THE SUBMERSION
diving deep…to surface whole
We have inherited a culture that handles mortality badly, which encourages avoidance, practices clinical distance, and pretends that silence is dignity. Many of us feel the cost of this without even being able to name it, and The Submersion is a three-month 1:1 container for doing something about that.
Over seven sessions, working through The Deep End's six modules together, we'll dismantle the conditioning you’ve inherited, expand your understanding of what mortality actually means, and cultivate the inner capacities that make both living and dying something you can meet with honesty and openness. This is philosophical, spiritual, and practical preparation for the one experience that none of us will avoid.
Our relationship with death deserves more.
Open annually from September through April
"I'd felt for a long time that I needed to be in a conversation around death, but there was nowhere available to have the depth of conversation that I wanted. I read Death & Birds for months and found a lot of what I was looking for there so when I saw The Submersion I knew it was for me. I had so much baggage around giving death my attention, and I knew that baggage was getting in the way of the relationship I wanted with my own life. I didn't realise until about half way through the process just how much energy that wanting-to-but-not-looking was actually taking up. My shoulders have dropped an inch. I breathe more deeply now. My mind, my life, feels more spacious.
When we did Module 5 I felt like a star exploded. Finding a sense of ease in unknowing, like in my body, not just logically, was massive. ‘Unknowing’ had felt dangerous before. Now it feels like a wink from the universe. This work is for everyone who will die, or knows someone who will die. That pull towards befriending mortality is actually just intelligence."
-JV, London, UK. The Submersion participant.
What the work looks like:
We’ll meet every two weeks—though it’s possible to space sessions out further apart if that feels beneficial—and each time we’ll dive into a module from the course, looking at how it relates to and affects you personally, and how you might take what you’ve learned in the module and apply it to your daily life.
The Great Forgetting & Shadow Work
How death became cultural shadow, and what this forgetting has cost us personally and collectively
Session 1 traces how death went from familiar companion to medical failure. We examine the cultural forces that severed us from mortality and identifying the beliefs you absorbed without choosing to.
Session 2 looks at what lives in your shadow around death; the fears, assumptions, and avoidances shaping your life in ways you may not yet realise. We’ll examine how denial manifests in your relationship with aging, grief, consumption, and natural cycles.
Between sessions: contemplative exercises, shadow work prompts, and optional readings on cultural death denial
Fractal Perspectives & Reclaiming Wisdom
Death as universal pattern, and how worldview shapes our capacity to die well
Session 3 expands the lens from the personal to the cosmic, revealing how death operates at every scale of existence, and discovering what changes when you see your own mortality as participation in ancient, reliable patterns.
Session 4 examines how Western culture's mechanistic worldview severed our relationship with death as a sacred process. We explore what animist and indigenous traditions offer, recognising the world as alive, and death as transformation. We then consider how to integrate these ways of knowing with integrity.
Between sessions: perspective-shifting practices, cosmic contemplations and seeing the world through different eyes
Threshold Spaces & The Art of Departure
Cultivating presence at life's edges and developing practices for conscious completion
Session 5 works with thin places, the outer locations and inner states where the boundary between living and dying feels permeable. We discover how preparing for death happens through daily practices of presence, unknowing, and letting go.
Session 6 focuses on conscious departure and cultivating relationship with mortality through gratitude, forgiveness, and surrender. We develop your personal practices for dying and living well.
Between sessions: threshold practices, completion exercises and forward planning
Integration
Anchoring the work and creating a sustainable path forward
Session 7 gathers the threads of our time together. We’ll consider what’s shifted, what parts of the work might want to become habits, what moving forward looks like, and how to ensure that the new ways of seeing become second nature.
"Before The Submersion I thought about death a lot, mostly about my parents, which was sometimes a way of avoiding thinking about my own. I knew from my meditation practice that sometimes you must turn to look at the thing in the face. What shifted is hard to explain, but I experience being more a part of things. I now trust that my death is nature, and I love nature. I do not fear or resent nature. So I do not fear or resent death. That brings an ease that was not there before.
Something I did not expect is my parents are getting that ease by proxy. As I no longer fear sitting with death or talking about it, they feel it too. I have become more connected to the larger context of life and existence."
-FvdB, Netherlands. The Submersion participant.
What’s included:
7 × 90-minute Zoom sessions (6 x bi-weekly plus 1 x integration call)
Complete course materials (6 modules, written and audio, with prompts, meditations and further reading)
Email or WhatsApp support between sessions for questions and reflections
Curated resources based on your interests, needs and circumstances
Personalised reflections for your review
“Our relationship with Death is just that, a relationship; reciprocal, nuanced, dynamic. It is a wondrous thing, to welcome the fact of our mortality into our lives. What it does over time is nothing short of miraculous.”
