Participants at the recent Nightfall event – an annual, nocturnal celebration of art, music and performance at Brooklyn, NYC’s historic Green-Wood Cemetery – were afforded the opportunity to “rehearse” passing through the Veil between life and death. This imaginative and surprisingly meaningful mobile performance piece/installation/ritual was the brainchild of Greedy Peasant, a NYC-based pageant troupe.
An unusually hot and dry Fall has delayed some of the usual seasonal cues, but now it is undeniable; Memoria has arrived once again. We actually began our observances very early by taking part in the annual Sacred Harvest event at Sky Meadow in Vermont. … and we’ve just returned from an anniversary vacation that … Read moreMemoria 2025 (Part 1)
Sophie Brickman writes for The Atlantic on the transformative power of The Muppets as she grieves her father: That changed after my father got sick last year, when my daily life became not just a logistical mire—managing therapy appointments, speaking with doctors—but also one of constant dread: about which Dad I’d find when I walked … Read more“Grief Counseling With Kermit”
If I die young, Without having been able to publish a book, Without having seen how my verses look in print, I ask those who would protest on my account That they not protest. If so it will have happened, then so it should be. Even if my verses are never published, They will have … Read more“If I die young”, by Fernando Pessoa
Stephanie Pouliotte writes for Geek’d-Out! on the origins and various renditions of Ray Bradbury’s classic Halloween story: It’s an important holiday after all, one that allows us to freely explore our obsession with the macabre and the unexplained, to experience “the rawness and nearness and excitement of death” as Bradbury put it. And children, he … Read moreRay Bradbury’s “The Halloween Tree”
Taking place during late August of 2024, the inaugural Sky Meadow Mystery School was a free, week-long, residential immersion into wholesome permaculture practice and the mythopoetic mysteries of Life and Death. As an experiment in countercultural community-building, the Mystery School was also a time and place to learn new skills and perspectives. One of our … Read moreThe Sky Meadow Mystery School, Harvest 2024 in a few words and many images
Part of my morning ritual walk, which is undertaken partly for exercise, partly as a kind of moving meditation practice, is to navigate this stretch of several hundred feet of shoreline adjacent to the local river. Because of its position, slightly downstream of the point where two branches of the river meet, tree trunks washed … Read moreWalking the boulder field
A conversation about this upcoming residential retreat event in Vermont, which will combine permaculture praxis with mythopoetic art, ritual and philosophy on the memento mori ergo carpe diem theme.
Aug 21, 2024, 2:00 PM – Aug 28, 2024, 2:00 PM The Sky Meadow Mystery School is a free, week-long residential immersion into wholesome work and Deep Play in Vermont’s beautiful Northeast Kingdom. Our theme at the 2024 Harvest Mystery School is memento mori ergo carpe diem; “remember death and therefore seize the day.” For … Read moreThe Sky Meadow Mystery School: Harvest 2024
The good people of Cicely, Alaska enjoy their eccentric, Day of the Dead-inflected version of Thanksgiving in this scene from Northern Exposure (1992). As explained by Marilyn Whirlwind (Elaine Miles), the indigenous people of Cicely do not regard the orthodox Thanksgiving as a day of celebration. In fact, they carry a lot of ancestral anger … Read moreThanksgiving/Day of the Dead in Cicely, Alaska (Northern Exposure, 1992)