Demystifying Death Week 2026
Demystifying Death Week is about shining a light on death, dying and bereavement in Scotland. We are encouraging people to get involved by holding in-person and online events that bring death, dying and bereavement into the limelight.
Demystifying Death Week takes place across Scotland from 4-10 May 2026. If you are organising an event that you’d like us to feature, please get in touch.
Below is a list of events happening across Scotland and online for Demystifying Death Week:
Powers, Puzzles and Prescience: A GLGDGG Escape Room!
Organised by various organisations across Scotland in collaboration with Good Life, Good Death, Good Grief
Going on throughout Demystifying Death Week 2026
Undertaken by teams of 3-5 people, participants are challenged to unravel a super-hero themed mystery by finding clues and solving puzzles. Along the way, teams will encounter family dynamics, future care planning, caring responsibilities and aging in the 21st century.
Since we launched the escape room kit during Demystifying Death Week 2025, dozens of organisations and community groups across Scotland have taken up the challenge and successfully escaped.
For this year’s Demystifying Death Week, over 15 groups across Scotland will be putting their wits to the test. Is your group up to the challenge? It’s not too late to join in!
Find out more, including how to order an escape room pack of your own, here.
May Poetry Workshop
Organised by St Columba’s Hospice Care - Education, Research and Creative Arts Team
Wednesday 20 May 2026, 2-3pm
St Columba’s Hospice, Art and Drama Studio, 15 Boswall Road Edinburgh EH5 3RW
This event is open to the public. Please register in advance.
This poetry workshop is part of Demystifying Death Week and Creativity and Wellbeing Week.
An opportunity to explore themes of mortality, grief and life through poetry. This session offers a supportive space for reflection, expression and creative wellbeing. This workshop will be facilitated by our dramatherapist, Sally McRae.
You are invited to join us in writing, sharing your own poems or simply listening to others. No experience is needed; all are welcome to participate in this guided experience.
This is a free but ticketed event. Light refreshments will be provided.
Find out more and book your place here.
Sacred Remembrance Ceremony: Guided Breathwork & Sound Journey
Organised by Jo Myles Yoga
Sunday, 10 May, 3pm to 5pm
Jo Myles Yoga, 16 Bellfield Street, Portobello EH15
This event is open to the public. Please register in advance.
Jo Myles and Loretta Dunn invite you to a candlelit ceremony of remembrance and healing—honour loved ones, reflect, release, restore.
You are warmly invited to a sacred, candlelit remembrance ceremony—an evening to honour loved ones who have passed, to tend to grief or change, and to reconnect with love, memory, and peace.
In a softly held space with flowers, candles, incense, and grounding music, we will gather in ceremony and be gently guided through a heart-led practice of reflection and release. This is a supportive, non-pressured space where you are welcome exactly as you are.
What we’ll do together
- Sacred opening and intention setting
- Invitation to welcome the spirit and presence of your loved one into the space
- A guided letter-writing ritual (you’ll write a letter to your loved one)
- A channeled/guided message of release and blessing
- Restorative breathwork and a sound bath journey led by Jo
- Closing ritual to ground and integrate
Afterwards, you’re warmly welcome to stay for refreshments and cake, and—if it feels right—to share or connect in community.
Who is this for?
This event is for anyone who would like to:
- honour someone they love
- mark an anniversary, transition, or milestone
- gently process grief, longing, or change
- receive calm, comfort, and community support
Find out more and book your place here.
Demystifying Death Practicalities
Organised by Pushing Up the Daisies
9th May 2026, 2pm-4:30pm
Salisbury Centre, Edinburgh
This event is open to the public. Please register in advance.
This practical workshop will demystify the process our bodies go through after death. We will demonstrate ways to tend to someone’s body at home after their death. We will dispel myths, consider discomforts, and address uncertainties.
We aim for this to be a safe space. Participants are welcome to take breaks at any time but we cannot provide emotional support. With great tenderness, we ask that participants are conscious of what they can reasonably manage in this space, take care of their own emotional needs and lean on their own support systems.
The venue is wheelchair accessible. Let us know anything that would help you to participate in the workshop. We want everyone to have access to this information - if finance is a barrier to you attending, please contact kate@pushingupthedaisies.org.uk
Pushing Up the Daisies is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation SC046808
Find out more and get your ticket here.
It Takes a Village Exhibition
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Organised by Cowal Hospice, NHS Highland
1-8 May 2026
Cowal Community Hospital, Dunoon
This photo exhibition will be displayed in a public area.
There is an old African proverb –‘It takes a village to raise a child – meaning, children need the input and support of their whole community to grow into well-rounded adults. But doesn’t it also ‘take a village’ to support someone who is dying?
The Scottish Partnership for Palliative Care has worked with award-winning Glasgow based photographer, Colin Gray, to produce this powerful and challenging series of portraits and personal stories. It Takes a Village explores the idea that as people’s health deteriorates, care and support comes in many guises.
Photo credit: Colin Gray
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