Death & Dying

Cape Elizabeth Death Café Resources

Davinica facilitates a Death Café on the first Thursday of every month at the Thomas Memorial Library in Cape Elizabeth from 6:30-8:00 pm.

At a Death Café people gather to eat, drink tea, and discuss death. The objective is ‘to increase awareness of death to help people make the most of the (finite) lives.’ A Death Café is a group-directed discussion of death with no agenda, objectives, or themes. It is a discussion group rather than a grief support or counseling session.

Death Cafés are offered on a not-for-profit basis, in an accessible, respectful, and confidential space, and with no intention of leading people to any conclusion, product, or course of action. The Death Café model was developed in 2010 by Jon Underwood and Sue Barsky Reid, based on the ideas of Bernard Crettaz. Learn more at www.deathcafe.com. 

Local Death Doulas & Educators

• Die Well Death Education

• Threshold Doula Collective

Books

• The Art of Dying Well: A Practical Guide to a Good End of Life by Katy Butler

• The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter by Margareta Magnusson

• From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty

• Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty

• The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life’s Final Moments by Hadley Vlahos, RN

• Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

• Grave History: Death, Race, and Gender in Southern Cemeteries (textbook)

• Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune (a fictional book about a literal death cafe!)

Articles & Studies

• Exploring End-of-Life Practices Among Jews of Color: Insights from erica riddick’s Study (Jews of Color Initative)

• Shining the Light of Death on Life: Maranasati Meditation Part 1 (Barre Center for Buddhist Studies)

• Understanding Conservation Burial (Baldwin Hill Conservation Burial)

• Death has a big carbon footprint. Maine’s first conservation cemetery offers an alternative (Maine Public Radio)

• All Equal in Death? Fighting Inequality in the Contemporary Funeral Industry (Study by Luc Audebrand and Marcos Barros)

• The ultimate green burial? Human composting lets you replenish the Earth after death (Maine Public Radio)

Podcasts

• A Path Home (topic: home funerals)

Videos

• Deeply Rooted (topic: conservation burials)

Maine Environmental Cemeteries & End-of-life Planning

• Baldwin Hill Conservation Cemetery, Winthrop

• Cedar Brook Burial Ground, Limington

• Burr Cemetery, Freeport

• Funeral Consumers Alliance

• Midcoast Maine Green Burial

• Conservation Burial Alliance

• Green Burial Council

• Good Ground, Great Beyond (open air cremation)

• Tracker: Where is Human Composting Legal in the US? (Maine passed an unfunded bill in 2024)

• Compassionate Composting (Pets & large animals)

Other

• Cemetery Conservation Class (Millenial Stone Cleaner)

• Storied (A local business that helps you record your oral history and memories)