Coming alongside
– Practices of Accompaniment, Care, and Rituals at the End of Life–
November 14–16, 2026
3-day retreat with Dr. Martha Jo Atkins (USA)
Before death became primarily a medical event, people died at home — surrounded by their loved ones, in a space where care, touch, words, and ritual all had their natural place. One generation passed on to the next how to be with a person at the end of life: what to do, what to say, how to help — and when the greatest help is simply to remain present.
This experiential retreat invites us into the experience of accompanying someone who is approaching death and dying.We will learn how to hold space, listen, care, know when to act — and when to simply be. The seminar will include teaching, sharing, reflection, and real rituals for the time before death and shortly after it.
This seminar is not a lecture about death from a distance. It is an invitation to come closer — to the body, emotions, silence, relationship, care, and the sacredness of ordinary gestures.
The program will be held as a sensitively structured experiential process, in which the group becomes a circle of care around a person at the end of life. It will combine teaching, model situations, ritual practice, sharing, and ongoing reflection.
What this is
Over 2.5 days of experiential learning, Dr. Atkins will model and teach skills of accompaniment, with the help of a colleague role-playing a person at end of life. Retreat participants will become a circle of care for this person. You will practice tending, holding space without filling it, listening without fixing, presence, and creating and moving through ritual in dying and death.
This seminar is not a lecture on death from a distance. It is an invitation to come closer - to the body, emotions, silence, community, ways of care, and to the sacredness of the ordinary.
More about the retreat:
🌿 Who this is for
You are training to be a death doula, or you are preparing to accompany someone you love, or you already do this work and you want to go deeper. You are not afraid of the subject and may feel called to it in a way that's difficult to articulate.
🌿 What you will learn
How to read what is happening as someone approaches death, including the language, the visions, the metaphors, the body's own intelligence. How to create a safe container for a dying person and their family with care, touch, words, silence, and ritual.
Martha teaches from 35 years of direct experience with dying, grieving, and bereaved children and adults. Her first connection with a dying patient was a three-year-old boy. She was 22. Over her career, Martha Jo has been with more than a thousand humans on their end of life journeys. She has learned that dying has a language and coherence we can recognize. This recognition allows us to accompany the dying with less fear and more love.
🌿 What this is not
This is not a lecture. It is not a certificate program. It is not a safe distance from the subject.
It is an invitation to come closer. To the body. To silence. To the ordinary gestures that become sacred at the end of a life.
More about Dr. Martha Jo Atkins
Martha Jo Atkins, PhD, is a board-certified psychotherapist, author of Sign Posts of Dying, Founder of the Children's Bereavement Center of South Texas, Founder of Dying School™ and an internationally recognized end-of-life specialist. Her TEDx Talk, More to Dying Than Meets the Eye has more than 2 million views. Dr. Atkins has worked with children, adults, and families for over three decades in the United States and abroad.
Dr. Atkins lives in San Antonio, Texas with her boxer dog, Gertie Josephine Atkins.
Most of us have never been taught how dying happens. Over the course of our lives, we may witness two or three deaths — and yet we expect ourselves to know how to handle it with confidence.
Why am I inviting Martha Jo Atkins back to the Czech Republic?
I see her way of working as something rare.
She does not simply share information about death, dying, and grief. She brings deep life and professional experience, rooted in practice, in real stories, and in genuine contact with people at the end of life as well as with those who are grieving.
At last year's seminar, I was deeply touched by the way she was able to bring together expertise, humanity, ritual sensitivity, and full presence. Martha did not stand apart as someone who was only there to teach. She was in it with us. She created a space where it was possible to learn, to feel, to ask questions, and to be moved — while still feeling safe.
These are exactly the kinds of spaces we need today. Spaces where death is not spoken about only from a distance, but where we can learn again how to be close to a person at the end of life.
And that is why I am inviting Martha back.
Jana Slavice – retreat organizer 2025 & 2026
Voices of participants from last year's retreat:
Martha is, for me, a person with an enormous heart — deeply human and kind. Her compassion has no limits, and that is what touched me so deeply.
Alena Horáčková
hospic sv. Kleofáše
The retreat helped me cry my way down to the very bottom of my grief and allowed me to bring a year of intense grieving to a close. At the same time, it helped me find answers to the questions families in home hospice care ask me.
retreat 2025
home hospice worker
A great gift for me was Martha's presence and personality — grounded in reality, in life experience, and in the practice she has lived and continues to live. I deeply appreciated how sensitively she guided us step by step through difficult themes: what we would see, what we would hear, how it might affect us, and how she then accompanied us through it.
Jana Princová
End of life doula
VENUE:
Retreat centrum Zastávka Obořice, Czech Republic
Our gathering will take place in a cozy and inspiring space, held in the quiet of nature, not far from the village of Ležáky — a place with deep memory and story.
This landscape can teach us how to be with pain and grief. Not through instructions, but through silence, presence, and the kind of stillness that allows everything to be as it is.
The atmosphere of the place is clear, calm, and supportive — a place where it is possible to rest safely and open gently.
We will sleep in an airy attic space with beds or comfortable mattresses.
The food will be light, varied, and vegetarian.
If you prefer more privacy or comfort, we will be happy to recommend accommodation options nearby.
The group will be limited to a maximum of 25 participants, so that we can go truly deep, with respect for each individual story.
Schedule:
It is possible to arrive and settle in already on Friday, November 13.
Saturday, November 14 – we begin at 10:00 AM
Monday, November 16 – we end with a shared lunch around 1:00 PM
Retreat Fee: €600
Includes: tuition fee, meals and accommodation
Registration:
After we receive your email, we will send you a registration questionnaire, including the terms and conditions and the liability waiver for this retreat. You can also read them here.