9 MONTHS OF CREATIVE PRACTICE FOR FUNERAL MAKERS People so often ask me what funeral training I recommend. And for a long time, I’ve wished I could point them towards something that explores not just the practicalities of arranging a funeral, but the nuance, the complexity and the extraordinary responsibility of this work. Something that makes room for the creative possibilities. Something that challenges the cookie-cutter approach to funeral ceremony and invites us to imagine what else might be possible… Because no two lives are the same. No two griefs are the same. And how we hold this work should reflect that. A sudden death asks something different of us than a death anticipated for years. A family divided by faith, a complicated relationship, the death of a child or a person who died by suicide all bring their own questions, complexities and possibilities. I wanted to create a place to think deeply about this work, develop our creative judgement and learn from the possibilities others can see that we might not… We so rarely get to practise this work without a bereaved family sitting in front of us. But crafting ceremony is a creative practice and creative practice needs… well… practice. The Ceremony Exchange is my new online creative funeral studio, launching in November with monthly classes starting January 2027. Each month, we’ll explore a different fictional funeral scenario, designed to stretch our thinking and explore a particular nuance of grief, bereavement, family dynamics or the circumstances surrounding a death. Whether you're new to death care and want a place to practice, or you're a seasoned "Deathie" seeking new ideas and inspiration - The Ceremony Exchange is for those who want to go deeper into the creative practice of ceremony making. Exploring how we design bespoke, meaningful experiences that reflect the nuance of death & grief. How different lives, deaths, circumstances and family dynamics call for different approaches. It’s ALSO a place to literally EXCHANGE ceremony scripts & ideas. Together, we’re building a growing library of inspiration, language and imagination. A resource shaped not by one person’s expertise, but by the collective creativity of ceremony makers around the globe. In a world where AI is taking our language, The Ceremony Exchange is a place to return to each other and share in the quiet wisdom of this work.

Just spotted this and thought it useful to share. Great profile raising. https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1bE6JDmZvg/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Darling Vizzy D’s, Gather round friends, quick story time: I’m visiting my uncle and aunt at the moment and whilst taking a work call in the office, I spotted something on their desk. A name plate. My grandfather's. Feels like such a relic now, doesn't it? In these days of agile hot-desking and working from the kitchen table, who has a desk name plate anymore? But it was the line above his name that stopped me. ACCIDENT PREVENTION IS MY RESPONSIBILITY. He worked for Telecom Australia (which later became Telstra - a big telecommunications company). We don't actually know much about what he did there. But that little slogan got me thinking. If this was a thing that existed in our work - what would mine be? If I was sitting at a desk in the 60s with my name on a plate, what would sit above it? And what would yours be? Even if this was a corporate initiative to remind workers of their duties or priorities - what’s our version? I’d love to have asked him more about what it meant to him & how he spent his days… My Papa died in his early 60s, after a cancer that moved fast. I was 11. It was my first funeral. What I remember most about that whole time isn't actually the funeral itself. It's my Grandma. They were school sweethearts. They'd spent their whole lives together. A rare, true, deep love. And even as a kid, I watched the grief unravel her. Raw and up close. After my Papa died, she was still the grandma who showed up for everything. Our dance concerts. Our soccer games. She still hosted the big family Christmas. But she did it all choked with tears. It was clear she was loving us for both of them now. But his absence was unbearable, especially right up against the joy of their grandkids. He was missing all of it. I feel like it drowned her, in a way. She only lived a few more years. The medical certificates say she died from heart failure, but I have a vivid memory of a kind-faced doctor pulling the grandkids aside and explaining that Grandma had died of a broken heart. Whether he meant it in the medical or romantic sense I’m not sure - but it certainly planted a new truth in my young body - grief can kill you.

Hi Vizzy D’s, Writing to you today from Kabi Kabi Country on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland. I’ve been immersed this week in Artlands, Australia’s biggest gathering of regional creative practitioners. It’s part symposium, part think tank, part workshop. A big, beautiful gathering of artists, cultural workers, First Nations knowledge holders, thinkers, policymakers and collaborators asking some pretty big questions about the role of creative practice. And I’ve found myself thinking a LOT about death care. Because what if creativity isn’t just something we bring TO death care? What if creativity is one of the ways we actually change it? Whilst I have an Arts degree and have worn many creative hats over the years, it’s clear to me now that my current creative practice is death. It’s what I pour my heart and imagination into: funeral ceremony, participatory rituals, designing experiences that help people navigate grief, belonging and the enormous liminal space between what was and what comes next. Even the punish of creating social media content - it’s all part of thinking about death care in creative ways. And the more I work in this space, the more I see that we’re not just talking about designing better funerals. We’re talking about systems. A funeral industry built around particular assumptions about who holds the knowledge, who makes the decisions, what a funeral looks like, what a family’s role is, what happens to a body, where grief belongs and how much participation we’re allowed. And systems are notoriously good at reproducing themselves. So if we want something different, we need to be able to imagine something different first. And that’s where creativity comes in. Artists have always been pretty good at asking: What if? What if the family held the ceremony? What if a funeral could happen somewhere other than a chapel? What if children were welcomed into the ritual? What if the coffin was made by the community? What if grief was something we made space for rather than something we tried to move people through?

OMG! I just spent 2 hours creating a carousel post in Instagram. By the end I couldn’t even bear to write multiple captions - I was done! Canva is usually easy but today it was doing my head in. The text editor kept disappearing and I had to keep refreshing it. Anyway - given my pain I would love some love and comments on it!!!! 💕. Please https://www.instagram.com/p/Ddb9aocAKK-/?stkn=MXdmdzJzdGgxbzQweA==