Death Cafe profile for Tracy Seffers

Location: United States

About Tracy Seffers:

Elder Care/End of Life Doula via Doulagivers Int'l. INELDA trained, preparing for Certified Music Practitioner via Music for Healing and Transition Program (MHTP).

Ready to talk about the hard stuff with you.

What brings you to Death Cafe?

I want to be able to provide this conversation in my communities, and this is the premier resource to do so.  Thank you!

What would you like your legacy to be?

I created spaces for people to breathe, and be, and create - to live and die in peace, and to know themselves beloved and held in tenderness.

Thoughts for sharing:

When death comes 
like the hungry bear in autumn; 
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut; 
when death comes 
like the measle-pox;

when death comes 
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering: 
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything 
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood, 
and I look upon time as no more than an idea, 
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common 
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth, 
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something 
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life 
I was a bride married to amazement. 
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder 
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, 
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

—Mary Oliver

Tracy Seffers's posts on the Death Cafe website

Death Cafe: April 2024 Shepherdstown WV Death Cafe

Posted by Tracy Seffers on April 1, 2024, 9:33 a.m.

With Tracy Seffers

April 2, 2024, 12.00 p.m. - 1.00 p.m. (Eastern)

Accepts donations

Join us for tea, cake and compassionate conversation about death and dying.

Bring your questions, your stories, your worries. Bring your open hearts and minds. Bring your grief and your ...

Death Cafe write up: Shepherdstown WV Death Cafe: Tea, Cake and Conversation

Posted by Tracy Seffers on March 5, 2024, 2:50 p.m.

Spring is starting to spring up all around us, peeping green from the decay of last year's leaves - life rising up out of death, death giving birth to new life - the eternal cycle coming round again.

Tea and cake were set out for our guests, and as people gathered.

The first topic brought to the table for discussion (thank you, Christine!) was the idea of "delayed" or "displaced" grief. What is it - why is it?  How does it look for different grievers and difference death circumstances?  Is it cultural - individual - communal - self-protective?

Conversation then moved to thinking about which cultures (like the Tibetan Buddhists) "do death" well ...

Death Cafe write up: Shepherdstown WV Death Cafe: Tea, Cake and Conversation

Posted by Tracy Seffers on Feb. 23, 2024, 2:43 p.m. 1 comment

It was another lively gathering in February, fresh off the snowstorms that surprised us!

Discussion centered around how those who are dying  - or caring for those who are dying - may find spirituality/religious traditions comforting or distressing, or anywhere along that spectrum.

The Cafe closed with a reading of Lisel Mueller's lovely poem, "Hope":

"It is the singular gift we cannot destroy in ourselves,
the argument that refutes death . . .
all we know of God. . . .

it is in this poem, trying to speak."

Over tea and homemade cake, it was a lovely gathering, with the promise of  more good conversation to come.

First Tuesdays at Noon - Shepherdstown Public ...

Death Cafe: Shepherdstown WV Death Cafe: Tea, Cake and Conversation

Posted by Tracy Seffers on Feb. 23, 2024, 2:32 p.m.

With Tracy Seffers

March 5, 2024, 12.00 p.m. - 1.00 p.m. (Eastern)

Free

Join us for tea, cake and compassionate conversation about death and dying.

Bring your questions, your stories, your worries. Bring your open hearts and minds. Bring your grief and your ...

Death Cafe: Shepherdstown WV Death Cafe: Tea, Cake and Conversation

Posted by Tracy Seffers on Dec. 5, 2023, 1:24 p.m.

With Tracy Seffers

Feb. 6, 2024, 12.00 p.m. - 1.00 p.m. (Eastern)

Free

Join us for tea, cake and compassionate conversation about death and dying.

Bring your questions, your stories, your worries. Bring your open hearts and minds. Bring your grief and your ...

Death Cafe write up: Shepherdstown WV Death Cafe: Tea, Cake and Conversation

Posted by Tracy Seffers on Dec. 5, 2023, 12:58 p.m. 2 comments

   For our inaugural offering, we had 11 community members come for tea and cake (gratefully received), amazing conversation, and not a little laughter.

   Tracy opened the session with a reading of Mary Oliver's "When Death Comes".

   The usual round of introductions included an invitation to "tell us why you are here" - prompting lovely stories, with much head nodding and affirmation around the circle.

   Questions ranged from, "Why do we not want to tell people that we are sick until it's too late?" to "What do you want to come back as in your next life?"

   Several wonderful books were mentioned as resources:

• "The Book of Two ...

New Blog post: Coming Home

Posted by Tracy Seffers on Nov. 10, 2023, 6:48 a.m.

Death Cafe: Shepherdstown WV Death Cafe: Tea, Cake and Conversation

Posted by Tracy Seffers on Oct. 25, 2023, 2:15 p.m.

With Tracy Seffers

Dec. 5, 2023, 12.00 p.m. - 1.00 p.m. (Eastern)

Accepts donations

Join us for tea, cake and compassionate conversation about death and dying. Bring your questions, your stories, your worries. Bring your open hearts and minds. Bring your grief and your ...