The skeleton puppet handed out around $50 worth of candy in about 45 minutes on Halloween Eve. The younger kids tend to thank the puppet, while most of the older kids conscientiously thank the humble operator; adults think that the puppet is cool, awesome and creative. One assured me that I’d won Halloween. This was … Read moreMemoria 2026 (Part 2)
Layman Pascal and Brendan Graham Dempsey discuss their upcoming thanatocentric Metamodern Spirituality Lab at the Sky Meadow retreat center in northeastern Vermont.
Over the past fifteen years, an unusual form of public mourning practice has been quietly spreading through German cemeteries and woodland spaces: the Trauerweg, literally a “mourning path” or “grief path.” Neither conventional memorial nor psychotherapy, a Trauerweg is a route through a landscape punctuated by stations intended to give physical form to experiences of … Read moreTrauerwege: Germany’s Emerging Paths of Mourning
Petals fell, poetry was spoken and honey tasted in memory of Steve Aydt, a longtime fixture, mover and shaker in the Texan counterculture scene and founder of the Eulessyinian Hot Tub Mystery Religion. I interviewed Steve on that subject in late 2024, and that interview is part of the second volume of the anthology Poetic … Read moreIn Memoriam: Steve Aydt (1963-2026)
Hmmm … The nonprofit in question appears to be https://www.littlewindphoneproject.org and while I see no reason to doubt their sincerity nor competence, I think they’re fundamentally missing the point. Wind phones gain from the DIY model; frictionless is not always better.
Mariam Vahradyan writes for Psyche: Many cultures around the world actively maintain relationships with the dead through storytelling, prayer and ritual. In Japan, for example, the spirits of the dead are welcomed during the Obon festival. For four days each year, families remember their ancestors by tending to graves, lighting small fires, and making offerings. … Read more“Why you should talk to your dead ancestors”
Sally Hayden writes for the Literary Hub: The road wound upwards, past a sloping graveyard and cedar trees. We passed another hamlet of houses, and I started to spot various signs pointing towards the drifting post. Through a final flurry of trees, it at last became visible. There was a rectangular yellow post box—the “real” … Read more“Mail Between Heaven and Earth: On Japan’s Post Office For Letters to the Dead”
‘Let it be like a lullaby that holds you.’ Threshold Choir is an international charity that provides people who are dying with soothing, non-religious songs of peace and comfort, sung by three-person volunteer groups. This short documentary profiles one Threshold Choir chapter in Devon in south-west England.