Sacred Earth Funerals

13/11/2025

Come to our last Dying Matters Cafe of the year!

24/10/2025

How sad to think we live in a society where someone can die and never be missed. When loneliness is the quiet and relentless pandemic, and where we are often oblivious to the tragedies that occur right next door

She died alone — and for 42 years, the world simply went on without her.
In 1966, Hedviga Golik, a nurse from Zagreb, Croatia, made herself a cup of tea and sat down in her small apartment. No one knows exactly what happened next — only that she never got up again.
Decades passed. The world outside her door changed — new governments, new wars, new generations — but behind that locked door, time stood still.
No one reported her missing. Her neighbors assumed she had moved away. Her electricity bills were quietly covered by the building’s architect, who had set up an automatic payment that continued long after his own death. The lights in Hedviga’s apartment stayed on.
It wasn’t until 2008, during a building renovation, that workers forced the door open — and stepped into a time capsule.
Inside, everything was frozen in the 1960s. A black-and-white television. Mid-century furniture. A cup still resting beside an armchair. And in that chair sat Hedviga’s mummified remains, perfectly preserved by the sealed room and the dry air.
The discovery stunned Croatia — not just for the tragedy of it, but for what it revealed about modern life: how someone could vanish so completely that no one noticed for four decades.
Police identified her through documents and photographs left in the apartment. She had been around 42 years old when she died — a nurse, a friend, a person once part of a community that had simply moved on.
The scene became an eerie monument to isolation — a reminder that in cities full of people, solitude can still swallow a life whole. Journalists described her flat as a “tomb of time,” a perfect preservation of an era, and a haunting reflection on how easily the world forgets.
Hedviga Golik’s story isn’t just about death — it’s about disconnection.
She lived in the middle of a bustling city, surrounded by neighbors, yet vanished in silence.
For 42 years, her apartment remained her grave — and her ghost, a quiet echo of how the modern world can turn solitude into disappearance.
A cup of tea. A closed door.
And a life no one noticed had stopped.

14/10/2025

Welcome back to the warm days of Spring! Our next DMC is this Monday at the library, we would love to see you there 🤗

17/09/2025

The world came to know him as GREEN BOOTS🥾

This is Green Boots, who lay here for over twenty years as a marker for weary climbers pushing towards the summit of Mt Everest. His exact identity remains uncertain. What is certain is that he stopped here forever, in a shallow limestone cave at 8,500 meters, where he could go no further.
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It was only in the last few years that I realised just how many bodies will never be retrieved from the high slopes of Everest. Hundreds of adventurers have died on the mountain, and none will ever be retrieved from ‘The Dead Zone’. Climbers literally have to step over the dead at certain points along the climb, their frozen forms becoming part of the mountain itself. The bodies have now taken on the role of way markers, as solemn reminders of the fragility of life for weary climbers. I think that's confronting.
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Perhaps Green Boots was caught in a blizzard that roared down too suddenly. Perhaps the light faded faster than he could descend, and the cold closed in before help could come. We will never truly know his final hours.
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But for those who pass that alcove, there is no escaping the intimacy of his presence. Green Boots is more than a signpost on Mount Everest’s Northeast ridge route; he is a reminder that saying yes to the mountain means walking close to the veil and side by side with mortality itself.

15/09/2025

Why V.A.D?
I’m a strong advocate for people’s right to access VAD at end of life. When death is no longer avoidable, the choice is about how the end unfolds.
One way might mean days or weeks of decline, marked by pain, fear, and loss. The other allows a gentler close—on your terms, with comfort, dignity, and the chance to say goodbye.
VAD doesn’t remove the reality of death; it restores the meaning in how we meet it. It lets a person align their final moments with their deepest values, turning the end from something that happens to them into something completed by them—gently, lucidly, and with dignity.
But the most powerful reason for having VAD is this: 🌿🌿🌿it is the ultimate safeguard of human dignity when suffering becomes unbearable and death is inevitable. 🌿🌿🌿
No medical treatment, no amount of care, and no love from family can always prevent the brutal reality of some illnesses. - Mimi

13/09/2025

On Monday - Dying Matters Monthly Cafe, a date for your diary. Everyone is welcome 🥰

29/08/2025

As End of Life Doula, I have been a long time companion of the Elderly. I want to share one of the grief’s we don’t often think about, and rarely speak of. It’s an unseen grief and arrives slowly, without ceremony— and just settles into the corners of your days like dust.
It’s THE GRIEF OF GROWING OLD.🌅

You begin to notice the absences. Friends who once filled your life with laughter and shared history are now names etched in memories that flicker at the edges.

