Death Cafe XXXIV; Death Takes the Holidays (optional preceding meditation)

Sunday Dec. 1, 11:15-12:15 in the UU Sistehood Rm.
Our spiritual practice in every Death Cafe is Deep Listening to what each person brings, puzzlement, fear, anger, stuckness in rumination, longing, sorrow. We moderate so that everyone is heard. No one may try to convert another to a particular religious or philosophical position. What is said in Death Cafe stays in Death Cafe. In addition to these rules from International Death Cafe HQ in London, we follow their stricture "Speak [only] of death & eat cake."
There will be an optional meditation practice with Buddhism's Five Remembrances of Death & Loss at 9-10 AM in the UU Sisterhood Rm. led by Sensei Robert Ertman.

The international Death Cafe Movement has led to tens of thousands of Death Cafes on all continents including at the American station in Antarctica. It is meant to counter what the English & Swiss founders believed is a late 20th century refusal to acknowledge death as a natural phenomenon every person will face, probably numerous times. The English still believe that their "stiff upper lip" is the greatest danger to personal & familial healing & bringer of estrangement & misunderstanding. The American movement believes that the culture of North America is the peak of death denial, producing more fear & unreadiness by chasing scientific salvation. Death Cafes aim to make conversation about this great fact of life as natural as talk about births & illness not a "morbid" failure to "move on." The basic aim is to demystify a great part of life so that we can all think about it as we wish without less fear & no denial.