The Death Café movement continues to grow and recently established in two locations in the Nelson region.
Takaka Death Cafe facilitator Aralyn Doiron said Death Cafe was about demystifying death and dying.
She that doing this helps to make our lives richer in many ways.
Death Cafes are an increasingly popular phenomenon worldwide, bringing strangers together to discuss death and dying; a human experience common to all people.
New Zealand’s first Death Café launched in the Wellington in March 2014.
Death Café presents the opportunity to talk about the ethics, practicalities, beliefs, emotions, rituals and everything else surrounding death.
“It’s an opportunity to bring death into focus,” says Jon Underwood, a 42-year-old Londoner and father-of-two, one of the founders of the Death Café movement.
Underwood, who has dedicated his life to supporting those in the final stages of theirs – worries that through violent movies and video games, we consume an unhealthy and terrifying brand of death, yet never face up to the reality of our own.
The point of Death Café , inspired by the Swiss ‘Cafe Mortalis’, is to encourage the healthy and the living to talk about death – to intellectualise their own death and the experience of those around them, beyond the practicalities of wills and funeral choices.
Questions like, what is a good death? Does accepting that life ends make it better? How does embracing our own mortality affect others? Are all common themes at Death Café , where emotionally challenging topics are without taboo.
“To help us realise we are alive now and use our time effectively. I want people to live positively and not have regrets.”
More Death Café meetings are planned for Nelson and Takaka.
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