Who we are
“Our inspirational dream is that every individual, community and service provider has the knowledge and capacity to do death well.”
We are an Incorporated Association and a registered Charity located in the Byron Shire, NSW, Australia. We believe in living well, dying well and experiencing loss well, whatever that may mean for you. If you are looking for a better way to do death and to have a great funeral, read on.
Everyone has the right to be fully informed, make their own choices, cry and celebrate in a style that is meaningful and appropriate for them, and look back without regrets. We are informing, educating and assisting people to have a more empowered experience which generally leads to a healthier bereavement. Death is something we must all face. By empowering people they are able to take control and responsibility of their dying, their deaths and their funerals.
By knowing your options and exercising your legal rights you can participate as fully as you choose. We believe everyone can and should take responsibility for their own life and death decisions. By being informed, prepared and active you can make it easier for those you leave behind. Become part of a growing movement of people working both locally and globally to create a gentle, satisfying and accepting approach to death, dying and disposal of the human body.
We are assisting people to demystify, reclaim, care and celebrate, making a difference at every stage of end of life. All over the world, people are remembering their rites and rights, waking up and taking dying, death and ceremony back into its rightful place, back into our own hands.
Our core commitments are:
- An acceptance death is the natural and sacred end of life.
- The acknowledgement indigenous peoples have always known death is the natural and sacred end of life.
- Respect for the diversity of spiritual, religious, cultural and scientific beliefs.
- To embody a holistic, sustainable, compassionate and kind approach.
- To take action for positive social change around the experience of sudden and expected death.
- To demystify dying, palliative care, death, funerals, body disposal, loss, grief and bereavement.
- To support people to be well informed and to participate in appropriate and meaningful end of life and after death care.
“Inside everyone is the courage and capacity needed to be easier with death and dying, we just have to wake it up, remember, become more familiar, and practice it everyday. My work is a holistic hybrid of old and new ways, accompanying those who are dying and their carers, walking with the suddenly bereaved, creating ceremonies that encourage people to really honour their loved ones.
Inside everyone is the courage and capacity needed to be easier with death and dying, we just have to wake it up, remember, become more familiar, and practice it everyday. My work is a holistic hybrid of old and new ways, accompanying those who are dying and their carers, walking with the suddenly bereaved, creating ceremonies that encourage people to really honour their loved ones.”
Zenith Virago
