MEDIA CENTRE

I read a book and I had to share!

Hello! I read a lot of books, those about dying and death. Personal accounts, peoples views, medical perspectives, books that are designed to connect us with our own mortality, books that offer a new way of doing dying and death as a community and society (which is often really the re-discovery of old ways). The book that I finished this afternoon had me in tears nearly every time I opened its sacred pages. Tears of joy, sorrow, intense knowing, tears of challenge and elation, relief and disbelief. This book invites you in with a warm hug, it places you in the centre of peoples hearts and you are carried through their journey, privileged to share their thoughts, feelings and actions… all the while it is as if they are

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Natural Death Expo!

Greetings! We’ve has a marvelous day today at the Natural Death Expo, held in line with Dying to Know Day 2018 and in conjunction with the Tamar Peace Festival. What incredible people we have here in Tasmania. Today we met hospital workers, a mayor, retirees, a man living with a stroke, community leaders, refugees, women of substance and power, men of incredible courage, inventors, entrepreneurs, the socially conscious and community-minded… It was a truly lovely day. There are people right here in Tasmania working to bring about change in the space of dying and death, they are striving for natural burial here where there is none, they are walking the end of life path with the dying and making beautiful things like coffins and shrouds to help families with

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Having a voice.

I’d like to share with you all an article that was published this morning online. Doing death differently. It’s not a new thing here in Australia, although our choices are still very limited, that may not be the case for too much longer. The whole idea of doing death well, in all its facets, is beginning to become a much more public conversation… we are on the verge of much bigger things. In Australia and indeed worldwide, there are people and places working hard to reconnect their communities with this ancient wisdom of doing death well. Edwin and I are so incredibly lucky and grateful to call some of these people friends, acquaintances and colleges… so pleased to be able to play our small part as we all strive

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Death Literacy and contemplation

Good evening! I can scarce believe it has been so long since our last post. It has been a tumultuous few weeks for our family but I want to share with you some of the good stuff. You would have seen last week a whole bunch of Facebook posts (for those of you who follow our page) showing you some of the goings on at the 2018 Compassionate Communities Death Literacy Conference in Sydney. I was lucky enough to attend both days of the conference and the launch of their most recent research. What is abundantly clear is that the majority of us have had death experiences… we have experienced the death of someone close, we have sat at their bedside, held caring roles and provided emotional support… we feel

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A Bush Burial

Hello! It’s been a few weeks since our last blog, and there has been a lot happening. One of the very exciting things recently is that we were contacted by a man who is doing his end of life planning and he wants us to orchestrate his burial! He has very kindly given us permission to share a few pics of his burial site. See, he has already dug the hole! He obtained permission for this burial on private land many years ago – over a decade. Now that’s planning! In addition he has made his own coffin, spoken to his family about his wishes…. he is preparing for the inevitable. He took us to the burial spot, the hole was dug years ago. Not all holes dug

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A re-write!

Its Good Friday… which for some is a day off work. For others it is the Holiest of Holy days… either way I hope you are spending it with family, friends or complete strangers that make you smile. The last blog post I wrote, I shared with you a story.. this was the story I took with me to the course I completed, becoming an End of Life Doula. It’s an exciting addition to our services and over the next few months you’ll hear more about Doulas from You n’ Taboo. For now, as promised, the following is a re-write of the story I shared. I have left the story as it was written but I have edited it, taking out the parts that don’t fit and writing

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A story of mine

Good evening! I have just returned from a week in Melbourne. While I was there I completed both the one day and three day ‘Preparing the Way’ End of Life Doula training courses run by Helen Callanan. What does that mean? It means I am one step closer to offering my services to people not only after death by way of Family Led Funerals but also as they approach their end of life. There are many services a Doula can offer but generally, a Doula offers information, support and resources to people approaching their end of life and their families. Imagine engaging with someone who could help you navigate the end of life and that person being there for you as a support through the dying, death, funeral and

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The Next Event..

You n’ Taboo are proud to present….. SHROUDED IN MYSTERY What is a shroud?          Why would you use one?            How does it work?             Have you ever wanted to make one? Join us for a 2 part workshop all about Shrouds, in theory and practice. Take the opportunity to start creating a shroud of your own. In the first workshop, learn about Shrouds & explore why they are used. With the help of some talented people, start thinking about how you would like to create and decorate a Shroud for yourself. Through conversations, we will explore the following- Shrouds : what they are, what they can be and what you can make them Natural Burial, Family Led Funerals, Shrouded burial and cremation  The second workshop will

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A thank you..

It felt good to lay in bed this morning after such a big day yesterday… but it was with a twinge of guilt that we had decided to do the Wellness Expo yesterday in place of our monthly meeting and not in addition to it. So the first thank you goes to all of our supporters who were happy for us to have a day off! We had an incredible response yesterday. We were busy the whole day and there were people actually waiting to talk to us, to ask questions and have discussions and share with us their stories and experiences. Tasmania is full of incredible people, those willing to have a go, those who are inquisitive and open minded, those who want to learn, those who

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