35. Zenith Virago, Deathwalker

At our podcast’s one year anniversary, it is very appropriate we would be blessed to have an interview with a person who has been one of our primary influences on The Death Dialogues Project’s mission. It was Zen’s work that empowered Becky to take a natural approach with her family— something she would have dreamed of doing, but without exposure to Zenith’s work would not have felt as confident on the journey. Zenith lives in Byron Bay, and is the EO and founding member of the NSW Charity, the Natural Death Care Centre. She is the co author of the book The Intimacy of Death and Dying, and subject of the international independent documentary, Zen & the Art of Dying. The inspirational dream of the NDCC is that every individual, community and service provider has the knowledge and capacity to do death well. Zenith has been at the forefront and a leading pioneer of dying well, family led body care, meaningful and appropriate ceremony, and informing and educating communities to reclaim and be empowered before, during and after death. Offering a hybrid of truly traditional ways blended with a more contemporary understanding, encouraging people to take their dying, death, after death care and ceremony back into their own hands and hearts, even in cases of sudden death and trauma. With a legal and community background and work history, she is a seen as a community resource, assisting people to know and reclaim their legal rights, and co-create their own social rites of passage. She has been working towards more holistic cultural change in approaches to better and continual end of life and after death care for well over 25 years. She is known as a Deathwalker, an educator and a celebrant, sharing the subtle and obvious layers involved, offering guidance, support and care to inform, enable and empower people to be as informed, open and courageous as they can, and to experience their dying and their loss in the best way they can. Simply, she accompanies and guides people in their loss. She now works, speaks and teaches both nationally and Internationally, and her work may best be summed up as assisting people to die well, and for those left behind to have a healthier bereavement, as they move into their healing with no or few regrets. Zenith Virago : Deathwalker. Celebrant. Author. Trainer. JP. (+61) 0427 924 310 Transformative Rites of Passage. Weddings & Funerals Conscious & Integrated End of Life & After Death Care Consultations zenithvirago.com Deathwalker Trainings naturaldeathcarecentre.org Co-Author of The Intimacy of Death & Dying naturaldeathcarecentre.org/publications Documentary Films zenandtheartofdying.com tenderdocumentary.com.au