Clare Dubois is the courageous, passionate and dedicated founder of TreeSisters. Her journey to set up TreeSisters is both remarkable and quite terrifying, yet also magical and mystical. TreeSisters is now rated in the top 20% of most relevant and inspiring organisations on the planet and so far with the help of sponsors, has funded the planting of over 15 million trees right across the globe, including being chosen to create a legacy forest for the late Captain Sir Tom Moore.
A huge thank you to Instinctive Livingfor publishing this blog on talking to children about death and dying. Check out the wonderful work Instinctive Living is doing in helping us all to share our creativity and inspiration with each other.
I am delighted to introduce you to the world of Granny Mo, whose job is to help children and adults to talk together about death and dying. However, first I want to tell you why she came into being.
It all started with Jack, my not-yet four-year-old grandson asking out of the blue while he was having lunch, ‘Am I going to die one day?’ His mother glanced at me in alarm and mouthed, ‘Over to you!’
I told him, ‘Yes, you will die one day and so will your sister and your mummy and daddy, and I will too. Everyone dies just as everyone is born – that’s how life is created.’
Clara Apollo is the host for Chi Time TV, interviewing some of the world’s leading metaphysical and spiritual teachers of our time. She describes herself as a life-long curious scholar, who has been searching for answers since experiencing a profound awakening as a child. During her search for her own truth, she has been a ballet dancer, nurse, nanny, singer and performer, textile and wedding dress designer, costume designer for stage and screen, art and biology teacher, now Qigong teacher, Reiki Master and radio/TV presenter.Clara has been sharing the teachings of Elemental Qigong since the early 2000’s, returning to her own practice time and again, as a deep inner resource. As she says, Qigong has become the heart and soul of who she is.
Jane Morrell and Simon Smith set up Green Fuse twenty years ago. It’s been a long journey from setting up in a flower shop with coffins. Jane’s aim was to celebrate rites of passage with flowers and ceremonies. On the first day she opened someone came in whose son had just been found dead in the bath after an overdose. They had no idea he was an addict. This was their first venture into the funeral business and celebration of his life. The funeral work grew and eventually Jane and Simon decided to start training others in the way they worked, both celebrants and funeral directors. They have now trained over 500 people in different aspects of working with funeral directing.
Ten years ago, Jazmine Wolf’s husband died suddenly in his mid-forties of an undiagnosed heart condition. She talks candidly about coming to terms with the shock and grief of losing her soul mate and how she has rebuilt her life as an inspiring business coach and her special love of caring for elderly people.
In February 2020, Adam Cormack had a life altering stroke at the age of forty-three. This is his inspirational story about his recovery to give us all hope and courage as we move into 2021 – and all that it will bring to our door.
Adam works for The Woodland Trust environmental charity as head of campaigning. It’s a demanding job involving a fair amount of travelling, developing case work on trees and wood that are under threat and running campaigns to influence government spending and government policies for trees and woods. It’s work, which he says he loves, although he admits, ‘it’s kind of never ending really.’ He was back to full-time work by July. Adam is also dad to three young daughters aged eight, twelve and fourteen.
Adam joined the Woodland Trust in 2019. Before that, he’d been working for about a decade with The Wildlife Trust. After graduating in American Studies he played in a band for a few years, touring and releasing records. When it became clear this was going to be a really hard way to earn a living, Adam started following his other passion for the outdoors and the environment, which he has been doing for the past decade or so.
