Community Deathcare Canada is launching the Swan Song Festival across Canada on October 19, 2019. This first annual festival is the event to launch Community Deathcare Canada (CDC) to the Canadian public nationwide. CDC is an emerging non-profit group, coming together in response to the needs and interests of Canadians who seek to re-engage with dying and deathcare in more meaningful, holistic, and environmentally sustainable ways.
Events are being organized from BC to Halifax to inform and inspire people to think, reflect and talk about death and how it impacts life. Are you curious and interested to check out events near you? Here are our 2 picks. The first one features our own Ms. Ngaio Davis as the presenter.
Community Deathcaring: What is it about and why does it matter?
Date & Time: Monday, October 21, 2019 from 6:30pm to 8:30pm
Venue: Celebration Hall, Mountain View Cemetery, 5455 Fraser Street
All are welcome.
COST: Free! (Please register here.)
Presented by Willow End-of-Life Planning & Education
If your Aunt Betty died tomorrow, there’s a default set of practices for what happens and how she’ll be taken care of—unless, that is, you understand the scope of your choices available to you, including, caring for your own. There’s a good chance Aunt Betty witnessed community deathcaring as a young girl. We used to take care of our own dead. More and more folks want to reclaim what’s been lost.
Today’s standard practices usually involve a lot of outsourcing and little meaningful involvement of family and friends. Across Canada (and around the world), there’s a growing movement centred around the desires of people to get back to caring for our own dead in meaningful and holistic ways.
PROGRAM
Ms. Ngaio Davis, Founder and Managing Director of KORU Cremation | Burial | Ceremony, a local, independent funeral provider, will present on how we came to have the “hands-off” approach we see in today’s standard deathcare.
Reena Lazar and Michelle Pante of Willow End-of-Life Planning & Education will facilitate dynamic discussion and personal exploration. All are welcome. Registration required for this free event. Register here.
Questions? Contact Michelle Pante 604.812.4103 or [email protected]
ABOUT WillowEoL WillowEoL helps people make the most of their precious and finite lives by turning pragmatic end-of-life.
It’s Your Funeral: Creating a Vision for Community Death Care in Vancouver
An honest conversation facilitated by a local funeral director. No sales, sponsorship, nor judgement.
Date & Time: Saturday, October 19, 2019 from 2 pm to 4 pm
Venue: Alternative Creations Studio, 1659 Venables Street
COST: All are welcome. FREE! Please register here.
Donations accepted at the event will go to covering event space costs, any excess proceeds will be donated to Alternative Creations Studio to support the work they do in our community. Presented by Death Care BC
From the organizer, our colleague Emily Bootle:
What is the body’s journey after death in a modern city?
Together we will go through our current deathcare practices ranging from corporate funeral support to family home care. Following the conversation will be a group discussion about individual experiences with this system and ways that we can evolve it.
This event is hosted by a local funeral director and is ideal for anyone who is curious, concerned, or fearful of the above. Whether you work in the DeathCare system already or have never walked into a funeral home in your life.
The topics will be handled sensitively, though attendees should come prepared to have some pre-concepts challenged gently.
I look forward to seeing you there and am grateful for your openness.
For more information, kindly visit www.deathcarebc.ca.
Questions? Please email [email protected]
If you live in the interior of BC, our friend Nicola Finch, and her colleague Angela Gutzer both from the Cariboo Deathcaring Network has organized a full-day event with a lot of exciting opportunities for all the death geeks and death curious.
Breathing Life Into Death
Days’ events include ritual, art, spoken word, an open mic, music, interactive activities, children’s activities, humour, mini Death Cafes, workshops and information on home funerals, decorating and building your own coffin or urn, and an outdoor labyrinth to walk.
Date & Time: Saturday, October 19, 2019 from 10 am to 9 pm
Venue: Central Cariboo Arts Centre, 4400 Rosita-Mackin Forest Service Road (Williams Lake, British Columbia)
COST: All are welcome. While admission is FREE, space is limited! Please register here.
For more information, visit their website.
