In the program: From Lifestyle to Deathstyle, Rachael Kohn (ABC RN The Spirit of Things, Sunday 19 July 2009) speaks with a guest who knows the deathstyle subject very well.
Baby Boomers invented ‘the lifestyle choice’ but now they’re choosing a death style, the natural way of death. Zenith Virago, co-author of The Intimacy of Death and Dying, has established the Natural Death Centre in Byron Bay based on an English model, and set up a natural burial ground in Lismore, in northern NSW. Grief can be a debilitating emotion, but voice empowerment coach Ganga (Karen) Ashworth uses voice training to ease the process. More from her later, but first …
Some people are trying to make a difference in the way we cope with our demise and even our deaths and funerals. Zenith Virago is one of those Baby Boomers who decided that if life didn’t need to follow the usual patterns laid out by our commercially driven society, neither did death. She’s been living and working in Byron Bay and is at the forefront of a cultural change that may see us do death and burial differently.
Click on the links to listen and to read. Well worth the minutes in both instances.
Die-alogue Cafe 