Thanks for another thoughtful and sincere conversation, everyone who joined this Monday!

We touched on so much! Topics included:

An increase in lynchings of Black men recently and how little media attention it has received

Methods by which governments have executed citizens (deemed “criminals”) and the irony that a State can declare ending one’s life illegal but then turn around and execute a person.

How we react to dead bodies:

- Some folks couldn’t handle bloody bodies but were ok without visible blood;

- Some folks didn’t want to see any muscle/flesh, but were ok with skeletons;

- The ethics of having bodies (in any form) on display for entertainment and/or education, like in museums.

 - How our sense of “obligations” to others (friends, family, through any relationship) can feel both like a sense of purpose and privilege but also like a burden.

A member shared that what we refer to as living rooms used to be where we displayed our dead and how removed we have become from death and dying in the modern world.

Some resources mentioned: 

5 Days at Memorial – Pulitzer prize winning book about 5 days at Memorial Hospital in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina

When My Time Comes – by Diane Rehm about her husband’s journey for/through medical aid in dying

Bog Queen (fiction) about a woman investigating the life and death of a woman whose body was discovered preserved in a bog

The Faithful Executioner – “The extraordinary story of a renaissance-era executioner and his world, based on a rare and overlooked journal.”

Information/websites:

On Medical Aid in Dying (MAID) in Colorado: https://5280.com/medical-aid-in-dying

Matt Zemon (speaker) resources on psychedelics: https://linktr.ee/mattzemon 

Event:

8^th Annual Death Faire Sunday, Nov 2^nd in Pittsboro https://www.theplantnc.com/deathfaire