Death cafe | Annie Bolitho

2019 – Melbourne Death Cafe and more events

Annie — Fri, 01 Feb 2019 00:45:58 +0000

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 $10. To find out more about this global movement check Death Cafe. or the Melbourne Death Cafe facebook page.

I’m also running Poetry & End of Life Events with limited spaces available.
Poetry and End of Life, a gentle workshop 20 March 12.30-2pm Kathleen Syme Library and Community Centre, Carlton
Poetry and End of Life, a gentle workshop 2 May 6.30-8pm venue t.b.a.

# I also run workshops for organisations if you’re interested.

Thanks to the City of Melbourne for assisting me to keep these events as affordable as possible through reduced venue costs.

Here’s some more on Poetry and End of Life to whet your appetite!

And dear readers, always appreciate your shares on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Linked in.

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Art and Rituals at Cafe Philosophique de la Mort

Annie — Tue, 27 Nov 2018 06:19:56 +0000

Art and rituals deepen our understanding and give us a way of being in touch, communicating … even if it’s quite a difficult topic like death. I thought long and hard before finding the right name for my business and chose Kinship Ritual to speak of the kind of ceremonies and rituals I hope to help people create.

Art and Rituals: Condolences

This is the last opportunity to head down to Cafe Philosophique de la Mort in St Kilda. Big themes have gone down in this Philosophical Cafe of Death like ‘Rituals and remembering’ – sorry I missed it – ‘Condolences’ and ‘Grief’.

I was at ‘Condolences’. The title was enticing. It’s an old fashioned word, and for me rich in the deadly promise that one will say the right thing and provide comfort. Tomorrow night’s ‘Ageing and mortality’ will be interesting. Can you make it? Conversations always depend on who comes.

I’m accustomed to people getting together to talk about death through Death Cafe, and other public education I’m involved in. I know how important it is for people to feel comfortable and that they’ll be able to speak and be heard.

What’s different about this Cafe is the performance, spoken word – poetry and readings, and music that precede the conversation. Wonderful art and rituals. Through poetry I tuned in to a Muslim woman’s take on Condolence. I tried out being in the shoes of an organ recipient. I learned about the lineage of kora in Amadou Suso’s family – that it is his ancestral duty to perform his enchanting music. You might have heard him play his large stringed instrument on Triple J, at a dance event, the National Gallery or Deakin Edge.

The piece that rocked me was Sermsah Suri Bin Saad’s dance. You may have seen him perform in Bran New Day, at Fed Square, in the Fringe or on TV. Here in a little theatre in St Kilda was this dancer, painted up, imprinting on us what could not be said in words about being utterly lost. My sense was that there was only desperation; the spark had gone out of life. I felt that everyone in the room was awestruck and leapt into life again when the dancer found himself sufficiently to see out, rise and make connections.

Sorry and culture

So the performances weren’t all about condolence exactly. They gave us art and rituals. In conversation our group spent a long time on the topic of SORRY and how inept Australians are with condolences to Aboriginal people for their great losses. We spoke about words and how people do or don’t say things to people who are bereaved.

We thought about what to do if someone is very reclusive after a death? Some people thought texts were great. But a man in the group who’d lost his father spoke passionately about how sick it made him that people could even think of talking about the loss of his father through a pathetic, stupid phone with texts and how much he’d wanted to throw it away. He was not Anglo.

Yes culture was a big part of our discussion, and at times we asked people to speak in their language because we wanted to hear the sound.

All this and more is part of a Cafe – try and make the last one if you can! Art and ritual are powerful. Bookings here. At the Alex Theatre with support from The Groundswell Project.

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What people say about death cafe is reassuring

Annie — Wed, 18 Jul 2018 03:04:15 +0000

I’ve run over 20 Death Cafes in Melbourne – that’s one ‘death conversation’ for each season for several years plus many open conversations and workshops about death, grief and loss for professionals like social workers, mental health, aged care and family violence workers.

What kind of Death Cafe do I offer? Well, participants get a chance to be together and explore experiences, values and views on death and grief in a safe setting. And to eat lovely food and see something attractive in front of them. Here’s a recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald by a journalist who came along.

At the end of a Death Cafe I ask people to write a word or a phrase that the time talking together has evoked. Today I opened the folder they sit in on my shelf, and had a look. I had the idea I might put every single one that’s been added in, in one death conversation after another, into a post. But there are just too many! All I can do is give you a flavour – what people say about death cafe may surprise you.

Kindness
Precious Life
Giving
Real!
Ripples
Connection

At each death conversation there is someone who writes Connection. I offer ceremonies and funerals through Kinship Ritual. I’m glad when a participant experiences this sense of kinship at an event.

Sometimes the pieces of card I hand out have a lot of space on them and people to write a phrase.

