Lake View Cemetery hosts mindfulness meditation and soundbath in chapel

Inside Wade Memorial Chapel, mindfulness was not a studio add-on. It was a guided meditation and soundbath led by Lindsay Stefans of Selfspace Meditation Studio, set for 60 minutes in Lake View Cemetery’s historic arboretum in Cleveland on Saturday, June 6, 2026. The session carried a $25 ticket, and the money went to the Lake View Cemetery Foundation’s preservation and educational mission.

Lake View framed the event as open to newcomers without flattening it into a casual drop-in. No experience was necessary, and the program was described as suitable for all levels, but the logistics were strict: late admittance would not be accommodated, no physical tickets were issued, and registration served as the check-in list. If the event sold out, attendees could ask to be added to a wait list by contacting Kim Bihler, the cemetery’s director of donor services. Rain would not stop the session.

The setting was the hook. Wade Memorial Chapel began in 1901 and was dedicated to Jeptha Wade, the founder of Western Union Telegraph Company and the first president of Lake View Cemetery. Hubbell & Benes designed the exterior, while the interior was designed and constructed by the studios of Louis Comfort Tiffany. Lake View says the chapel has one of the few remaining interiors designed completely by Tiffany, which gave the meditation a rare kind of atmosphere, part civic landmark, part acoustic chamber.

That atmosphere matched the broader identity of the grounds. Lake View says its founders made horticulture an integral part of cemetery planning in 1869, and the property is now a certified Level 2 Arboretum with thousands of specimen trees. The Lake View Cemetery Foundation was established in 1984 to preserve the cemetery’s historic trees, buildings, monuments and gardens, while also supporting educational outreach. Lake View also says it remains committed to interment services for people of all races and religions while preserving a nationally recognized historic landscape.

Taken together, Music and Meditation worked because it was not trying to imitate a generic wellness class. The chapel, the soundbath, the arboretum and the preservation mission all pulled in the same direction, which is exactly why place-based mindfulness keeps breaking through audience fatigue. In a room built for stillness, the point was not just the practice, but the fact that the practice helped keep the place standing.