Death Café NYC

06/30/2025

Overheard at our June 18th virtual meetup:
- How does one decide between assisted death in Switzerland and a DIY approach? What Swiss options are currently available for the aging with potential future medical needs? If you don’t have a terminal diagnosis, why is assisted su***de better in Switzerland than the United States?
- Is a a 95% solitary existence advisable for someone afflicted with myalgic encephalomyelitis, (a neuro immune disease characterized by severe exhaustion and other debilitating symptoms), or is death preferable with this declining quality of life?
- Is Epicurus's philosophy about death relevant today given society's obsession with prolonging life through medical interventions?
- What would the positive benefits be of giving a psychic reading to a terminally ill person in late stages of their illness?
- What kind of insecurities surface when a widower is triggered by certain kinds of social interactions?
- Should a grandmother take her unemployed grandson more seriously if he says he finds relief from anxiety by joking about “death as an escape”?
- What does an “evidential medium” understand about life after death and the process of choosing a new body and family?
- Where do death doulas get their support (e.g., monthly meetings, smaller feedback groups, and resources like "Going with Grace" and a Ted Talk by Alua Arthur)?
- Can death doulas also experience Imposter Syndrome?
- Could death doulas be trailblazers in an AI-driven world?

Recording: https://tinyurl.com/44dtaaa5
Passcode: ?r5=k2* #

04/07/2025

Overheard at our 63rd virtual Death Cafe:
- Do you believe spirits are more accessible after death, when mediums find that they are not bound by time or earthly commitments?
- Can spirits gain wisdom and a fresh view on life after a passing?
- What is worth believing about the Akashic Records (a cosmic library or energetic archive containing the imprint of all thoughts, actions, and events that have ever occurred, encompassing past, present, and potential future timelines)?
- Does coming in-person to a Death Cafe make a difference? In Toronto it did, especially with regards to storytelling.
- Do you believe people live on through their work and in the minds of others? (SEE Ernest Becker's book, "The Denial of Death," which won a national book award in 1974.) Or agree with Woody Allen, no thanks to living on in the minds of others?
- Can you guess how Elon Musk responded to a five-year-old patient who wanted to know “what happens to us when we die”?
- Is there eternity for the immortal soul? Does the soul transform into other realities? (A medium in our group spoke of her belief in the soul's immortality.)
- How do practitioners of Gnosticism explain the soul's influence on the body?
- What about followers of Jesus Christ: does this guarantee them a good life and a chance to enter heaven? (SEE "The Four Last Things" by Martin of Cochem, for a detailed understanding of Death, Judgement, Hell and Heaven — and the glorified body. )
- What else do they talk about in the Meetup group, "Afterlife Conversations”?

Watch the recording: https://tinyurl.com/yc72ev9j
Passcode:

03/01/2025

Heard at our 62nd Death Cafe.

WHAT’S IT LIKE:
- when loss deepens one’s focus on death?
- to be a Psych student from Oman, facilitating healthy conversations about death and dying with her cancer and end of life patients —when in her own culture, this would be unacceptable?
- to be a Ph.D. student in biology working in conservation genomics, having such a direct connection to the topic of death?
- to be a medium viewing death as a transition to a new chapter where you are no longer afraid of death because your soul will continue?
- to view life as energy that cannot be created or destroyed, shifting your belief system so that you see it as a new beginning?
- to be a medium and have a dream about your past life? To dream about your deceased mother after you have a NDE?
- to be a hospice chaplain working with patients on the edge of death? To sit with a patient who stops eating, connecting with her on an energy level? (Could there be a quantum physics aspect to their connection?)
- to travel to Switzerland for assisted dying? (How is it that the most humane method, similar to pet euthanasia, remains illegal for humans in most jurisdictions? The ethical and personal complexities surrounding end-of-life decisions and euthanasia can be quite complex.)
- to see the fine line between legal pain management and assisted dying —when it’s your husband’s end of life we’re talking about?
- to have a su***de attempt back in 1977 leading to a spiritual realization about the universe's supportive nature?
- to believe in reincarnation? The possibility of a spiritual DNA?
- to see near-death experiences as the result of a suspension of belief, or because chemicals like DMT were released in the brain?

