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 in the ambiance. Seeing it I almost cried. People who are suddenly bereaved can feel that what’s happened isn’t real. But then they know it absolutely is.

The weight of what’s happened to us, to the world is sombre. It’s all happened so suddenly. A feeling that’s not exactly sadness seems to run beneath my everyday. Perhaps it’s simply awareness of the big changes in and around me. I’ll be going along with a task, not thinking. Then I’m stopped in my tracks. ‘Is it all just a dream?’

No wonder we’re feeling out of sync with ourselves. I’m looking at cards we use in grief and bereavement training. The box says: No Script to Follow.

This card says: You tumble out of sync with others. You struggle to find new purpose, rhythm and roles.

Out of sync. We’re all doing it differently

Everyone’s doing it differently. I just got off the phone with someone who hasn’t had time to herself in weeks. ‘People say they’re learning a new hobby!’ Hobby? What are you talking about? I’ve got a four-year old, I’m working full-time. I’m flat chat!’ For someone who’s lost all sense of purpose and role through the upheaval it’s totallly different. ‘I’m realising I may never be able to offer those programs again,’ a friend says. She’s in mourning.

Some are on a steep learning curve with online meeting platforms. To others it’s old hat. Some are struggling to learn to stay at home. For others it’s no big deal.

I’m an introvert at ease with quiet and time to do my own thing. But even I’m lonely. I’ve heard a number of extraverts say how much they’re missing company. It’s so quiet! They’re embracing their 20-year old, and posting pics of themselves on Facebook. Why? Not sure. I’m sick of self-isolating. Solitude’s become lonely and at times sad.

It’s an individual journey to find a way of being that fits. Who am I in this new situation? And it’s a group journey navigating different needs and approaches in a household. Turbulent times with moods up and moods down, financial anxieties and the sheer pressure of home schooling. 

A friend comes by and we talk across distance. She’s going crazy. Being alone and only having yourself to talk to is awful. How to get through this and stay sane? I text her this link to Lody Njiokiktjien’s sweet cartoons later.

Sometimes we need to turn to someone who cares about us and say what’s churning around inside.

This card is a reminder that there is support if you look around you.

The post Out of sync? April 2020. appeared first on Annie Bolitho.

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.

The post 2019 – Melbourne Death Cafe and more events appeared first on Annie Bolitho.

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!

The post What people say about death cafe is reassuring appeared first on Annie Bolitho.

Beloved poems

Everyone brought a poem. Some of the books were worn and treasured and falling apart.

So a great mix of poems:

Denise Levertov The Avowal

Louis MacNeice Fanfare for the Makers

Wallace Stevens Departmental … hilarious! (sorry I can’t find it online)

Mary Oliver When Death Comes

… and a poem from an old and unique book, and a poem someone had written, and number of poems by heart.

Being read to is a wonderful ritual. Can you read it again please?

How we die

The poem most hotly discussed in the workshops? You guessed it … Do not go gentle into that good night. Wonderfully the person who brought it to one session was Welsh (or part Welsh!).

People had a range of views on this poem:

Don’t read that to me when I’m dying! It expresses everything that’s wrong about our culture’s attitude to death and dying.

It’s a passionate poem – it invites us to think about life and death with passion.

Thomas could not let his father go. He’s talking about himself.

Always old, always new

I forgot to mention that someone brought Leonard Cohen’s ‘Book of Longing‘. I went and reread it afterwards. What about these lines?

And death is old
But it’s always new
I freeze with fear
And I’m there for you

I see it clear
I always knew
It was never me
I was there for you

I was there for you
My darling one
And by your law
It all was done

Don’t ask me how
I know it’s true
I get it now
I was there for you

Poetry at end of life workshops

Such rich themes, such wonderful people. If you’re interested in hosting a workshop in your organisation or at home, get in touch.

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