Making Friends with Death (Online - Closed Group)

The Making Friends with Death (MFWD) reading group is opening for new participants for a limited time. 

The MFWD group provides an opportunity for participants to explore their disposition towards death and the experience of dying and, in the process, to evaluate how to make the most of their life and the experience of living.  Our process is to select a book on death, dying or grief and then meet once a month over the course of a year or so to discuss the book and to share our experiences. Participants in this group take turns facilitating the group. In the past we have read Judy Lief – Making Friends with Death; Rodney Smith – Lessons from the Dying; Francis Weller – The Wild Edge of Sorrow; and Stephen Levine's A Year to Live. 

We usually open to new participants for two months (in this case, August and September 2022) as we start a new book and then close the group until we finish it, in an effort to create an intimate, safe space for people to share experiences.  The book that we will be studying over the coming year is Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death by Joan Halifax. In this book, Roshi Joan Halifax offers inspiring lessons, as well as guided meditations, on how to face death with courage and compassion, helping readers to contemplate death without fear, develop a commitment to helping others, and transform suffering and resistance into courage.

This group is FREE and OPEN to ALL; we ask only that you make a strong commitment to finish the book, should you choose to join the group following the August and September meetings.

We meet on Zoom the first Monday of the month 5:00-6:30pm (ET), with the exception of the September meeting, which will take place on Monday, September 12th.  A Zoom link will be sent out before the meeting to all program registrants.