01/28/2025

Heard at our 61st virtual Death Cafe.

WHAT’S IT LIKE:

⁃ To lose your husband, and discover you have the gift of being able to communicate with spirits?
⁃ To be an end-of-life doula dealing with a father's dementia, but fully supported by spiritual guides and shamanic practices?
⁃ To lose a wife to dementia but be comforted by the spiritual realm?
⁃ To be a physical therapist diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, training to be an evidential medium?
⁃ To lose a father to multiple myeloma?
⁃ To lose one’s father not after his battle with pancreatic cancer, but to a sudden heart attack?
⁃ To lose a husband to multiple system atrophy? What was her initial shock, her attempts to find a cure, and her eventual acceptance of the situation? How was her experience with various healthcare professionals different, including time spent with his neurologist, visiting nurse, and P*P?
⁃ To have a rare form of blood cancer and have concerns there might not be anybody to help you in case of an emergency?

WHAT IF WE DIDN’T HAVE:

⁃ Healing circles?
⁃ Supportive and non-judgmental spaces for discussions like here at Death Cafe?
⁃ The compassion and heart-centeredness of a group whose energy is more feminine in nature?
⁃ The authority of a Power of Attorney?
⁃ The help of a doula? Or a project manager to plan and make decisions in advance of a loved one’s passing?
⁃ A podcast to listen to near-death experiences and the possibility of spirits leaving the body before death?
⁃ The option to be cremated and have a "liberating" memorial service —more like a party — in the hopes of aiding the grieving process?

Watch the recording:
Video Conferencing, Web Conferencing, Webinars, Screen Sharingus02web.zoom.us
Passcode: F4a3?g?m

01/05/2025

Heard at our 60th virtual Death Cafe:

-Does belief in immortality — without any evidence — suggest that such people are also prone to believing other unsubstantiated claims? And if so, wouldn’t this lead to an end to truth? Is it narcissistic to believe in immortality? Does one really need to believe in immortality to believe that life has meaning and purpose?
-Is belief like gasoline or energy? In other words, can belief guide people’s lives — or “blow up” their lives?
-If you are likely to inherit Parkinson’s, how is it possible not to think about losing control? And what makes you mentally healthier – wanting to learn asap if you'll inherit the disease, or the part of you who doesn’t want to know?
-Does being spiritual and believing in an afterlife have less to do with the hereafter and more to do with how it changes your life in the Here and Now?
-Is it really so unusual that many people who have had NDEs have similar experiences? Can that fact be disproven? Or conversely, if you can’t disprove it, doesn’t the lack of evidence point against it being verified?

-What shapes one's interest in becoming a Death Doula? For one member, it's the eight stages of the death process.

-What stirs up the idea of an afterlife? Listening to someone who had a near-death experience talk about the spectrum of colors they traveled through, unlike what our eyesight is capable of seeing. Could there be unseen realms we cannot see? And conversely, sound outside a human’s range of hearing?
-For Harvey, who recently lost His Person, someone asked if he cried after they died. Harvey answered that he cried before she died, and after as well. This question reminded Harvey that though the patient stopped breathing at 5:30 that morning, His Person started breathing again WHEN THE NURSE WAS CALLED IN. Sometimes the dying do this, cycling their breathing between periods of apnea. That episode, Harvey says, gave him a “dress rehearsal“ for the real dying that would follow.

Here is the link to the recording:

https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/dWR6O1tHwyeuusym2jsIA8e9arzUpc-Y84XyTkZBufZppCZfFbcGDEKbJWq5s_Zt.um_FfVBFjMTwPUcS
Passcode: WVJ8*.wQ

11/27/2024

Heard at our 59th virtual Death Cafe:

