Death Cafe Taos
Engaging with Death and Aliveness
Death Cafe Taos
This Death Cafe is a community gathering space to openly discuss death. The facilitators, John Michael and Mikyö (mee-koh), hold death with a deep, joyful reverence for life. They will set and hold the container for the evening. Everyone will be invited to arrive and ground into the space, introduce themselves, and then a group discussion will be lightly guided. This will be based on the interests of those present.
All grief is welcomed in this space. However, it is not a grief focused support group. We are gathering to discuss and explore all things death with curiosity and loving presence.
Tea and cake will be served while we are grounding together. Copal smoke will be offered. There will be an altar present if you would like to bring any pictures or items that symbolize your current relationship with death.
There will be invitation for brief somatic exercises as we transition between activities. This helps create a sense of connection that supports our bodies to feel safe to share and open up around a possibly uncomfortable topic, death.
This space is limited to 20. Please register below.
Death is not the opposite of Life, but a part of it.
Haruki Murakami
Facilitators
Mikyö Black-Wangmo lives their life in devotion to holding and tending grief medicine as a pathway to freedom and Essence.
As a facilitator, educator, death doula, and somatic practitioner Mikyö brings deeply cultivated presence in service to the empowerment of those they work with. They are a student of the Elements and Natural world, their indigenous mexican and more-than-human Ancestors, of Grief and Death, and of their esoteric teachers and lineages.
Their positionality as a queer, 2 spirit, indigenous PoC, transracial adoptee allows them the privilege to exist and work outside of and beyond the systems of oppression we all live in and are affected by. Mikyö is dedicated to becoming more and more joyfully alive and free in service to love and life, and in supporting others to do the same.
John-Michael is passionate about the art and science of living, and he brings an insatiable curiosity to the human condition and our relationships to each other and to daily life.
As a somatic educator, facilitator and embodiment coach, he guides designs and holds inclusive spaces for developing more intimate connection to self, to community and to spirit allowing for healing and the deepening of trust.
John-Michael is also engaged in producing dance and ritual theater offerings, including 'Death', performed last year at the Wildflower Theater in Taos. Through theater, contact improvisation and ecstatic dance events, he is dedicated to supporting participants in discovering a deeper experience of themselves and the mysteries of life.
In the past several years, John-Michael has opened himself to a path of learning as a death doula and to inviting a closer relationship to the natural completion and finale to the human experience!