Dear friends of Carolyn Conger,
It is with great sadness that we announce Carolyn's departure from her earthly body. She passed on the morning of June 23, 2023, in Santa Monica, California, surrounded by a circle of family and friends.
Carolyn Conger was born in Long Beach, CA, and spent her childhood in Caracas, Venezuela. She later returned to California, where she completed her doctoral work in psychology. After walking away from her career as a parole officer for juveniles in Los Angeles, she moved to Apple Valley, CA, where she regularly hosted workshops in her desert home. She moved to Santa Monica in 1990, where she lived until her death. Throughout her years of teaching, she took groups around the world to study with healers from many cultures and traditions.
Carolyn was a friend and teacher to countless people over her incredible 82 years, and we will miss her more than words can express. She was a person of generosity, kindness, wisdom, humor, tenacity, and brilliance who modeled an approach to the world characterized by humility. She refused to separate spiritual principles and life practices and found humor and joy even in the darkest of circumstances. Over her many years of counseling others, she led many through the process of dying, helping them to find their way home. She was an inspiration to many, and what she inspired in us was the ability to develop our own talents. With her as our guide, we explored creativity, intuition, psychological realities, dreamwork, tarot, energy healing, movement, and many other modalities for personal and transpersonal growth.
Carolyn will be remembered as the rare kind of teacher who, instead of telling us who and how we should be, opened space for us to decide these questions for ourselves. She shared the tools that had allowed her to reconnect with the possibilities inherent in our being that are usually drowned out by the noise of modern life.
How refreshing and life-giving it was to meet such wisdom in the lovely human form that was Carolyn. As one long-time friend and student shared, “I have never known her to shout wisdom, but rather quietly arrange for us to trip over it ourselves so we might claim it for our own.” Others offered this invitation:
Holding Carolyn in your heart
Your very own unique rituals
Light candles, sing, dance
** We welcome your stories and photos of Carolyn for use on the website and at the memorial gathering. You may comment below, post to the message board, or you may email your submissions to memorial@carolynconger.com