Mihika Agarwal writes for Vox on the rise of AI-assisted grief processing: In the spring of 2023, Sunshine Henle texted her mother. She asked where she had gone, told her that she missed her, and soon received a response: “Honey, I wish I could give you a definite answer, but what I do know is … Read more“The race to optimize grief”
A short animation, voiced by Dr Kathryn Mannix, which guides you gently on a step by step journey through the process of dying.
Jared Morningstar writes for Medium in memoriam of his friend Liam, and on the intrinsic value of life in relation to death: To be is also to experience, and the conscious experience of human life is something of both irreducible individuality and incomparable richness. In merely experiencing life as ourselves — in all its complexity … Read more“What Justifies a Life? In Memory of Liam McCarty”
Dr. Lindsay Ryan writes for The Atlantic: One doctor told us of a landscape architect who drank the fatal cocktail while exulting in her garden in full bloom. It sounded perfect—except that in all my years as a doctor, I’ve never seen a perfect death. Every time, there’s some flaw: physical discomfort, conversations left unfinished, … Read more“How Do I Make Sense of My Mother’s Decision to Die?”
In Richard Adams’ 1972 masterpiece Watership Down, a group of rabbits must leave the doomed Sandleford warren and embark on a perilous journey to find a new home. Along the way they encounter many strange things, including a warren of curiously fatalistic and decadent rabbits, whose philosophy is represented in verse by their poet, Silverweed: … Read moreSilverweed’s poem and the Death Cult of the Shining Wire
Below is a tribute from Michael’s friend Jordan Perry: Michael Dowd lived a life of love in action and he thrived in the thrill of being alive! On Saturday October 7, while in his sleep, he returned to the infinite joy that he had never left. Michael died in New York where he went to … Read moreRemembering Ecotheologian Michael Dowd (November 19, 1958 – October 7, 2023)
Co-founded by Karen Elizabeth Bishop and David Sherman, The Elegy Project: The Project also includes a curriculum of courses on Modern Elegy, Ode and Elegy and Inventing Farewell: A Practicum on Elegy.
In this article for the BBC, Becca Warner explores a variety of ecologically sustainable funeral options: “In the face of death, we seek consolation. And it’s been really interesting seeing how there’s been a conflict, in some cases, between what is sustainable and what people find consoling,” she says. Bags of bone ash and compost … Read more“How to plan a sustainable funeral”
B. David Zarley writes for Freethink on the subject of psychedelic therapies for dying people: “Existential distress” of the kind faced by people at the end of their lives is not a mental health disorder you’ll find in the DSM-V, points out Paul Thielking, a board certified doctor in palliative and hospice medicine and the … Read more“Psychedelics are helping dying patients overcome their existential distress”