Death Cafe Des Moines #3
A write up of Death Cafe Des Moines
By Carriekay
The third Death Cafe Des Moines was held on 12-14-2014 at Java Joes Theatre, 214 4th Street, DSM, Iowa, 50309. The Death Cafe started at 4pm with delicious chocolate cake and coffee. Carrie England and Ryan Fredregill co-faciliated. There were eight participants all attending a Death Cafe for the first time. The group consisted of five women and 2 men ages 25 to 74. Participants identified on their evaluation forms that they heard about the Death Cafe from a friend, Facebook, and one participant saw a flyer in a health food store. Participants were given a handout with a brief Death Cafe history and a list of principles and guidelines as laid out on the Death Cafe website. Feed-back was mostly very positive. One participant thought a bigger group and more time would have been better. Words used to describe their Death Cafe experience included; enlightening, comforting, insightful, emotional, curious, interesting, peaceful, spiritual, gentle, and deep sharing. Per the evaluation forms participants described their faith/religion/belief system as Catholic (1), not Christian (1), Christian (3), Baptist (1) one left the question blank, and one wrote "Absolute belief in spirit and that we transition into new forms as we pass."