Chai and end of life Chats about Death
A write up of Death Cafe Newtown Australia
A delight to host another lively Death Cafe on Saturday (Valentines Day) and enjoy some meaningful conversations over tea and cake.
Feedback forms showed that participabts generally enjoyed their time and wished it had gone longer.
One remarked that he felt there was not enough talk about death but as I mentioned: end of life discussions are free to go where the speaker wishes and as host I seek to facilitate but not control the conversations. That said, with some big personalities in the room, it was necessary to bring the talk back to allowing the next person the opportunity to share. I usually have a timer set at 10 mins (with up to 12 people) with a warning bell 2 mins before time but decided to allow it to be more free flow this session. I will go back to timing the speakers so everyone gets the chance to speak for enough time- I learned the hard way!
However generally it was a space where comments included "emotionally intelligent engagement", "illuminating, joyful, exciting", "healing, sympathetic" and "supportive, informative, open". Others wanted more focus on death. Guess you can't please everyone. All in all another great day of warm connection and death comfortable conversations! Always grateful for these...