Tired of talking about politics? Tired of trying to avoid talking about politics? One group of islanders has a suggestion: Talk about death instead. Specifically, your own, and how you would prefer things to go when it’s your time.

Not exactly the option you were looking for? Carol Spangler of Honoring Choices Vashon and her crew of seven volunteers are aiming to change islanders’ minds with a four-day event to kick off the month of March called “A Vashon Conversation for the Living About Dying.”

“I believe that this is the most profound conversation we can have as human beings,” she said of the program’s unusual focus. “How can we live, knowing we are going to die?”

The project, which has been in the works since last summer, will take place March 2 through 5 and will include guest speakers; a concert of songs islanders want to hear at the end of their lives played live by local musicians; a First Friday Art Walk focused on life, love, death, loss and grief; a Death Over Dinner gathering; presentations on different end-of-life rituals both spiritual and not; medical ethics and many other death-related topics of interest.

The seed for the event was planted for Spangler upon hearing an NPR program last year about a similar event in Indianapolis called “Before I Die.”

“I thought it sounded amazing,” the self-professed “death junky” said. “And my husband and I started brainstorming about who we could get involved to help put something like it together here. Before we knew it, we had eight people.”

Spangler, who moved to the island 11 years ago, explained that work related to the end of life has always been important to her, and she has focused much of her time on hospice care and, more recently, Honoring Choices, an organization that educates and helps people in making end-of-life plans, including advance directives.

Included in Spangler’s group of volunteers are islanders Barb Huffman, Susan Pitiger and Berneta Walraven.

“Death seems to be ‘the final frontier,’” Huffman, a longtime psychotherapist, said about the subject. “It’s the last of the ‘taboo’ subjects that needs to be addressed. People will talk to me about their fears and questions, but not their loved ones and friends. What they don’t seem to realize is that when you say things out loud, it holds you in place and you will realize that you are not alone.”

Pitiger agreed.

“As a nation, we are death-phobic,” she said. “As a nurse, I have seen so many families devastated when loved ones die and they honestly do not know what to do … where the will is, or if there even is one. The biggest incentive for this event is to get people to do their advance directives, so that no one is caught by surprise at the end.”

Walraven, has a similar goal.

“I saw a news story about La Crosse, Wisconsin, where very nearly every citizen has an advance directive,” she marveled. “And I thought ‘that could be Vashon.’”

Indeed, of La Crosse’s 50,000 people, 96 percent have a signed advance directive in place, which is far above the national average of about 30 percent.

As to what spurred her to jump in and help with the four-day undertaking, it all came down to working with Spangler and curiosity.

“I was thrilled to be asked,” Walraven said. “End-of-life care in some form or another feels like my path, so I decided to take this particular journey to see what would come of it. It’s also just so curious to me that death is the one thing that every single human on this earth has in common, and yet it’s the one thing we never talk about.”

All aspects of the program are free except for the Death Over Dinner event on Saturday, March 4, which costs $20 per person. Based on the now-popular model created by guest speaker Michael Hebb of the University of Washington, it includes dinner, dessert, wine for toasting and of course death, as the pre-determined topic of conversation, at Burton Lodge.

At the end of the day — or four — Spangler said that it’s really about trying to soften the subject, and help people come around to the conversation, even if they don’t want to.

“One of my favorite quotes of all time is from Ram Dass (an American spiritual teacher and author) who said ‘We’re all just walking each other home.’ Isn’t that what this is all about?” she said.