What is Date with Death Club?
Date with Death Club is a secular exploration of mortality within a safe group space, including philosophical, spiritual, informational, and logistical content with a balance of humor and earnest regard for the topic of mortality.
This course provides a safe[r] and brave[r] space to explore the often-taboo topic of our own death and dying.
Discussions aspire to cultivate the possibility of living a more awake life by facing the reality of end-of-life planning.
If you've participated in Death Café or other groups—this course offers even more thought-provoking discussion.
Let go of fear. Embrace life.
Death has become hidden, making it harder for us to come to terms with the reality of it. It hasn’t always been this way. The modern death-positive movement creates ways for those who want the chance to talk openly about mortality.
In this life, there’s no escaping aging or declining health. It is part of the mortal dance. In our youth-oriented society, one must be intentional to feel good about aging or about health challenges. We’ll use this session to explore what it means to come face to face with the two realities of aging and getting sick, lessening fear by facing it.
What do people mean when they say “a good death?” And how is that connected to having “a good life?” Is it the same for everyone? Are there barriers to a good life? What do these terms mean for you?
Our attitudes toward our own mortality are a dance between resistance (do not go gentle into that good night) and acceptance (no one gets out of here alive). This session will use music and reflection to explore death anxiety and the new science around the use of psilocybin (“magic mushrooms”) to help ease the fear of death in those with terminal diagnoses.
More and more people are using hospice at the end of life and doing so sooner, which can be helpful to them and their loved ones. Yet, most people who want to die at home end up dying in a facility. In this session, we’ll hear from an expert on hospice and explore end-of-life documents like advance directives.
Death as a general concept is one thing; our own death is a whole other thing. In this session, we’ll talk about possible ways to face our own death with intention, exploring the process of holding deathbed vigils, as well as home funerals. We’ll talk about the role of End-of-Life support people and other community supports for reclaiming this aspect of our lives.
After a death, the body must be taken care of— “disposed.” Common means are burial and traditional cremation. But may you want to donate your body to science? Yet there are evolving technologies and new choices to be made. Perhaps you want a green burial? Or you want your body to become compost? We’ll explore what’s out there and what choices you may want to make now to get what you want then.
With love comes loss. With living comes dying. This session explores how grief and disenfranchised grief work and what it means in our own lives. While our focus is grief, and there may be grieving people in the room, this is not a grief support group.
“The Last Time” Marie Howe
“The Promise” Marie Howe
“Late Fragment” Raymond Carver
“Feeding the Worms” Danusha Laméris
“Ending the Estrangement” Ross Gay
“Burial” Ross Gay (video reading by author)
“The Washing of the Body” Nick Flynn
“Sudden” Nick Flynn
"Sky Burial" Nick Flynn
"Kafka" Nick Flynn
"How to Fly (in Ten Thousand Easy Lessons)" Barbara Kingsolver
“For the Anniversary of My Death” W. S. Merwin
“Separation” W. S. Merwin
“When Death Comes” Mary Oliver
“Turtle, Swan” Mark Doty
“Sabbaths 1998, VI” Wendell Berry
“The Wish to Be Generous” Wendell Berry
"The Burial of the Old" Wendell Berry
“Oh Antic God” Lucille Clifton
“Roots” Lucille Clifton
“the lost baby poem” Lucille Clifton
“Facing It” Yusef Komunyakaa
“Death of a Dog” Ted Kooser
“Graveyard Blues” Natasha Trethewey
“Advantage” Nancy Shaffer (video)
“Death” Rabindranath Tagore
“Lament” Louise Glück
“Songs from the House of Death, #7, #8, & #9” (excerpt) Joy Harjo
“I Am Not Ready to Die Yet” Joy Harjo
In a previous career, David Traupman served Keystone Hospice— an at-home and residential hospice in Philadelphia—as a volunteer, chair of their board of directors, and on staff overseeing community education and partnerships, volunteers, development, and a residential facility restoration capital campaign. During his time there, he had the honor of sharing many individuals' end-of-life journeys and educating the wider community about the benefits of comprehensive palliative and hospice care supported by a pioneering team of music and art therapy, spiritual, and bereavement specialists.
David is a Community Coach with The Solo Ager, an eCommunity developed through and sponsored by Treece Financial Group, where he currently also works as Communications & Marketing Director. The Solo Ager expands Treece Financial Group’s mission to holistically address all aspects of financial and well-being and quality of life for those who are aging alone or at risk of aging alone.
No commissions or fees are paid to Treece Financial Group or other referral partners. All services and content are offered for educational purposes with no obligation.