States more than 15 years ago to make her home in Golden Bay. At the end of 2015, after completing the first Deathwalker Training to be held in Aotearoa with Zenith Virago, she founded Death Café Golden Bay, which is now an active group of almost 200 people who not only meet in person from time to time, but engage with each other and share death, dying and grief content on Facebook.

Aralyn has been involved in facilitating immersive rites of passage events at Tui Community, where she lives, for over 15 years. In 2022, during a women's over-50 event she was running, Aralyn and her co-facilitator, Rita, introduced activities designed to help participants explore their lives, and relationship with their own death. The response to the event was truly enthusiastic and from this, A Knock on the Door was born.

Held over three days in a beautiful natural setting, A Knock on the Door is unique, as it guides people to face their own mortality. Aralyn describes it as "a creative and magical adventure to fall in love with your life while embracing your imminent death".

This "journey to aliveness through the mortal portal", as Aralyn defines it, has already taken place several times with great results and remarkable feedback. Aralyn and her team are now inviting expressions of interest from those who wish to be part of the next offering, sometime in 2024.

Participating in A Knock on the Door will give you the opportunity to experience - through embodied, somatic experiences - the following questions:

• Are you making the most of this precious life?
• What stands in the way of living fully right now?
• Why do we not talk about death with one another when it is something we all share in common?
• What would you focus on with only 24 hours to live?
• What happens when you fully embrace the exquisite beauty and impermanence of your own body?
• What is the role of grief in being fully alive?
• How can fear serve your life rather than undermine it?
• What do you take a stand for? How does this inform your purpose?
• What gifts is the natural world waiting to share with you?

Grief is a natural response to loss. It’s the emotional pain we feel when someone or something we love is taken away from us. Coping with loss is one of life’s hardest challenges. In this video, Mind Known shares three powerful analogies for understanding grief and the way it can change over time.