BJ Miller on “What Really Matters at the End of Life”
Palliative care expert Dr. BJ Miller discusses the pragmatic, philosophical, ethical and spiritual approaches to end-of-life practice developed at the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco.
Philosophy
“Every Word of the Sepulchre: How the Seventeenth Century Teaches Us to Die”
Click here to read Ed Simon’s Order of the Good Death essay on how the dawn of the Scientific Age forced thinkers to re-evaluate their notions of mortality: Anxiety has always surrounded death, but in the seventeenth-century there was perhaps a new fear – of Nothingness. These writers deployed Ars Moriendi and Memento mori to approach death in a century … Read more“Every Word of the Sepulchre: How the Seventeenth Century Teaches Us to Die”
“The Adventures of Memento Mori”
The Adventures of Memento Mori is host D.S. Moss’s ongoing podcast exploration of what death means, why that matters and what we can do about it while we’re still alive. With a thoroughly and refreshingly skeptical take on all matters woo, Moss has examined life- and death-affirming topics including spiritualism, creating death plans, diverse concepts … Read more“The Adventures of Memento Mori”
Tino Bacela’s “Story of Death”
The Stoic perspective on life and death from YouTuber Tino Bacela, who “reads a lot of non-fiction and watches a lot of stand-up”.
“Reimagine Life, Loss and Love” – an Online Festival Exploring Death and Celebrating Life (May 1 – July 9, 2020)
For the past two years the non-profit Reimagine organization has been staging annual, city-wide life- and death-affirming festivals in San Francisco and NYC. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Reimagine has canceled the planned NYC festival and pivoted to organizing a two-month long, international online event. Reimagine Life, Loss and Love (May 1 – July … Read more“Reimagine Life, Loss and Love” – an Online Festival Exploring Death and Celebrating Life (May 1 – July 9, 2020)
Make Your Own Memento Mori: Befriending Death with Art, History and the Imagination with Morbid Anatomy Founder Joanna Ebenstein
In July 2020 Joanna Ebenstein will be offering an 8-hour online course in the history, mystery and art of the memento mori: Death is the great mystery of human life. Each of us – barring some medical miracle – will die. Foreknowledge of our own death is a defining characteristic of humanity; the ancient Greeks … Read moreMake Your Own Memento Mori: Befriending Death with Art, History and the Imagination with Morbid Anatomy Founder Joanna Ebenstein
What Should We Think About Death?
A humanist perspective on this age-old question, read by the inestimable Stephen Fry.
Death, Redesigned
This excellent longform article by Jon Mooallem is unfortunately no longer available via the California Sunday Magazine, so I’ve taken the liberty of reproducing the text here. There’s an ugliness — an inelegance — to death that Paul Bennett gradually came to find unacceptable. It seems to offend him the way a clumsy, counterintuitive kitchen tool might, or a … Read moreDeath, Redesigned
“Creating Countercultural Memento Mori”
In collaboration with the good people at Reimagine’s Life, Loss and Love Festival, I will be giving an illustrated Zoom presentation on this theme on the evening of May 6th. Here’s the presentation description: “Remember death and therefore seize the day!” It’s an ancient and profoundly simple philosophy, but how can members of the emerging … Read more“Creating Countercultural Memento Mori”
Ritual Design
Designer Kursat Ozenc has produced a series of articles on the newly-defined creative field of ritual design: Part 1: Introducing Ritual Design: meaning, purpose, and behavior change Part 2: How do you design a ritual? The article series continues on Medium.com and Ozenc’s work is also showcased at the Ritual Design Lab website.