- What do you think of the concept of time being “borrowed or given”? Or do you share the atheist’s view of approaching death?
- Should we be skeptical about consciousness existing independently of the brain?
- Could a deceased loved one still be alive in another dimension? Isn't that the job of mediums, to connect us to souls in those worlds?
- Can it ever be unhealthy to look as often as we want at photos of loved ones who've passed, because it looks to others as highly dysregulating?
- What about those who struggle what to do with photographs of ancestors — what is a proper means of exhibiting or archiving them? Aren't these heirlooms essential for connecting with the past while we're appreciating our present lives?
- Can we desire a euphoric experience before death — and also carry a preference for palliative care and medically-assisted su***de
- What could account for su***de rates in Finland being high, while su***de in the Arctic portion of Canadanot being as prevalent?
- What is it like to live with a pacemaker or undergo a heart transplant? Are such patients experiencing more than the fragility of life, with its accompanying pain and adjustments?
- What challenges are there when dealing with dementia that can't be resolved by the kind of support system you’d find in an independent living community?
- Is the darkness many of us are feeling either the darkness of the womb, or the darkness of the tomb? And could they both perhaps lead to light in the same way that some theorize that black holes produce light in an alternate Universe?
- In response to stressful current events, should we be soaking up more nature and music as a way to unwind? (Like listening to James Taylor or singing karaoke, for example?)

Recording:
https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/siL7_EaJ3211XF7Le2dQ2YQkGR56RVAkz4selgUBTodGpkchf2DJRooFMBPTbQgH.4EOKCnUS9xlZDUX4
Passcode: =.vyV1Dh

11/03/2024

Heard at our 58th Virtual Death Cafe:

- In what terminal situations is it best to just wait and watch?
- If you have one doctor with poor bedside manner, and other doctors who are helpful and comforting, psyching oneself up to ask the others one's “dumb” questions?
- Why suddenly pay attention and have compassion for the “bad boy” from school only once they're dead and gone?
- How to respond to the new, sometime disagreeable personality of a patient with advanced brain cancer?
- When is a family meeting with the death doula warranted? Generally, before mental and spiritual suffering increases. When the patient no longer sees the "bigger picture" - that is, the need to assess mobility, competency, and memory loss. When the patient might need a case worker, or a grief counselor. When a conversation with a partner, or the entire family needs to take place about who will take on Power of Attorney.
- How to deal with patients who are experiencing hallucinations or believe that staff are trying to harm and punish them? Sometimes even when trust can be high between patient and staff, a struggle remains how to handle the patient’s delusions of imminent harm. Options are to back off without apologies (especially if you remind them of what upset them in the first place.) And to encourage the patient to do the things they like to do: dancing, singing. Generally, meet the person where they are and/or distract them with something they like.

Recording:
https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/ffUKakxib7WKKDOGZuZVmPh0JXjUK0GrT6ATpGjt3Xw9HvmzZNT3qTo2kHP38IIo.4TpVwLYxFOkgm_5j?startTime=1729113330000
Passcode: 4rc*g

10/25/2024

Need to consult someone in the Afterlife? Find or build a Wind Phone in your neighborhood ....

Around the world, hundreds of "Wind Phones" are offering space to process grief and connect with lost loved ones.

10/14/2024

Heard at our 57th Virtual Death Cafe:

-What if someone in your care wishes to die, but it's from a place of being beaten down, rather than acceptance? A: Meet the client where they’re at. Support their feelings; whether life is not worth living, whether they're ambivalent or not, or even if they’ve changed their minds. Support them as they reflect on all their contributions in life.

-Does saying: “God makes it so hard to accept dying” actually make it easier to convince someone that their life is worth living? The important thing is for the questioner to not feel they have failed if the person gives up on living.

-When someon's actively dying, tell them you love them, and that it is OK if it’s their time to go, in order for you to be ok. (It's some people's belief that the dead don’t want us to feel bad and mourn too long, whether they die young or old.)

-Is it not amazing that some of us are still here, in spite of the fact that we could die at any moment?

-In some cultures, mourning women continue to wear black for the rest of their lives. In this culture, is it right to throw away our lives because someone died, or be penitent for guilt, regrets and resentments or because we somehow failed to act more proactively as they lay dying?

-Is it mostly when the dying give surviving family members permission to live that enables us to “go on”? Prolonged grief can be problematic.

-Grief is about lost love: trying to find that connective tissue.

-What if you die emotionally along with the one who died?

-Is there any evidence that death is not the end?