Talking death brings interesting people together
Freedom is ever-evolving, it is never really over
Living for its own sake
Death is part of life, we need to talk about it
Life is too short not to live it to the full.
Beautiful stories shared.
Death is not the end
The importance of living in the here and now.

When I see in the bunch of cards how many references there are to life and how we live, I remember the stories that have been told in different sessions. I’m heartened. At the 2018 Winter Solstice Death Cafe a young woman spoke movingly of how her father’s death had changed her understanding of life and how she would live in future. That was what had made her come along, to be with others who wanted to face the reality of death. Two women talked of their husbands’ deaths and both had warm and humorous stories of how these companions stay with them in a vital way.

When anyone holds the idea that death is opposed to life it’s hard. In a death cafe conversation participants come to a nuanced perspective of the way life and death sit together, and how life and death weave together. Perhaps that led to someone writing Not to live with death dictating choices.

I no longer remember the circumstances, conversation and stories on the occasion someone wrote: There’s no shame in fear. On reflection though I know that facilitated exchange between participants can validate all kinds of experiences. Perhaps those words came from someone who had an experience of losing an important relative at a young age, who was isolated and frightened, and came to feel that there was inevitably something terrible to fear about death. Sharing that story led him to understand that he was just a child then, or that others had also been strongly influenced by experiences they were unprepared for.

Among the cards there are questions, not many, but one person has asked: Why? Another asks: What is the place of meaning?

I’m grateful to have been part of so many rich conversations, in which groups of strangers inform each others’ understandings, in an atmosphere in which death is both ordinary and in some way sacred. Thanks to Jon Underwood for advocating for this hospitable style of open conversation about death through the Death Cafe movement. What people say about death cafe is It’s good to talk!

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Kids talk death and funerals – Wheeler Centre event

Annie — Tue, 01 Jul 2014 00:30:23 +0000

The Wheeler Centre does great events. Think about inviting a panel of kids, primary to Year 12, from St Martins Youth Arts to address adults about death. It was a bit like a Death Cafe with an audience.

What did I learn from the panel’s exchange with Natasha Mitchell of ABC’s ‘All in the Mind’?

Adults are nervous of talking about death because:

They’ll be sad and they don’t want that ‘weighed down-‘ness

It’s taboo. No one wants to be the one who brings up the subject of death.

It’s very sad – there are lots of endings, iike there’s the end of the movie, the end of a pet, but this is the end of a person.

They hurt so much

Some of the speakers had been to a funeral for example an uncle’s wake which was quite like a party. A funeral’s a good way to remember the dead person a young woman Niyah suggested, and a celebration of what the person did, the good things they did.

The youngest, Satch, had an interesting thought, ‘If I died the room where I die would be a good place for people to be, to go into that room’. He seemed to be suggesting the value of a vigil.

I agree, it really make sense to do this.

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Death Cafe Melbourne, Facebook page

Annie — Thu, 22 Aug 2013 00:51:08 +0000

At Kinfolk on August 8th, people were looking for a central resource for events and information. You can now find a Facebook page for Death Cafe Melbourne.

Also here’s the quote some of you asked for about our relationship with the earth, life and death, All in all.

And …. you may have seen that the Melbourne Review features Death Cafes in the US and New York this week.

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Warm, low key death cafe at Kinfolk

Annie — Thu, 15 Aug 2013 05:47:02 +0000

I asked people what they’d say to others interested in coming to a Death Cafe and there were encouraging responses:

Go for it! What have you got to lose?
It’s a very loose collection of people with an openness and interest in exploring ideas around all aspects of death. It’s very low key.
Do it! They’re for anyone who is going to die one day or knows someone who is.
You should go! It’s for everyone.
It’s fun, informative, comfortable.

Thanks to the twenty people who came, willing to share and enjoy the company. Thanks again to Kinfolk for their support

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Death Cafe Melbourne @ Kinfolk

Annie — Sat, 11 May 2013 11:02:58 +0000

Death Cafe is a lively social movement. Cafes springing up like mushrooms in London, San Francisco and New York City. Their popularity reflects a broad interest in bringing death out from the shadows and talking about it in the warmth of well-supported public occasions. There’s no reason to try to make sense of big questions alone.

On Dying to Know Day, I’ll be hosting a death café at Kinfolk Café. It’s a social enterprise, near Southern Cross Station. We’ll start at 6.30 and run till 8pm.

I’m a baby boomer, and like others of my generation I expect choices and options in all areas of life, including in the service domain of death and dying. The Death Café encourages people to realize they can share experiences, do things differently, think reflectively and share ideas.

So come along if you’re also keen to make public conversation about death less of a deal. I’ll be facilitating and the event will invite participation in a safe atmosphere.

Social enterprise café Kinfolk supports social change. Eating great food together is an essential element of the Death Café movement. Kinfolk is the perfect place for people to develop connections and draw creative inspiration to consider fresh choices.

#As at 2017, there’s a Death Cafe each season in Melbourne.

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