Workshop: Green Living – Green Dying

Date: Saturday 18th April 2026
Time: 10am – 1pm
Venue: Gribblehirst Community Hub. Cabbage Tree Swamp Drive, Sandringham, Auckland
Cost: $35

Explore ways to carry your values of eco conscious living beyond your life, into eco conscious dying.  By planning ahead, with kaitiakitanga in mind, you can leave an enduring legacy that treads gently on the earth while honouring ritual.

This workshop looks at the environmental impact of conventional funerals on Papatūanuku and how to mitigate this impact. Learn about sustainable options available in Aotearoa such as Natural Burial & Water Cremation, alternatives to chemical embalming, and the use of funeral shrouds. There is opportunity for questions and discussion, and for shrouding practice. Then we get creative by collaboratively dyeing a silk shroud cover using flowers. This will be donated to charity. You are invited to bring a few fresh or dried flowers to contribute to the process, select ones with dark petals.

Your Host: Ake Ake Shrouds is Aotearoa’s first artisan made shroud maker, owned and run by Karen Williamson, an ex Hospice nurse and natural dyer. Karen works from her home studio in the Kaipara, using sustainable practices to create botanically dyed funeral shrouds. She is an advocate for natural burials and home led funerals, and for kaitiakitanga in funeral planning.