Live and Die Well

The Veil Death Salon is an intimate, unconventional gathering for the living, centered around the idea that we are all mortal beings who will someday experience our own deaths, and the deaths of our loved ones. This greatest of mysteries, this greatest of miracles- that most of us have kept at arm's length- can also be our greatest teacher. 

​

How does contemplating my own death

help deepen my reverence for life?

 

Chances are, you grew up in the same death-illiterate culture that I did. Death-phobic, even...

 

You likely didn't grow up in Pashupatinath, Kathmandu, where death and cremation are part of the public landscape.

​

Or in Madagascar, where families periodically bring ancestral remains out of their tombs, rewrap them in fresh cloth, and celebrate their continuing connection with the dead.

​

Or among the Toraja people of Indonesia, where deceased family members may remain at home for months before their funerals, and the dead continue to be cared for as members of the family.

 

Or in New Orleans, where traditional jazz funerals move from solemn dirges to exuberant brass bands, making room for grief and celebration in the same procession.

​

 

The Veil is a space to take Death out of the closet...

To explore our mortality through open conversation, poetry, music, philosophy, dark humor, and the occasional,

beautifully uncomfortable question.​ ​

Each month we will include a short presentation around

a different topic, like:

​

Home Wakes and Funerals

Green Burial and Natural Death Care

Grief, Loss, and Mourning

Funerary Rites and Customs from Around the World

Planning, Advance Directives, Living Wills, etc.

Ancestors and Afterlife

Near-death Experiences

​

Come to listen, share, wonder, ponder, and discover what emerges when we turn toward the very thing many of us spend our lives avoiding. Each month includes a special topic, time for open conversation, and a chance to deepen in reverence of our shared mortality. It's a Death Cafe, plus art... and a little bit edgier.

​

We Meet Monthly

​$10 suggested donation.