Darling Vizzy D's - hello, Amy here again - another week - whoosh! Three things for your Friday 👇 🐦‍⬛1 . Y’all know this Vizzy D Community is WAY more than a weekly email, right? Because if you’ve been dutifully watching these weekly emails trickle into your inbox but haven’t actually JUMPED INTO THE COMMUNITY… Come on over. The water is fine... Our virtual home on Skool is where all the good stuff is happening between the emails. There’s a whole chat thread full of gorgeous questions and conversations about things like: ✨ imposter syndrome ✨ how to create a meaningful ‘committal moment’ when there’s no coffin ✨ the slow trend towards direct cremation and what we’re noticing from our different corners of the world ✨ how we actually talk about death work online ✨ the stuff that comes up when you’re trying to build a visible, ethical practice There’s also a growing resource library, plus free classes including *How To Start A Death Café*. And perhaps most importantly, there are actual Deathie humans in there. People doing this work. Asking questions. Sharing what they’re learning. Saying, “Oh thank GOD, it’s not just me.” So if you’ve been lurking from the sidelines… Come and have a poke around: https://www.skool.com/visible-deathworker You don't need to have anything clever to contribute. You can just read. You can ask. You can share. You can say hello. But don’t miss the whole honking' community because you thought this Vizzy D thing was just a Friday email. 😉 🐦‍⬛ 2. HOLDING FAMILIES THROUGH ASSISTED DYING | Recording Now Available We held our "Holding Families Through Assisted Dying* webinar this week and… well, it was gorgeous. Tender. Honest. Nourishing. Thoughtful. The kind of conversation that reminds me exactly why I wanted to create this community in the first place. Because there is SO much knowledge sitting inside this community.

Darling Vizzy D's: Writing to you whilst utterly face planting into the weekend... You too?? But here I am, and here you are. Because if nothing else, we keep showing up for each other. Even if it's just a brief fleeting inbox exchange or a cyber hug, I'm here, and so are you. *HUG* I actually have a jumble of things I wanted to offer this week and couldn't choose, so here's three quick tidbits: 🐦‍⬛ Dementia Friendly Funerals I held a memorial today for a gentleman who filled his 89 years with all sorts of adventures. Until his sudden death a few weeks ago, he was the full time carer to his beloved wife of 63 years, who has dementia. It's the ultimate devastating scenario. She isn't retaining that he has died and keeps searching for him, but also has fleeting moments of acknowledging his death, then forgets, then remembers again. The whole family were devoted to creating a ceremony that best served her today, because they knew that's what their dad would have cared about most. It's such a tender, complex and delicate balance to get right. Lucky for me, my dear colleague from the UK, @Rosalie Kuyvenhoven, passionately shares her expertise in this area and has an online class specialising in Dementia Friendly Funerals. I revisited her masterclass to bolster my preparation and it was wonderful, generous and helpful. Details: https://ritualstoday.co.uk/product/online-training-dementia-friendly-funerals/ I wholeheartedly recommend Rosalie's training, and I want to ask you all: what hidden gems or areas of expertise do we have in this community that we could be learning from each other? and/or: what area of this work could YOU be teaching/sharing? 🐦‍⬛ Facebook aka My Abandoned Digital Houseplant Guys, are y'all on Facebook? I'll be honest, I loathe it. I create mostly for Insta and share the same content across Facebook and TikTok. I treat my Facebook page like an abandoned houseplant I've forgotten to water. Next minute, it's officially my biggest platform by followers.

Darling Vizzy D's: let's start with a group hug cos my gosh this week has felt like a year. Some seismic departures from our planet this week - a lot of aching hearts. Dolly is on high rotation in our house and if ever there was a weekend to dust off Steel Magnolias & Rocky Horror Picture Show. 🍿🍿🍿 A few things to share this week, then a prompt that's been sitting with me for a while. 🐦‍⬛ *WEBINAR: HOLDING FAMILIES THROUGH ASSISTED DYING: A reflection space for death care workers.* This virtual gathering is happening in a couple of weeks and the uptake has been huge, so much so I've had to cap numbers at 60 and there's already a waitlist. Seems like this is a conversation we're all hungry for. My intention is to record it and make it available here as a resource, so if you missed out on a spot don't worry, it'll come back around. Details are here and the call itself is on the calendar. Zoom details will be sent out to those registered soon. 🐦‍⬛ The Vizzy D Resource Library keeps growing, I try to add a few bits each week, but don't forget you can suggest your own too. If something's shaped your practice and it's not in there yet, comment to add it in. 🐦‍⬛ Any Vizzy D's near Sydney/Blue Mountains, our Coffin Weaving Weekend is coming up on 19/20 September. A beautiful, hands on, immersive gathering, and you'd be so welcome. Details here. 🐦‍⬛ Now, this weeks prompt: "THIS WORK!" I have a little WhatsApp thread with two dear colleagues where we debrief and defrag this work. Most of the time it's a simple image from a ceremony with two words underneath it: 'THIS WORK!' A plain proclamation of awe, desolation, wonder, heartbreak and reverence, all at once. Choosing to work IN death care means choosing to be worked BY death care. This work works us. It can't not.

Hi everyone I’ve been booked to take my first memorial. The person requested a direct cremation and now the family are planning to celebrate his life next month. While I have created and led many funeral ceremonies I have yet to lead a memorial. I feel comfortable with the overall process but am wondering how you end the service. I often use a blessing before the farewell / committal - would this be a fitting end? Any other suggestions? Thanks in advance Beth

Oh hi you, and welcome to week EIGHTEEN of these Vizzy D Prompts - this week it's short & simple ideas for your next blog / socials post / community talk ideas... 🐦‍⬛ Every week someone in this community tells me they don't know what to write about. And every week I want to say: you're not short on ideas, you're short on permission to answer the questions people are already asking you. As death workers we get asked things constantly. In waiting rooms. At dinner parties when someone finds out what you do. In hushed voices after the third glass of wine. And guess what? If you keep a note of these questions: they can become your content calendar. They're PROOF of what people are actually curious about, not what you think you should be writing about... So this week's prompt is simple. Pick one question from below (or one from your own inbox, your own kitchen table conversations) and write the blog post you'd want a stranger to find at 2am when they can't sleep and can't stop thinking about it. Write it from your voice. Your perspective. Your experience. Questions to work from: - What actually happens to a body in the first 24 hours after death? - Do I have to use a funeral home, or can my family do this ourselves? - How do I talk to my kids about death without lying to them? - What happens if I can't afford a funeral? - Is it normal to feel relief when someone dies? - What should I do with my grief when there's no ceremony to hold it? - Can I see the body? Should I? - What are my options besides burial and cremation? - How soon after a death do I actually need to decide anything? - What do I do with someone's belongings when I can't bear to touch them yet? - Is it too late to plan the funeral I actually want for myself? The prompt: Write the answer you wish someone had given you, or given a client, the first time this question landed in the room. Not the polished professional version. The honest one. If you publish something from these ideas, please drop it in the thread so we can all enjoy it.