Celebration of Life: Seattle

You went back to work. You handled the arrangements, the paperwork, the phone calls, and everyone else's feelings about it. People told you how strong you were, and then they stopped asking.

It has been one year, or nine. You still reach for the phone.

Our culture gives grief three days, a casserole, and a polite request to be functional by Monday. Then it tells you to find closure. The research stopped supporting that thirty years ago. The relationship does not end when someone dies. It changes form. Nobody told you that, so you have been carrying it alone and calling it fine.

Celebration of Life Seattle is one day built for exactly that. Saturday, October 10, at The Point at Pier 70 on Elliott Bay. The first event of its kind in the world.

Nothing is required of you

Nobody will ask you to share, introduce yourself, or explain what happened. You can sit at the edge of the room all day and be exactly where you should be. You can come alone. Most people will.

What you walk out with

Words for what has been happening to you. A panel of people who study death and loss for a living, in plain language: Dr. Janet McCord, Dr. Pamela Steele, Pat Lowinger and Migizi Miigwan, moderated by Verhanika Willhelm. You will hear that there is no timeline you are behind on.

Help with the job nobody trained you for. Keynote Cassidie Carmen Bates, MPP, TEDx speaker and founder of Soul Executor, on the accounts, the paperwork and the endless decisions that land on you while you can barely think. What is normal, what you are allowed to ask for, and what to say when you ask.

The right people, in one room. A floor of grief therapists, death doulas, hospice organizations, memorial artists and makers. The people you would have spent months trying to find on your own.

Evidence that the connection continues. The day closes with an Evening of Mediumship. Colleen Coleman and five international mediums, Sharon Lauder, Jay Luke Allen, Agnes Romhányi, Kori Kelley and Susan Georgiev, work from the stage and share specific, recognizable details about people who have died, with audience members they have never met. Not everyone receives a message. Everyone watches the relationship treated as real, out loud, in front of a full room. That is the opposite of being told to move on.

What people say after an evening with Colleen

"I've been feeling overwhelming heaviness with each step the last few years. Today, as I took off on my walk, it was like I was walking on air." Holly, after an Evening of Mediumship

"I went into it as a complete skeptic. Arms crossed and all. Well, my mind is completely changed." Carly

"She connected me to my loved ones and helped me get the answers I needed to move forward in my process of dealing with the loss of my husband." Natalie

Verified reviews, colleencoleman.com

Your ticket

Gather, $99. The full day and the Evening of Mediumship. Colleen's Evenings of Mediumship are $99 on their own. Here the whole day comes with it.

Wings, $165. Everything in Gather, plus early entry at 11:00 AM, before the room fills.

Ascend, $295. Early entry, plus a private champagne hour after the evening with the mediums, the keynote and the panelists. Twenty seats.

Who this is for

Anyone who is missing a person, whether that was last month or twenty years ago. You do not have to call it grief.

The people who love someone grieving and have never known what to say. You will leave knowing.

The professionals who do this work every day and rarely get held themselves.

Good to know

Doors open at 11:30 AM. The program starts at noon. For the Evening of Mediumship, the ballroom doors are locked at 4:55 PM. There is no entry after that. Food trucks are on site in the afternoon.

This day is spiritual, not religious. It is not a replacement for anyone's faith. People of every faith, and of none, are welcome. Respectful skeptics too.

Grieving out loud is an act of rebellion. Showing up counts.

Come as you are. Honor who you're missing.

Info: Doors open early for Wings and Ascend guests.

The vendor floor is yours before anyone else arrives, which means real conversations with practitioners before the room fills. Coffee, tea, and water are waiting. Find your seat, get your bearings, breathe.

This half hour is intentionally unhurried. Use it however you need to.

Info: The doors open and the whole thing begins.

The Fireside Lounge comes alive with our vendor floor: grief therapists, death doulas, hospice organizations, memorial artists, somatic practitioners, ritual goods, and books. Wander it. Talk to people. Buy something beautiful. Everything is available for purchase throughout the day, and you will almost certainly find a few things you didn't know you needed.

Stop by our Angel Wings wall and get your photo taken.

Private one-on-one sittings with our mediums also begin during this time, available by advance appointment only (to book: https://celebrationoflifeseattle.com/meet-the-mediums). Thirty minutes, just you and one medium, in a quiet room away from the floor. Sittings are limited and they book quickly.

