Latest Death Cafe News
Death Cafe write up: Columbus Ohio Death Cafe #6
Posted by Columbus Death Cafe/Lizzy Miles on Sept. 12, 2013, 9:41 a.m.
The Death Café events never cease to amaze me in the variety of attendees, which leads to unique conversations each time. This Death Café had some repeat attendees and some new ones. Mix in an attendee with a Master’s in Transpersonal Psychology and an attendee who ...
Death Cafe write up: First LGBT Death Cafe in the US!
Posted by Columbus Death Cafe/Lizzy Miles on Sept. 12, 2013, 9:35 a.m.
The First LGBT Death Café in the United States
By Lizzy Miles
It was raining buckets on the evening that we had our first LGBT Death Café. The event was hosted in partnership with Stonewall Columbus, an organization that has been serving the central Ohio LGBT community with programs and services for over thirty years. I was so grateful that they agreed to co-organize this pilot program.
A funny side note about our cake for the event. Lori Gum, my co-facilitator and the Stonewall Program Director, ordered it. She requested that it had tombstones, but a blue sky. The cake decorator automatically asked if it was for Halloween ...
Death Cafe write up: Columbus Ohio Death Cafe #3
Posted by Columbus Death Cafe/Lizzy Miles on Sept. 12, 2013, 9 a.m.
I am continually amazed at the diversity of conversations that arise from the Death Café events. Each event is unique and the variety stems from the topics brought up by the participants. While Maria and I call ourselves facilitators, we are more like hosts that start the ...
Death Cafe write up: Columbus Ohio Death Cafe #2
Posted by Columbus Death Cafe/Lizzy Miles on Sept. 12, 2013, 8:38 a.m.
Eddie Izzard may ask you to choose between cake or death, but at the Death Café, you can have cake AND death (conversation). Twenty-one people attended the second Columbus, Ohio Death Café on August 23, 2012.
When asked what interested them about the Death Café, the attendees ...
Death Cafe write up: First Death Cafe in the US!
Posted by Columbus Death Cafe/Lizzy Miles on Sept. 12, 2013, 8:14 a.m.
Thursday night’s Death Café event in Columbus, Ohio was a pleasant way to spend the evening. Although it was hot and muggy outside, 13 brave participants came to gather with strangers to talk about death.
More than half of the attendees who RSVP’d ended up ...
New Blog post: Kristie West on the Joy of Death
Posted by Kristie West on Sept. 12, 2013, 5:19 a.m. 10 comments
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 lovely quirky name for a festival. Or perhaps just a provocative and controversial name? It it just a way to catch our attention? Is it ...
Art: The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living
Posted by Jon Underwood on Sept. 11, 2013, 7:50 a.m.
Damien Hirst has produced a significant amount of art focused on death, but this is perhaps his most famous piece. It consists of a 14 foot Tiger shark preserved in formaldehyde.
I've seen this in a gallery and it is an arresting piece. But the thing that interests me most is the title. Is it physically impossible to for us to imagine death? I don't know!
Link: The Death Cafe: Death has become too sanitised. It needs raucous laughter and a little bit of living
Posted by Clare Davies on Sept. 11, 2013, 4:49 a.m. 4 comments
"If we can't look at our dead in the flesh, how can we talk about them".
As absent from our speech as from their own funerals, the dead, too often, are erased from modern, Western society.
This essay explores the sanitisation of death, and shifting attitudes to mortality, asking ...
http://www.aeonmagazine.com/being-human/death-has-become-too-sanitised/
A message board for funeral directors, mortuary science students, and those with a morbid curiosity.
Death Cafe write up: Denver Death Cafe
Posted by Anita Larson on Sept. 10, 2013, 11:12 a.m.
Highlights of Denver’s 1st Death Café
September 8, 2013
Welcome! Many thanks to Wy Livingstone and Wystone’s Tea for hosting Denver’s first Death Cafe and to Alex our wonderful server. Thank you to Larry Larson & Sherry McDowell for helping with signups, greeting guests and taking notes during the event. Intro about Death Café – what it is and what it is not. Visit www.DeathCafe.com to learn more of the history and find Death Cafes in other cities or countries.
Denver Death Café has a Face Book page here: www.facebook.com/denverdeathcafe Please like the page and post any thoughts, comments or resources ...
Press: Raleigh's First Death Cafe to Demystify the Great Beyond
Posted by rsimonton on Sept. 10, 2013, 7:44 a.m.
Thanks to Josh Shaffer of the N & O for interviewing Robin Simonton of the cemetery and Rich Gwaltney of Hospice of Wake County.
See more at: News and Observer
Cool skeleton art!
New Blog post: Death In Italy
Posted by Nigel George on Sept. 10, 2013, 3:20 a.m. 1 comment
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 the contrary, all thoughts and comments are mine and mine alone.
While on holiday I was lucky enough to meet Elisabetta Lucchi and Hilary Wilson ...
Death Cafe write up: The 2nd PDX Death Cafe
Posted by Holly Pruett on Sept. 9, 2013, 4:21 p.m.
Despite near 100-hundred degree weather, our 2nd PDX Death Café drew an astonishing 58 folks to the cool environs of Cyril’s at the Clay Pigeon Winery. You can see what participants had to say about the experience in the word cloud posted on our page (the bigger the word, the more frequently mentioned). Interesting, open, stimulating, comforting, honest, thought-provoking, and friendly were the descriptors that led the pack. Nearly everyone completed an evaluation form. All but two people indicated that they would consider attending a future Death Café and would recommend it to friends and family.
What We Served Up
§ We opened with some words by ...
Death Cafe write up: The 1st PDX Death Cafe
Posted by Holly Pruett on Sept. 9, 2013, 4:14 p.m. 3 comments
If asked to go indoors on a gloriously sunny springtime day to talk about Death, would you expect to describe the experience as fun, exciting, inspirational or enlivening? Those in fact are some of the most common words participants used to describe the first PDX Death Café, held April 28 at the Bijou Café in downtown Portland, Oregon.
The top descriptors volunteered by our 60 participants were: interesting, informative, enlightening, and educational – remarkable given that this event presented absolutely no content. No featured speakers, no presentations, no informational handouts. The format consisted exclusively of sitting with three or four strangers and sharing why they chose to come to ...