The topic of death is front and center in my line of work as a hospice chaplain. A corollary topic that immediately follows is the question of life after death. Most of my patients, especially those with a Christian religious background believe in after life; Those from non-religious backgrounds are ...
Today is my brother Omondi's birthday, he would have been 49 - he died in 1989. Also today, Alice posted to me her video on death and Death Cafe ... poetic, because it was because of my brother's death that I hitch-hiked through southern England way back in 1989, before ...
I wouldn't say that I ever met Nelson Mandela. But I did see him speak in person at the opening of the Robben Island gateway at Cape Town's waterfront. It was what seems to me like an age ago, and yet even then he seemed old. I was ...
Transit Now! As a young, iconoclastic seeker-after-truth, one of my most admired authors was Ernest Becker. He won a Pulitzer-prize in 1974 for The Denial of Death, arguing that the terror of death is an innate fear which haunts us from birth.In it he quotes Sigmund Freud, “Is it ...
Do we only see what we wish to see? Do we - unconsciously or otherwise - block out the undesirable elements of our lives and focus upon things which make us feel good - or at least do not make us feel sad or scared? I wonder - and I know in my heart ...
We not only talked about death, we almost witnessed it that afternoon!
Nine folks gathered at my home in Seattle for a relaxing afternoon to talk frankly. After the first half-hour, when we'd all been introduced and chatted about why each of us wanted to talk about death and ...
Lizzy Miles recently said to me that 2013 was the year that the death conversation went mainstream. I guess time will tell but, as the Atlantic said, death does seem to be having a moment.
Death Cafe seems to have arrived at precisely the time loads of people wanted to ...
Losing a loved one will evoke pain on milestone events. November 10, 2006. I was at Detroit hospital with my husband. He was in the process of getting all the work done to be added to a the liver transplant list. As he did the stress test, I received a ...
Unusually for November in northern England, the weather was being reasonable. The rain had disappeared and had been replaced by cold, bright, rather cloudy days as if to ease our return to the country of our birth. I was in England with my son and daughter for just a week ...
Only the body dies. The essence of what you are lasts forever. Life and death is all there is on this and other planet and any other universe, ad infinatum.
Transformation is all there is!
The only thing one has to fear is fear creeping into one's life!
Everything ...
I could not think of a better place to ask a question I have been asking people in all walks of life than death cafe. The question is the following:
What is the purpose of life?
After reflecting on that question and the reflection yields a response I would welcom ...
As I tucked in to my BLT, minus the lettuce, who has lettuce for breakfast? I reflected I'd driven 500 miles in the last few days visiting Birmingham, Norwich and Peterborough.
Birmingham to see my mum Maureen. 84 years of age and still a natural blond! She looks damn ...
This is a transcript of the speech that Kristie West gave at the Joy of Death Festival on the 8th September 2012. Kristie is a Grief Specialist with a radical, effective and wonderful approach to dealing with death.
“The Joy of Death” festival. What is that? Is it a just ...
San Quirico Tuscany
23rd August 2014
I'm sitting by my Tuscan swimming pool as I write. As I'm touching on the subject of death and the Catholic church, I'm conscious of a large chasm opening in front of me. With that in mind, unless its clear to ...
It's been two years since this project began, and to see where it started and where it is today makes me beam with pride.
It is all thanks to the wonderful death-chat devoutee Jon Underwood, and all the fantastic contributors across the globe who have put so much time ...