Our Angels, the volunteer team in white, are with you from the moment you walk in. If you need anything at all, or just want someone to stand next to for a minute, find one of them.

Settle in. The program starts soon.

Info: Colleen Coleman opens the day from the main stage of the Needle's Point Ballroom.

Founder and CEO of Celebration of Life Studios, graduate student in thanatology, the study of death and dying, and most passionately, a professional psychic medium. She built this room because when her own father died, it did not exist.

She will set the tone, name why we are all here, and welcome every single person who walked through that door. Some of you traveled a long way. Some of you almost didn't come at all.

This is not a conference opener. It is an invitation.

Info: Two voices open the day: Verhanika Willhelm and Jennifer de Leon.

Honest, grounded, and human. No platitudes and no performance. Just the truth of what it is to love someone and lose them, said out loud, in a room full of people who already understand.

This is the moment the day stops being an event and starts being something else. If you have spent months carefully managing how much of this you let people see, you can stop here.

Info: Our featured keynote welcomes Cassidie Carmen Bates, MPP, TEDx Speaker, researcher and founder of Soul Executor.

When someone dies, you don't just lose them. You get handed a job: the accounts, the paperwork, the endless decisions, all due while you can barely think straight. Cassidie has lived it and studied it, and she talks about it plainly.

You will leave knowing that what you are going through is normal, that you are allowed to ask your workplace and the people around you for more, and what to actually say when you do.

Info: Step outside and take a breath. The air off Elliott Bay is cool and the light is starting to turn, and there is no better time to stand still for a minute.

When you are ready, come back in. Explore the vendor floor, find a familiar face or a new one, or simply sit and let the day settle.

There is nowhere you need to be right now. That is the point of this hour. Food trucks will be onsite with meals available for purchase.

Info: A moderated panel, led by Verhanika Willhelm, bringing together four people who think about death and loss for a living: Pat Lowinger, Dr. Pamela Steele, Dr. Janet McCord, and Migizi Miigwan.

Between them: research, teaching, cultural tradition, and their own losses. A thanatologist with thirty years in the field. An anthropologist who studies how other cultures handle death. A therapist who lost nearly everyone and built something from it. An Indigenous educator who holds this work through community, land, and water.

You will walk away with a much wider sense of what grief is allowed to look like. That the American way of doing death is not the only way, or the oldest. That there is no timeline you are behind on. And that the relationship you are grieving does not have to end for you to move forward, whatever you were told about closure.

Info: Your last chance at the vendor floor, and a moment to complete any booked sessions before the evening begins.

Then find your seat. The room shifts during this hour, lighter and warmer and quieter, and most people feel it before they can name it.

Take care of whatever you need now. The ballroom doors are locked at 4:55 PM for the Evening of Mediumship, and there is no entry after that.

Info: Doors lock at 4:55 PM. No late entry, and no film or photography once we begin.

As the light changes over Elliott Bay, the day becomes something else.

Colleen Coleman and five international mediums, hand selected for their ability, integrity, and ongoing commitment to their own development, work the room live.

Here is what that means. The mediums bring through specific, particular details about people who have died, offered to audience members they have never met. The kind of details that let you know without a doubt it is your person.

Grief research has held for thirty years what this evening makes visible: the bond does not break. It changes form. What you were told about closure and letting go was never supported by the evidence.

Respectful skeptics are genuinely welcome. We ask only that you come with an open heart and an open mind.

Not everyone in the room will receive a message. Everyone in the room will feel it.

Info: Twenty people. That is the entire guest list.

Ascend guests are escorted upstairs to a private loft with panoramic views of the Seattle skyline, Elliott Bay, and the Olympic Mountains. Champagne is poured the moment you walk in.

And then the room fills with the people you spent all day listening to. All five international mediums. The keynote. The panelists. No stage between you, no line to wait in, no three minutes at the edge of a crowd.

This is your hour with them. Ask the medium from Scotland the question you have been holding since the evening ended. Sit with the thanatologist and say the thing you have never said out loud. Talk to the keynote about what it actually looks like in your own life.

These are people who are almost never accessible like this, and for one hour, in a room of twenty, they are yours.

The sun long gone, the water below, and the afterglow of whatever just happened downstairs.

Twenty seats. When they are gone, they are gone.

Event venue & nearby stays

The Point at Pier 70, 2801 Alaskan Way, Seattle, United States

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