It's so wonderful to see you all start to arrive - I feel like the excited/nervous party host who's spent way too long decorating and tidying... now it's time to exhale and receive the joy of you each arriving... :) Feel free to share a quick intro in the comments below... perhaps: where you're based, what you do & one main struggle you have with promoting your work/services... GO! x

Vizzy D Darlings, This week we're jumping into language and I'm inviting you to embrace this prompt in two ways: 1. Reflect on your own relationship with language in your corner of death and grief care. What's changed and evolved in you and your work? 2. How might you share this as advocacy? On socials, in a blog post, in an interview, in a conversation with someone. How can you more concisely weave and speak the evolution of death care language into your work and world? 🐦‍⬛ There's so much within language that's nuanced to who we are, where we work and what we do. A funeral director in a regional town carries different words than a chaplain in a city hospital, than a doula sitting with someone dying at home. None of us are working from the same script, and I don't think we should be. And yet, reflecting on the language we uphold and perpetuate in this work is relevant no matter where we live and what we do. It's culturally nuanced and our responses will all be different. It's something we should all keep tending to. For example, a lot of the western Anglo-centric grief language encourages us to "ask their name", or to "speak their name" to honour that person's loss and keep their memory alive. Some of my ‘best performing’ social posts are about exactly this. And yet, when I support First Nations families here in Australia, the cultural protocol is the opposite. In some communities you DON'T speak their name for the first year, to ensure their spirit can be free in the Dreamtime and not unsettled during a time when it needs to move on undisturbed. When supporting Sorry Business (the Indigenous name for death care and funeral rites), I always ask permission to speak their name or ask how best to refer to the person who has died. There will be nuance with this in all countries and communities. 🐦‍⬛ Here's some more examples from me if helpful. I haven't quite worked out how I want to share this as advocacy, but feel free to borrow or apply anything that resonates for you.

Amy - I just purchased your e-book and it's fantastic! Inspiring examples of unique gatherings that are truly meaningful, and practical suggestions for how to begin crafting a celebration of life for someone. This is a great new tool in my toolbox!

I've been wanting to build this for a while, and it's finally here. The *Vizzy D Resource Library* is a shared space of books, podcasts, documentaries, readings, newsletters and accounts that have shaped how we think about death, grief and ceremony, built by this community, for this community. You can find it in the Classroom tab. It's not a list I've put together alone. It's meant to grow with whatever's actually shaping your practice right now, the book that changed how you show up with a family, the podcast episode you've sent to three colleagues, the poem you keep coming back to for readings. Inside you'll find a growing library of: 📖 Books 🎧 Podcasts 🎥 Documentaries & Films 🕊️ Poems & Readings ✍️ Newsletters & Substacks 🌐 Organisations & Websites 🎓 Courses & trainings 🎵 Playlists Comment below with all your suggestions! Just include what it is, who it's by, and one honest line on why it stuck with you. We're not after exhaustive lists here, we're after the things that actually changed how you think or work. This is one of those small, ongoing things I hope becomes genuinely useful over time. Curious to see what this community pulls together... Only love, Amy 🐦‍⬛

Darlings - Happy Friday! I’ve got two tasty treats for you today, both ready & waiting for you in the Classroom tab. 🐦‍⬛ 1) Introducing: The Vizzy D Resource Library 🐦‍⬛ The *Vizzy D Resource Library* is a new shared space for the resources that have shaped how we think about death, grief and ceremony, built by this community, for this community. You can find it in the Classroom tab. It's meant to grow with whatever's actually shaping your practice right now, the book that changed how you show up with a family, the podcast episode you've sent to three colleagues, the poem you keep coming back to for readings. A shared shelf of books, podcasts, documentaries, readings, trainings and accounts that have shaped how we think about death, grief and ceremony. Comment your suggestions in the new *Vizzy D Resource Library* post pinned to the top of our community chat and we can together start breathing life into this exciting new global library for us all. 🐦‍⬛ 2) Funerals Reimagined: A Guide For Creating Meaningful Ceremonies🐦‍⬛ $27 AUD / $19 USD / £15 GBP I've been sitting on this for a while and I'm genuinely excited to finally share it with you. *Funerals Reimagined: A Guide to Creating Meaningful Ceremonies* Thirty pages. Seven real ceremonies. The three shifts that turn a funeral from something people sit through into something they help create. A worksheet of prompts to actually put into practice with families. The hard part wasn't the writing. It was the cutting. I could have made this three times longer, but I wanted something you could actually share with a family, or read yourself in one sitting between appointments, not another PDF that sits in a downloads folder unread. My hope is that it helps in a few different ways. Maybe there's a story or a framing in here that gives language to something you already know in your bones but haven't quite found the words for. Maybe it's something you can point a family towards when they're struggling to imagine anything beyond the standard traditional funeral service.