Pricing
PAYMENT PLAN:
£305 / $390
3 x monthly installments
SINGLE PAYMENT:
£777 / $997
Pay once to save 15%
Who this is for:
You may understand intellectually that death is natural, and perhaps, on a good day, even feel relatively comfortable with the idea in the abstract. And yet something hasn't quite settled. The knowing hasn't become ease. There's a low-level awareness that you're still organising some part of your life around not looking too directly.
Or, perhaps you haven't circled it at all. Perhaps you’ve simply felt the pull, but never found a container that felt serious enough, or safe enough, to explore it in.
The Submersion is for people who are ready to stop managing their relationship with mortality from a distance and actually develop one. You'll get the most from this work if you're able (or interested in becoming able) to hold paradox and not-knowing, are willing to examine what you've inherited, and are looking for something that is both rigorous and genuinely tender. You don't need to be fearless, your willingness is enough.
Our Working Together:
I've spent years in intimate relationship with death, both professionally, as an end of life doula, and personally, in ways that found me long before I had language for them. What that time has taught me, consistently, is that the closer we come to mortality, the more fully we inhabit our lives. The Submersion is my attempt to offer that encounter in a form that is structured enough to feel safe and open enough to go somewhere deep and real. I bring practical wisdom, a philosophical sensibility, and a genuine commitment to meeting you exactly where you are.
Application Process:
This work requires a mutual trust, and the application is where that begins. It involves submitting a form followed by a 30-minute Zoom call. By the end of the call we’ll both know whether this is the right container for you at this time.
FAQs
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No. While the work is therapeutic in nature, I'm not a therapist. The Submersion is educational and contemplative—it's about expanding your understanding, dismantling conditioning, and developing inner capacities. If you're currently working with a therapist, this work can complement that beautifully. If you're experiencing acute mental health difficulties, I'd encourage you to seek clinical support first.
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Think of The Deep End as the map, and The Submersion as having a guide who walks the terrain with you—someone who knows where all the tricky bits are, who can point out what you might be missing, and who adjusts the route based on what you're actually encountering.
The Deep End gives you all the core material—the philosophy, the frameworks, the practices. It's brilliant for self-directed exploration, and many people find it genuinely transformative on its own. The Submersion takes that same material and makes it specifically yours, by applying each module directly to your life, your fears, your particular cultural inheritance and your specific blocks around mortality.
I also curate additional resources based on what I'm noticing about your process, interests, and where you're getting stuck or where you're hungry for more.
The Submersion is also a committed three-month container, with a specific rhythm, and that structure itself creates both accountability and spaciousness. The work has room to settle between sessions. You're not just consuming the content of the course, you're being supported in living with it, and then bringing what's most alive back to our calls.
This work can be tender, disorienting and sometimes a bit wild. Having a guide who can say "that's normal," or "let's slow down here," or "I think there's something underneath that that’s worth exploring" is a very different animal from solo study.
(And if you've already purchased The Deep End, that cost will be deducted from The Submersion)
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Not at all. While this work absolutely serves those who are grieving or living with a life-limiting illness, it's equally valuable for anyone who feels the call to develop a more conscious, intimate relationship with death before crisis demands it. Many people come to this work precisely because they want to prepare—emotionally, spiritually, practically—rather than waiting until they're in the thick of it.
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Quite possibly, yes. Fear often signals something asking to be met rather than avoided. That said, this work asks for willingness more than courage—a willingness to slowly, gently, explore what lies beneath that fear. We won't be forcing anything. The work is rigorous but tender, and we'll move at a pace that honours your nervous system.
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No problem. This work isn't tied to any particular belief system. Whether you approach death from a secular, spiritual, religious, or agnostic perspective, you’re welcome. We're exploring the universal human experience of mortality through multiple lenses—philosophical, practical, cosmic, and personal.
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Beyond our 75-minute sessions every two weeks, you'll want to allow time for the contemplative practices, reading, and personalised exercises. This varies by person, but most people find that 30-60 minutes a week feels manageable and generative. The work is designed to weave into your life rather than dominate it.
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First, you'll have email/WhatsApp access to me between sessions for support. Second, we calibrate as we go—this isn't about overwhelming you. If something feels too much, we pause, adjust, and find another way in. The goal is transformation, not trauma. Your nervous system's wisdom will be honoured.
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At some point, yes. But we build toward that slowly and carefully. We start by exploring cultural and personal conditioning, expanding into cosmic context, and developing the inner capacities that make examining your own mortality not just bearable but meaningful. By the time we arrive there, you'll have scaffolding in place.
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The Submersion opens each September and closes at the end of April because baby bird season begins in May. In spring and summer my work turns toward other kinds of tending, and the work we’ll do in The Submersion work is too important to offer at anything less than full capacity.