Blog
Feb/March End of life workshop series
Eaglemont Artists’ Hub is a beautiful space. Perfect for sessions about a rich and sensitive topic, end of life. Well this is what the owner, mover and shaker, Carol Ryan thinks. She's as convinced as I am that things can go much smoother for a person's family if...
This is a love project. Tattoos in the grief journey.
Oh I wish I had a tattoo! Even though my parents died before I even thought of having one, they would have been scandalised! If I had got one it’d have been by ex de Medici. She practised in Canberra. Now a celebrated artist with work in major collections, her work...
Out of sync? April 2020.
Do you feel out of sync I'm wondering? Are you sometimes surprised by how it is now, out of the blue? Did you know you can do a virtual tour of the State Library? When I did it I saw the spot where I often used to work at the Russell Street entrance. I used to drink...
We are bereaved. March 2020.
I feel it and now I'm saying it - we are bereaved. Yes, in my chosen self-isolation in Melbourne I’m waving goodbye to long-held, basic expectations around: expressing and receiving care with physical touch. work and meetings with colleagues and clients regularly....
End of life care MOOC. Enhance your death literacy.
A MOOC, an ‘End of Life Care’ MOOC. Yes! I’ll do an online course with the University of Glasgow. I did. If you’re considering it I hope this review will either get you moving or stop you in your tracks! It’s being offered again in February 2020. Time commitment:...
Create a love project and cherish the legacy of important people
I recently published 'Death, a love project, a guide to exploring the life in death and finding the way together.' Feels like a good time to re-publish the post that started it all! I published this post back in April 2016 and the idea of 'love projects' struck a...
Extraordinary crazy life affirming opportunities
'A life affirming book about death’ says a reader of my book ‘Death, a Love Project' on Twitter. After spending a couple of years writing it I'm appreciating the feedback readers are sending through and posting on social media. Extraordinary crazy opportunities - all...
Suicide and friendship; friends & the funeral
Death by suicide is on my mind at the time of the Pell verdict, knowing that the trauma of abuse has led to agonising secrecy, substance abuse and if not suicide per se, certainly most traumatic death, with irretrievable loss left behind. I’m thinking of the two young boys in the sacristy. When I read […]
3 lessons for a great ceremony (from the 10th anniversary of the Victorian bushfires)
I took away three lessons for a great ceremony on Monday evening this week. Hundreds of people headed to the Exhibition Buildings after work. Ten years on the Victorian Government was holding a ceremony to honour the victims and survivors of the 2009 bushfires. Yes, as with the 2009 ceremony the organisers got this one […]
2019 – Melbourne Death Cafe and more events
These are some workshops and Melbourne Death Cafes for the first part of 2019. Seasonal Melbourne Death Cafe dates for 2019 are: Autumn Equinox Death Cafe 21 March – 6.30-8pm Winter Solstice Death Cafe 26 June – 6.00-7.30pm Death Cafe is by donation to cover the costs of putting on the event. Suggested donation is […]