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)
Recommended viewing by actor/filmmaker Mark Webber: “Where do we go when we die?” It is this simple, but unanswerable question from a precocious three-year old that kicks off an epic journey as the small lad leads his family on an imaginative adventure through fantastic lands filled with mythic creatures.
Elizabeth Bruenig writes for The Atlantic: Halloween is no approximation of the firsthand experience of death. But it does foreground the visceral fear of death (occasionally via viscera itself). And it offers an opportunity to engage playfully with the idea of dying, through community celebration rather than solemn contemplation—or jarring confrontations with violence in headlines … Read more“This Halloween, Let’s Really Think About Death”
Today is the first day of Fall in the Northern Hemisphere, and the seasons are visibly (and in other ways) shifting. From my own perspective, within my own Way, this marks the unofficial beginning of Memoria; a festival of harvest and remembrance before the onset of the winter months. That festival will “officially” begin when … Read moreMemoria 2023
I suspect that, had the technology been available, the Shugenja of ancient Japan might well have devised an experience akin to the drop tower towards training themselves to die with grace. As a rider, you have a choice, in the liminal moments before the drop. The drop itself, of course, is happening whether you want … Read moreDrop Tower Shugendō: a memento mori ritual
Readers interested in my philosophy of Poetic Faith and in the many and varied potentials of “rational, anti-authoritarian, artistic religion” could do worse than to check out Alt-death.com’s new sister site, Cultpunk.art. The site aims to serve as an intersection for Poetic Faiths of all stripes as well as to foster a more popular appreciation … Read moreCultpunk
A close-up of the Ghost puppet from my late father’s Punch and Judy collection. Dad had been a Punch and Judy puppeteer (or “Professor”) as a young teen, touring around various New Zealand venues during the 1950s. He was popular enough that his high school principal was frequently contacted by prospective venues, so the principal … Read more“Look behind you!”