The phone rings less. The calendar shows more empty days than full ones. You start to count your connections not by who'll call next, but by who no longer can, or will.

Your body, once reliable, begins to resist. Tasks that were second nature— lifting groceries, climbing stairs, remembering names— become harder. So you adapt, simplify and make do. But there’s a quiet ache in watching your own abilities slip away, one unnoticed moment at a time.

And the hardest part is that it’s so difficult to talk about. People don’t always know how to respond. You don’t want to sound bitter. So you smile. You say you’re fine. But inside, there’s a loneliness that’s hard to name.

I remember doula companioning an older gentleman recently. He had once been a builder— strong, capable, always moving. But in those last years, he sat mostly quietly with his hands folded, eyes distant.

One afternoon, he said quietly: "I used to be someone people needed."

That sentence stayed with me. It wasn’t about ego. It was about purpose and belonging and being woven into the fabric of others’ lives.

This grief is real. It deserves to be named and held and honoured.
If you’re feeling this way, know that you’re not alone.
Reach out—to a doula, your children, a neighbour, a community group, a counsellor. Connection doesn’t have to vanish with age. It just takes more intention.

And if you’re younger, take a moment to check in with someone older. Ask them how they’re really doing. Listen to their story, maybe share a meal. These small gestures can mean more than you know.

Growing older isn’t a failure, just a transition. And like all transitions, it deserves space, compassion, and conversation.
Even in the quiet, you are seen.🍃🌸

19/07/2025

Just to keep winter interesting, Dying Matters Cafe this month will be held at the Alstonville library!

Everyone is welcome, always. If you want to share or just be here, come. We love our community.

14/06/2025

Dying Matters CAFE changes!!

To all our regular DM Cafe goers, and to anyone that's ever considered popping in - we WELCOME YOU all to a new venue in Goonellabah, and a new monthly calendar date..

We have our public library supporting the Dying Matters Cafe now, and we are so grateful!

The date change is this Monday, at 10am and will be the 3rd Monday of each month at the Library from now on.

We hope to see you soon 💜

30/04/2025

Every person will face personal life problems at some point, because life is unpredictable. That's why we run the Dying Matters Cafe monthly. The cafe is a back up to life, relationship and loss. As humans we are constantly under the stress of change, nothing ever stays the same here. But we are here, in this together, and everything will be ok in the end. 🍃🍂🍁

19/04/2025

🐢THE LEGACY OF OUR ANCESTORS, IS US – and for now we get to live.

🥚🥚🥚🥚Another Easter season is upon us, and despite it’s meaning or it’s chocolate sweetness, it’s at these holidays and anniversaries that the familiar ache of missing someone much loved, is magnified.

The energy of our dead still surround us in all we do but we miss them even harder right now.
Time rolls on, year follows year, but the space they took up in life remains empty.
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ALL OF OUR DEAD HAVE TAKEN THEIR PLACE AMONG THE ANCESTORS
The breathtaking truth is - that we exist only because we’ve been carried here by our ancestors.

So as we indulge in eggs, dinners and picnics with family, may we all remember those that have gone before, those whose blood runs in our veins, because those are the people who paved the way for our lives to be lived in a world where our survival is now much easier than their own 🌏

We remember you 🩵
We light a candle for you this easter, and share a traditional family recipe,
IN THANKS ETERNAL 🌹

29/03/2025

SO MANY STORIES NEED TO BE TOLD 🌿🌺

Dying Matters Café April is on again Monday 7th APRIL at 10.30am – La Baracca Café, Lismore.

🌿This month we have Janelle McInerney leading us through the art of capturing stories of your life that need to be told, or remembered.

🌿Janelle offers this as a writing service to the public, but on Monday 7th she will be showing you how you can do this too, in your own style and your own voice.

Come along to the DMC (Dying Matters Café) for some inspiration to get yourself started, ask questions and open conversation about some of your own dearest and most profound life experiences. Will be fun! 🫶