Edinburgh Death Cafe

This Death Café is a group meeting, in person, in Edinburgh, where people can come to talk about death.

Please note that the time might change so please check this information or your inbox nearer the time.

Talking about death is not something that we can all do with our families and friends, and yet it is something which is so often on our minds.

Previous participants described the event as "healthy" and their feelings at the end as "hopeful" and "grateful" .

Pre-booking is essential. There are 36 spaces.

At the Death Café, there is an emphasis on listening and sharing, and the focus is that life is finite and we want to talk about that. We all have interests and concerns about bereavement, loss, grief or dying, especially at this time when we are still dealing with the Coronavirus, climate change and war.

This event is part of a full weekend event which will be held at Madelvic House and the surrounding area. It will include a Death Walk (Friday afternoon 30 September), an art workshop taking death, grief and loss as its subject, in the widest sense (Friday 30 September), a community art exhibition - submissions will be welcome (Saturday 1st October), and a Grief Circle / Mandala (Sunday 2nd October). Full details will follow. You do not have to attend all the parts, though are welcome to join us at any or all of them.

Organisers:Tamsin Grainger is a complementary therapy practitioner, session leader, and the author of Death and Loss in Shiatsu Practice (published by Singing Dragon Press).

Bea Denton is an artist and educator whose practice explores ideas around death and loss, faith and ritual.

Contact: You will not be asked for personal information other than your name and email address. As well as the confirmation email with the zoom link, you will receive one email after the event.

For more information about the Death Café movement, see the Death Cafe website https://deathcafe.com/what/ and Tamsin's website https://www.tamsingrainger.com/blog-all-posts/death-cafe.

Our aim is for this Death Café to be accessible, respectful and confidential. There is no set agenda, no objective or theme, and it is neither a grief support group nor a counselling session. There is no intention by the organisers to lead participants to any conclusions, buy any products or take any course of action. Death Cafes are not religious, and are always ‘not for profit’ events. There will, however, be a donations box for the room rental, and any further funds raised will be passed on to St Columba's Hospice nearby.

“The goal of the movement is to enable people to share their fears and hopes in a fashion which does not have to treat death as a taboo – that is, as something that needs to be addressed through euphemisms or abandoned in silence.” Maddie Denton, Reflections of the Self: Death Café and the Search for Personal Meaning (An exploration of death in modern society).

Host or Publisher Tamsin