-Is it possible that for each new stage of watching one’s child grow up, that part of yourself dies so that it can be there for the next stage of your life?

https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/fFbvY2px8OZ1GAHA3Jkw-59BgSYjA-2aUjSMEiB3GEBoXmchz9wtLrF359mjzuUA.GyS0cZsnvYake_GY?startTime=1726693237000
Passcode: gprMdL&1

08/31/2024

Heard at our 56th Virtual Death Cafe:

⁃ How do you cope with the thought that your brother’s death was (possibly) preventable?
⁃ Can you really change your relationship with death through critical thinking, compassion, active listening, and a willingness to connect with others?
⁃ What do you make of the idea that we are all energy, which moves on after we die? (See "Surviving Death," a documentary about life after death, or read about Jeffrey Mishlove: an early pioneer in the discussion of near-death experiences and mediumship and the founder of the Windbridge Institute.)
⁃ What if our religious upbringing warped our thinking about death and grief?
⁃ Is there really a “worse way to die”? (For some, it’s Parkinson's; for others it’s losing one’s mind, having hallucinations, dying from congestive heart failure.) Is fighting dementia actually what contributes most to one’s suffering? Can giving up control reduce both the fear and the suffering? (Harvey’s sister, an artist, once said, it’s like "melted ice cream rolling around in my brain." In fact, she continued to paint for years and from realism to surrealism as her condition progressed.)
⁃ Can dementia interfere with our right to die? (Read "Forgetting and Forgotten" by W. Lee Hansen).
- At what age do we start doing the "morbid math" that makes us feel closer to dying, despite our doctors saying, “your risk is low for [X]?
- Could keeping one’s face young-looking help in accepting the idea of open caskets?
- What if the only sure thing we know about death is giving our loved ones precise instructions about how to manage our funeral and remains?
- Would assisted dying interfere with the person working out karma in thier lifetime?
- In some Christian cultures, church leaders portray death as punishment for evil. Why would anyone even try to explain this to a 3-year old who’s lost their parent?

https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/FhwJtBffA2kWG7zzmYDQ1xsbJ-I5u2RDejcd-VSGyAi6OgUYDGeVXPVmN7XeYYFc.pxnWEkEkFVfPG1f8

Passcode: .Fdg1N6s

08/14/2024

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/10/arts/grief-art-music-reader-responses.html

Monet, Taylor Swift, ‘Moana’: What Got Readers Through Their Grief

08/11/2024

Heard at our 55th Virtual Death Cafe

- Is it no wonder that a person becomes more preoccupied with how they will die if all that they’ve loved can't be enjoyed any more because of TIA-related fatigue? (Members suggested a full medications review, psychotherapy as well as a support group for chronic medical conditions.)
- When we die, do we just go to sleep or cease to exist?
(Through micro-dosing psychedelic drugs, one member has come to experience interconnectedness with all things.)
- Is death an acceptable escape, and is oblivion a place of rest when there’s no easy death (e.g., sickness, paralysis)?
- Does life have no overarching meaning except the meaning we give it?
- How different is death from sleep? Socrates believed it was either a permanent sleep or the transmigration of the soul. (A member once passed out when he was sick, and felt that if death is like this, then it's OK. He now accepts it as a mystery, one that each of us will experience someday.)
- The discussion around doctor-assisted death has turned the words "su***de" and “euthanasia” into charged terms. (See "Completed Life Initiative" to learn more.) How much choice do we have in choosing who should manage our “aided” departures? Hospice doctors? Death doulas? Are drugs preferable to "withering on the vine"?
- Should we be able to dictate if we want or don’t want witnesses?
- For the film, "Solastalgia," our friend Harvey lay in a shallow grave last Saturday. The intention of the filmmaker, a death doula, was to connect death to the climate crisis. In Harvey’s case, it caused him to reflect on his plans for cremation!
- What about having a “fun-eral:” a memorial service to hear what family and friends have to say about us before we die? What if you decline the invitation? Could it become a lucrative business idea?
- Was President Biden's electability about his age, was his electability being judged solely on account of aging or age-ism? By not protesting age-ism, do we risk others not gaining full access to our acquired wisdom?

***de